GO on, admit it. The highlight of Tuesday night’s Brits ceremony was Anne-Marie’s pratfall.
Don’t worry, that’s no reflection on you or her.
Annie-Marie seemed like one of the more likeable performers and if you had the choice, you’d have probably much rather seen Little Simz’s mate in the satellite dish hat, or Idris Elba, who was wearing sunglasses indoors, take the drop.
It was still funny though.
One minute Anne-Marie was being helped out of a fluorescent space pod by two of Ken Dodd’s Diddymen, who I’m assuming were a couple of the Digital Farm Animals.
The next, she’d lost her footing and nearly bitten the microphone in half.
“Got my stuff. I’m out the duuuuuuuurgh . . . ”
Just like Madonna in 2015, it was the perfect and necessary antidote to the overwhelming pomposity and self-regard of The Brits, or as I like to think of them, The Sadlies.
As in, “Sadly, Dua Lipa can’t be here tonight,”
“Sadly, Billie Eilish can’t make it tonight,” and, sadly, it looks like Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak can’t be ar*ed either.
Hand grenade It’s debatable whether the four of them, or anyone else for that matter, could have rescued the night, though, because it was clear the 2022 ceremony was going to be a long old haul from the moment ITV2 hit the red carpet with Maya Jama, who told every single arrival a variation of the same thing.
“You’ve smashed it.”
She was still smashing away an hour later when coverage switched to the main ITV channel where Maya was joined by main host Mo Gilligan, who seemed to be a little over-excited and under the impression hosting The Brits was an honour.
It’s not. It’s a hand grenade that’s only ever been successfully defused by Ben Elton and Jack Whitehall, and can seriously injure a career if it’s done really badly.
Mo Gilligan is probably fairly safe in that respect, but he did not smash it on Tuesday night, or even come close.
A lot of his material was barely comprehensible, in fact, and none of it was funny enough to distract from the performances and awards, most of which made it perfectly clear that viewers like me were unwelcome intruders.
There is a perfectly sound argument to say, of course, that anyone who spends the whole night demanding to know “Who the are ATB x Topic x A7S?” probably has no business watching The Brits in the first place.
Age and reason, however, isn’t going to stop me saying I really enjoyed Sam Fender, I thought Adele came closest to holding a tune and reckoned Mo Gilligan’s impression of the 1995 version of Liam Gallagher was slightly less mortifying than Liam Gallagher’s impression of the 1995 Liam Gallagher.
Nor will it shake my belief that the key moment of the night came when, to general murmurs of agreement, Mo Gilligan gently reprimanded Boris Johnson for his partying. ’Cos that’s the back-to-front world we live in right now.
Britain’s rock ’n’ roll stars quite rightly think the Prime Minister is a shag-happy old p***pot who couldn’t be trusted with the maracas in a Happy Mondays tribute band.
But if you give them a microphone and an audience, they will pontificate all night about class, health, education, social mobility and their own very real struggles.
They are as painfully woke and self-important as the organisers who’ve seen political correctness kill British TV comedy, yet have started to visit the same destruction on The Brits by going gender neutral with the categories.
It’s an irreversible and never-ending process and the people trapped in the middle, as always, are the poor viewers who have nothing on their side here except the glorious gift of live TV and slapstick.
So thank you, Anne-Marie. You smashed it.
OUT of the sheer goodness of my heart and a love of journalism, I was lulled into watching a Channel 4 documentary called Boobs on Monday night.
A precious hour of life wasted in the company of director/host Elizabeth Sankey who, through watching movies like Showgirls and Fast Times At Ridgemont High, has come to the conclusion women have “lost ownership of their breasts to the dictatorship of the male gaze”.
A bit like my seven-year-old self believed international crime rings could be foiled by a Volkswagen Beetle, after watching Herbie Rides Again.
The simple solution to Elizabeth’s problem, of course, would be to stop watching s**t films.
TV, though, runs on woke fury, so instead she sought confirmation of her bias from Love Island’s Megan Barton-Hanson and lots of posh women from the Home Counties, who were alive to every prejudice except their own very obvious loathing of working-class men who were dismissed as (holds nose) “builders” and (turns away in genuine disgust) “a spotty little security guard”.
