Martin Freeman and Derry Girls win top prizes at International Emmy Awards

Martin Freeman has won an International Emmy Award for his performance in BBC series The Responder, while the final season of Derry Girls was joint winner of best comedy programme.

Sherlock and The Hobbit star Freeman, 52, won best performance by an actor at the 51st International Emmy Awards ceremony in New York which was hosted by New Zealand actor Rhys Darby.

The Liverpool-set thriller follows Freeman’s character Chris across six night shifts as an urgent response police officer. It has been praised for its gritty style and narrative.

The third and final series of Derry Girls won the International Emmy for comedy alongside Netflix special Vir Das: Landing which first aired in 2022.

Derry Girls, created and written by Lisa McGee on Channel 4, follows a group of teenagers growing up in Northern Ireland in the 1990s before the Good Friday Agreement.

Other British productions honoured included The Smeds And The Smoos, which won the award for best animation for children.

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s story, which first aired on the BBC last December, shows two young protagonists, Janet and Bill, who fall in love and run away together, forcing their red and blue families to put aside their differences to search for them.

The International Emmy for best documentary went to BBC film Mariupol: The People’s Story about the war-torn Ukrainian city.