Emmys give BBC its smile back as Brits beat the world

British productions picked up seven of the nine top competitive honours at the 35th annual awards, including best actor, best comedy and best drama. The BBC - rocked of late by the TV fakery row - was responsible for six of the seven winners.

Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent was named best actor for his performance in the BBC's The Street, which was also named best drama series at the ceremony at the Hilton New York hotel.

Broadbent, who played an embittered pensioner in The Street, which followed the lives of residents of one street, shared the best actor honour with Dutch actor Pierre Bokma.

Stephen Fry's The Secret Life Of A Manic Depressive - in which he talked about his own and other people's experiences of living with bipolar disorder - scooped best documentary, while the BBC's Little Britain Abroad was named best comedy.

Simon Schama's Power of Art: Bernini, the BBC/WNET Thirteen's work about the baroque sculptor, was named best arts programming while the BBC's How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria scooped best non-scripted entertainment series.

Death Of A President, by Borough Films for More 4, won best TV movie/mini-series. Directed by Gabriel Range, it centres on the fictional assassination of George Bush.

After picking up his award, Fry said: "It's a lucky evening for us. We're lucky to have this institution, the BBC, and that's helped generations of people (in television)."

Only one British nominee failed to win the award they were up for. Actress Victoria Wood was nominated for her role in the drama Housewife, 49, based on the real Second World War diary of a Lancashire housewife, but the award went to France's Muriel Robin for Marie Besnard - The Poisoner, in which she played a real-life serial killer.

The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is the largest organisation of global broadcasters with more than 500 members from nearly 70 countries. British TV productions had the most nominations with eight, followed by Brazil with seven, Japan with four, South Africa with three and Germany, Denmark, China and the Netherlands with two nominations each. Colombia received its first nomination.

Oscar and Nobel prize-winner Al Gore added to his tally of honours for his efforts to sound the alarm over global warming - but seemed to have suffered an inconvenient shaving mishap.

The former US vice president, sporting a sticking plaster on his chin, received the Founders Award for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth and for his cable channel Current TV.

Accepting his award from actor Robert De Niro, he said TV "had the greatest potential for educating and informing of any medium in the history".