This article was first published in Palatinate (issue 717, Tuesday 16th March, 2010)
Award ceremonies bemuse me. Not the most profound bemusement, I admit, in this time of worrying political bowel movements or world famine, but a bemusement nonetheless. Let me explain.
Some years ago I happened to be in London on the evening of the 2003 Baftas. I’d been granted an afternoon of freedom from boarding school, and stumbled out into the starry mainland of our beloved capital. And there was the red carpet, the panicky organizers scampering about importantly and an impressive collection of radioed and ear-pieced bouncers perfecting a look that could only be catalogued as ‘moody stare’.
Much to my disappointment, I couldn’t wait the three hours until the thing was due to begin. But the taste was enough. It was power, glamour: the crowds patiently serried in against the security railings, trying to nail that high C on the second movement of their symphony of whoops and wails. All waiting for the immortals to descend from their Olympian heights. Perfectly enchanting.
It had all the finery and glitz one could ever want from London. The cool southerly breeze bristled with a very British gentility. It was a night that demanded tuxedos and dresses more expensive than most third-world defence budgets. It promised style. In fact, the flashy showiness of the red carpet as a whole is wonderful. It’s the apogee, the apex, the Parnassian peak.
But…and I fear it’s a rather big but. Of almost Susan Boyle-like proportions.
The fun plunges into disaster when the ceremony begins. The mood fribbles and leaks away. All the end-of-term excitement is replaced by the tedium of a last assembly where even the Head of Physics seems determined to deliver a Marlovian soliloquy.
Baftas 2010 was no exception. Poor Jonathan Ross looked like he was trying to do breaststroke in a pool full of yoghurt. Out he flopped, bouncing around with his usual tiggerish enthusiasm only to be met by a roomful of marble-faced lip-zippers. And Vanessa Redgrave! Her speech was almost Ciceronian in its labyrinths and curls. Few word-users other than Shakespeare can claim to be for all time, but that night Redgrave’s pleonasm nearly got her there.
And here is where my burgeoning bemusement was conceived. The product of a rather unfortunate encounter between a free Saturday night and a broken remote. Put simply: I cannot understand the point of televising award ceremonies. Not the Baftas, Brits, NME awards, British soap awards, National Television, South Bank Show or Spectator gong-givings. Nor, blasphemous though it may be, even the sybaritic, Sandra-Bullock-speeching Oscars.
The school simile seems appropriate. Because award ceremonies are exactly like the worst kind of school prize-giving. Ties for sport, cups for academic achievement, all manner of badges, bouquets and banquets for effort and trying-your-best. Something like a graduation ceremony, one imagines. And anyone who has endured, screamed and snored through any of the above knows that they are only fun if you are receiving a prize.
Nothing is better, in fact. The only prize I’ve ever received was at the age of eleven. For effort. Few moments since can surpass the heady ecstasy of tearing open the exclusive, for-my-eyes-only letter informing me of the school’s decision; the cloying mock humility about how touching it was just to have some recognition after those long, dark years of being neglected by the staff room; and then that bright, golden Wednesday afternoon when all my friends headed off for PE while I and a select group of other effortful and earnest pupils were bussed to the local book shop and allowed to choose our prizes.
Magical. As was the day itself. I’ve rarely been cleaner, so scrubbed and flannelled by my parents who were determined I out-gleamed all others on the assembly stage. My hair was combed, my shoes shined. There was the rather tricky socks-down versus socks-up dilemma (we were still forced to wear shorts at this stage) and the unnervingly intricate choreography – walk up, smile, right hand out, on no account let it be the left hand, shake hands, chat, walk off.
When the time arrived we ‘prize winners’ were marshalled through to the reserved front row. I gave a cursory wave to the rest of my class who were sectioned off at the back of the hall, and then ran through a few versions of the oh-not-another-prize look.
And the whole thing was perfect. For me.
However, I imagine it sent most others – the unworthy non-winners – into therapy. And the same, I fear, is true of award ceremonies. The only person who enjoys the Bafta for Best Editing or Oscar for Best Live Action Short is the winner, and perhaps their partner or parents.
I’m not much of a Reithian, but surely sitting through the cinematic equivalent of an end-of-term assembly is not the stuff of licence fees and bracing public broadcasting. We should demand more from TV. And not be content with such dross just because it has a few early-evening hopes that the rest of the night doubtlessly fails to deliver.
