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Baftas

A Bafta award
  • Posted at 4:31pm
  • 14 February 2008
  • by AlisonGraham-RT

Well, I made it through to the end, but it was a close-run thing. When the British Academy Film Awards (Sunday 10 February, 9:00pm/10:20pm, BBC1) had a little rest for the Ten o’Clock News I’d seriously considered deep-frying my eyeballs. It couldn’t be any worse than sitting through the concluding half of such a turgid ceremony, surely?

I laugh every year at the Baftas. Not at them as they are actually being broadcast, but at all the hoopla beforehand, all of the guff about how they are “forerunners to the Oscars” (yeah, right, does anyone really believe that?) and how we can expect a star-studded ceremony with some of Hollywood’s biggest names. Hollywood’s biggest names? Sylvester Stallone? Harvey Keitel? (Harvey Keitel??) And…pause for drum roll…Kate Hudson?

The acceptance speeches were as deadly as you’d expect – endless thanks to agents, managers and all of those people none of us has ever heard of – or just plain embarrassing. I will admit to muting the sound on my telly as Daniel Day-Lewis (by the way, Daniel, come the Oscars, make sure you wash and comb your hair, will you?) wittered on about how he used to play on the Isle of Dogs and on the terraces of Millwall Football Club. Er, wasn’t your dad the poet laureate, Daniel? You’re not one of us, you know.

But hey, just call me a tortured awards ceremony junkie. I must have a problem because after this debacle, I braved a trimmed-down version of The Grammy Awards (Monday 11 February, 9:00pm, ITV2). It was like having hamsters gnaw at my gums - hideous and painful and just weird, right from the creepy opening number when Alicia Keys did a duet with a dead guy (a video of Frank Sinatra) to Kanye West’s elongated, mawkish tribute to his mother.

Alicia provided one of the many great, fingers-down-the-throat moments when she accepted her Grammy for best something or other: “Thanks to God and the angels that surround me all the time.”

It wasn’t just a show for young ’uns, either. Tina Turner, wrapped in tinfoil, duetted with the formidably lovely Beyoncé, and Andy Williams, who appeared to be on castors, had trouble reading the autocue when he was trundled to the mike stand by two young ladies, like a Moss Bros mannequin on wheels. Though without the charm.

Anyway, awards ceremony followers, there’s more empty nonsense on Wednesday (20 February, 8:00pm) with The Brit Awards on ITV1. It avoided awfulness last year with a good hosting job from Russell Brand. Mind you, the ghastly Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne are our hosts this year. And Take That will be appearing a lot. Oh dear.

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times.

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