Well, that’s about it from the Undead Bafta Blog, coming not quite live from the Royal Opera House where the awards ceremony wrapped up about two hours ago. By this point, we’re guessing, the winners are in their cups and the losers are at the airport and the cleaning staff are searching celebrity memorabilia in the aisles of the auditoreum.

It was a great night for Gravity and 12 Years a Slave, which now move towards Oscar with a full head of steam. We’re back two Sundays from now to liveblog the Academy Awards, live and as they happen. But for the meantime, thanks for sticking with us. This insubstantial pageant has faded. Roll the credits and please pass the remote. We are now officially done and dusted.

Helen Mirren wafts on to the stage like a breath of fresh air. She’s the perfect emollient at the end of a hectic event, a vision of elegance and refinement who strikes just the right. She thanks her late teacher, “Mrs Welding” who first introduced her to art and literature, and encourages everyone in the audience to applaud their favourite teachers too. She rounds off her speech by quoting from The Tempest - and she delivers the lines beautifully. “My little life is rounded with this Bafta,” she says.

Make way, make way for Jeremy Irons. He is accompanied to the stage by his young friend, the Duke of Cambridge. They are not here to ask the guests to make sure they have collected all their possessions on their way out of the auditoreum. Nor are they here to bestow a knighthood on Stephen Fry, who is loitering at the side of the stage, seemingly more in hope than expectation. Instead they come to give a Bafta fellowship to Helen Mirren and to usher us, gracefully, through a whistle-stop clip-reel of her glittering life and times.

Time, at last, for the best picture Bafta.

One last look at the best film nominees …

12 Years a Slave.

Gravity.

American Hustle.

Philomena.

Captain Phillips.

In recent weeks the awards chances of Woody Allen’s acclaimed Blue Jasmine have been hit hard by the cacophonous noises-off of the accusations directed at its creator. But desp ite, as she says, being sat far back in “row-G”, Cate Blanchett sails through the storms to collect the best actor Bafta for her turn as a trophy wife fallen on hard times. She sparks instant, heartfelt applause for dedicating her award to the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. ”Phil, you bastard, this is for you,” she says. “I hope you’re proud.”

So Blanchett takes best actress. Now only one question remains: can she repeat the feat on Oscar night?

• Full story: Blanchett wins

If he hadn’t the roof would have caved in and the sky would rain fire. Chiwetel Ejiofor was always the heavy favourite to take this prize for his brilliantly restrained and foreful turn as imprisoned Solomon Northup, but the announcement still prompts a mass standing ovation. “Wow, wow, wow,” says Ejiofor who then insists that this prize rightfully belongs to his director, Steve McQueen.

“I’m going to keep it,” he adds. “But it is still yours. You know that.“ Ejiofor goes on to thank his mother, “who is here” and his late father, who is not. “I love you,” he tells them both. It is probably the night’s most purely moving speech, topping one of the night’s most richly deserved decisions.

• Full story: Ejiofor wins

The Bafta clip-reel waves goodbye to the recently departed. Look, there goes Shirley Temple and Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joan Fontaine and Saul Zaentz, Harry Harryhausen and Paul Walker, Peter O’Toole and Ruth Prawer Jhablava and so many more.

But wait: bear in mind that this very Bafta ceremony is itself already in the past. It actually wrapped up about 90-minutes ago. All of the guests we are currently watching are now probably drinking themselves sick at the post-Bafta dinner. But some of them, conceivably, are dead. It is certainly not impossible. And this knowledge, for some reason, makes this Bafta elegy feel all the more poignant.

And with that we’re in to another glittering homage. This one is to Gravity, a nominee for the best film Bafta and the awards frontrunner so far.

Enough with the judges and out with the insiders. The EE Rising Star award is voting by the great British public - by you, and me, and my drunk great aunt, and the guy who always sits on the top deck of the 19 bus, shouting about the government. It transpires that we really, really like 20-year-old Will Poulter, who played the sweet, virginal kid in the Hollywood comedy Meet the Millers.

“I almost cried watching the other people come up to collect their awards,” admits Poulter, who goes on to confess that he always cries when he watches the Pixar cartoon Finding Nemo. He goes on to pay breathless homage to his fellow rising star nominees, before waving exhaustedly to the aisles and staggering out to the wings.