All right-on opinions must now, of course, also be accompanied by an empty gesture, which led Elizabeth to London’s Waldorf Hotel, where an artist called Sophie Tea had somehow talked 50 women into stripping naked and painting their boobs every shade of the Dulux colour chart, until they looked like the 2001 kit launch at Castleford Tigers.
A real Emperor’s New Clothes project that left even the obligingly gullible Elizabeth groping for an answer.
“The women are so empowered and excited,” she assured Sophie.
“You’ve hit on something, but I don’t know what it is. What do you think it is?”
Ironically, Elizabeth, I think it’s a load of b***ks.
CELEBRITY Weakest Link, Romesh Ranganathan: “In the UK, in 1964, a signpost was installed at John O’ Groats stating it was 874 miles to which Cornish headland?”
Melvin Odoom: “Wales.”
Romesh: “In maths, what is 29 minus 26?” Melvin Odoom: “Four.”
The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “Which Scotsman wrote the novel The Master Of Ballantrae?”
Peter: “Walter Smith.”
(All contributions gratefully received)
WORST-EVER Countdown host Anne Robinson trampling all over Tim Vine’s Dictionary Corner jokes.
Sheridan Smith dramas blurring into one long tale of a woman wronged.
Celebs Go Dating toxin Ryan-Mark Parsons joining that rare band of Z-listers who are simply too unpleasant for reality television.
Nadine Dorries, of all people, leading the Jimmy Carr lynch mob.
And “comedian” John Bishop failing to provide the screamingly obvious put-down when chat show face-ache Courteney Cox started droning on about her royal ancestry: “My great great great great great great grandfather was King Edward.”
Truly, one of our finest potatoes.
ATTEMPTING to cast the community in a better light than its very brave 2020 Dispatches documentary The Truth About Traveller Crime, Channel 4 has sent Ed Stafford to spend 60 Days With The Gypsies.
In episode one, someone tried to break into his caravan, then climbed on to the roof of his car and shat on the windscreen.
In episode two, Ed will try to explain this was all the fault of the Government.
No, seriously, he will . . .
BOOBS, elderly posh woman: “I can’t understand why a man should encourage his wife to have an enlarged bosom. What’s he expecting? Is he going to get pleasure from caressing something that’s nothing but a balloon?”
To clarify: Yes.
PAUL MERSON: “Sometimes it’s better to get a draw than not get a win.”
Chris Sutton: “The decision was wrong and certainly not right.”
Paul Merson: “It was never going to work and if it did, the fans would never have it.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week. Boobs: The History Of Breasts, thrice-enhanced Megan Barton- Hanson: “Being a nice person is much more important to me than whether you’ve got symmetrical t*ts.”
Celebs Go Dating, Miles Nazaire: “I am not selfish and self-obsessed.”
Celebrity Hunted, Chloe Veitch’s mum Michaela: “You’d be very surprised at my daughter and where she’d sleep.”
Bet I wouldn’t.
SAM FENDER livening up The Brits.
Ben Whishaw’s fine performance masking the “comedy or drama?” identity crisis at the heart of BBC1’s This Is Going To Hurt.
Joan Collins appearing to get Empire Of The Ants flashbacks on The Masked Singer.
One of Scotland’s Calcutta Cup heroes, Zander Fagerson, telling BBC2’s Sunday rugby highlights show: “A few of the boys definitely ripped the ar*e out of it last night.”
And Ayleen Charlotte taking satisfying revenge on The Tinder Swindler (Netflix), which is the best show anywhere on your TV, at the moment, by the usual mile.
ON Sunday night’s Celebrity Hunted, Made In Chelsea’s Ollie Locke-Locke and his husband Gareth were apprehended in the Cotswolds, just before they entered The Hollow Bottom.
There’ll be other occasions, though, I’m sure.
THIS week’s winner is Denise Welch and Esmeralda Poofenplotz from the Phineas And Ferb cartoon.
Emailed in by Reenie E.
Picture research: Amy Reading
