Idris Elba and Dame Maggie Smith triumph at film awards

However the actor quipped “welcome to diverse TV” at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, whose nominees included a number of stars of colour, as he collected awards for his roles in the gritty war film and BBC drama Luther.

Idris Elba was named best actor for Beasts of No Nation, while Dame Maggie Smith was named best actress for The Lady in the Van.

“Brooklyn” was named Best Film, and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” won the Glass Award for Blockbuster of the Year, and Anthony Daniels – who plays C3PO – accepted the honor, apolozising for not wearing his robotic suit.

She said: “She was a amusing old thing but that’s how we get to be”.

In what host Simon Amstell described in his opening monologue as “another great year for white men”, the best actor award was won by Idris Elba for his role as a ruthless rebel fighter who presides over a troop of child soldiers in Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation.

It is the fourth time she has picked up the honour, 37 years since she last won it with California Suite.

The film, written by Alan Bennett, is a tragi-comic portrayal of an eccentric homeless woman whom Bennett befriended in the 1970s before allowing her to park her van in the drive of his London home. “He always predicted I would end up looking like my mother after a lifetime of Guinness, fish suppers and untipped Players”.

Brooklyn joins Room, directed by Irish director Lenny Abrahamson, is nominated for four Oscars including Best Film.

Marital strife drama 45 Years had been nominated for three Evening Standard awards.

Coleman and co-star Colin Farrell go head-to-head in the comedy category with Emma Thompson for her performance in The Legend Of Barney Thomson and the team behind Shakespeare film Bill – Richard Bracewell, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond.

He said: “This is probably the first and last time I will win an award”.