It’s the abridged version, with everything all crammed together, tripping over itself. It’s 90 Seconds a Slave, directed at a terrific clip by Steve McQueen.

And the Bafta for best original writing goes to Eric Warren Singer and David O Russell for American Hustle. I confess that I would rather seen this one fall to Inside Llewyn Davis, or possibly Nebraska, but the judges plump for Singer and Russell’s undeniably entertaining shaggy-dog story.

Singer starts his speech with an intriguing confession. “I was breastfed for years,” he tells the audience. “On British cinema.”

Full story: Hustle takes original screenplay, Philomena original

Steve Coogan and Judi Dench drive through the Irish and American countryside, bickering and bonding as they go. If Steve Coogan ever needs a Rob Brydon replacement for a third series of The Trip, he now knows who to ask.

Up comes the wolfman, Leonardo DiCaprio. And he is brandishing an envelope.

And the nominees are …

Jennifer Lawrence as the Picasso of passive-aggression in American Hustle.

Sally Hawkins as the harried sister in Blue Jasmine.

Julia Roberts playing prodigal daughter in August: Osage County.

Lupita Nyong’o as the anguished Patsy in 12 Years a Slave.

Oprah Winfrey as The Butler’s wife.

The darting camera, the mounting tension. Captain Phillips looks good. I’d quite like to see Paul Greengrass and Barry Ackroyd direct these Baftas.

Bafta takes a break from the ceremony to run what looks like the electronic press kit for David O Russell’s American Hustle. The actors line up to tell us that American Hustle is great. I’m not sure this is going to cut any ice with the judges, who have presumably all voted by now. American Hustle, for the record, is pretty great. But I don’t think it’s going to win the best film Bafta. And no, that’s not a spoiler.

Out host this year, as it seems to be all years, is Mr Stephen Fry, who is as rich as molasses and as smooth as satin. He confesses that he enjoyed 12 Years a Slave so much that he wished it had been called 24 Years a Slave and cajoles a pained but game Leonardo DiCaprio into blowing a kiss to the camera. He then pays tribute to Emma Thompson for “representing the over-70s” and ruefully misidentifies Prince William as Helen Mirren’s grandson. This has, he says, been “an absolute belter of a year in film”, which sounds about right and is a nice note to end his monologue.

And with that the introductions are complete. Tiny Tempah and Laura Mvula come swinging through the audience to provide what is (I’m guessing) the first song of what may well be many. Possibly too many.

And here’s the unexpected moment where Tinie Tempah high-fived Prince William.

Did we promise there would be no spoilers on this blog? Sad to say we cannot legislate for below the line posters. If you absolutely-positively do not want to know who has (yes, already) won tonight’s Baftas, please tread carefully when you venture south of the border. Avert your eyes, folks. Nothing to see down there.

Out to the sidelines, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are signing autographs, dressed for the occasion in matching his-and-her tuxedoes.

Under the floodlights, Bowman buttonholes Leonardo DiCaprio who insists that he wants to make more films like The Wolf of Wall Street and lobbied hard to secure the role of wild-eyed Jordan Belfort. Thank goodness director Martin Scorsese never heard Oprah Winfrey’s impromtu tour-de-force as a foghorning English drunk. He may well have opted to go with her instead.

Seconds later it’s the turn of Tom Hanks, who is now talking to Bowman about the “two sides of the opportunity coin”, whatever that may be. Hanks has two films in the frame tonight: the excellent piracy drama Captain Phillips and the rather less excellent Disney biopic Saving Mr Banks. Bowman tells Hanks that she loves him, which would normally count as an invitation to further dioscourse. On awards night, it turns out, it is Hanks cue to leave. He thanks her for kindness and beats a hasty dash towards the door.

This, we feel, is the USP of the Undead Bafta Blog. Those suited and gowned dignitaries at the Royal Opera House already know who has won the Bafta for best costume design and the prize for outstanding Briotish debut. But we shall be watching the awards as they were always meant to be watched. Off the telly, on a two-hour tape delay. The one thing we can guarantee is that there will be no spoilers, assuming Stephen Fry doesn’t come storming in to the Guardian office to grab the keyboard and start typing out the winners. He’s never done this before, so there is no reason to believe that he will do so tonight. No spoilers.