British Comedy Awards
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The British Comedy Awards is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year. The awards began in 1990, and are shown live on ITV, in December. Michael Parkinson presented the inaugural ceremony at the London Palladium. The show is now staged at London Studios. All subsequent shows have been presented by Jonathan Ross.
With a potent mix of comedians and alcohol, the ceremony is often a riotous affair.
On many years, the night has been given a dress and set 'theme' (Wild West, classical Greek, various fancy dress, etc.), although in more recent years this has generally been dropped.
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[edit] Memorable moments
- Jonathan Ross's in-podium autocue monitor being ripped out by award-winner Michael Barrymore.
- 1993: Award-presenter Julian Clary joked that he'd just been fisting Norman Lamont (the joke caused great controversy and nearly ended Clary's career).[citation needed]
- 1994: Spike Milligan called long-time fan Prince Charles a grovelling little bastard on hearing the Prince's tribute to him when he came to the podium to collect his Lifetime Achievement Award.
- 1997: Buster Merryfield fell over and cut his forehead whilst colecting an award for David Jason.
- 1998: Alan Davies coming dressed as a matador, which ended in him fighting with another guest.
- 2000: The late Nigel Hawthorne accepted a lifetime achievement award on behalf of Alan Bennett only to be greeted by a drunken Caroline Aherne yelling "Get on with it!" during his recount of Mr Bennett's statement. Hawthorne took it to heart, prompting the audience to cheer after his retort of "Would you like to come do this yourself madame?"[citation needed]
- 2006: Recent I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! winner Matt Willis came on to present an award, accompanied by a naturalist who brought on a huge python, that spanned most of the stage. The python first coiled itself around its owners legs, then proceeded to try and escape and make its way into the audience.
- Alan Partridge performing Don't Go Breaking My Heart with Elton John
[edit] Winners
[edit] 1990
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[edit] 1991
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[edit] 1992
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[edit] 1993
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[edit] 1994
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[edit] 1995
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[edit] 1996
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[edit] 1997
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[edit] 1998
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[edit] 1999
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[edit] 2000
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[edit] 2001
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[edit] 2002
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[edit] 2003
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[edit] 2004
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[edit] 2005
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[edit] 2006
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[edit] 2007
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It was announced on 21 September 2007 that this year's British Comedy Awards would not be screened by ITV1. It was however confirmed that the Awards would still take place in December, and it was not ruled out that they could be screened by another channel.[1]
[edit] Phone-in scandal
On 26 July, 2007, reports in The Sun newspaper claimed that the 2005 British Comedy Awards were involved with 2007 British television phone-in scandal. Viewers rang a premium-rate phone number to vote for the People's Choice Award during what was claimed to be a live broadcast. At 22:30, the show went to a news broadcast. When the show returned, viewers thought it was still live, and thus still rang the number. The last half-hour was in fact a recording, and the vote had already finished, meaning the votes given during the recording were pointless.[1]
ITV announced that they have postponed the British Comedy Awards due to the voting irregularities. In a statement, the company said:
"Pending conclusion of the investigation, broadcast of the British Comedy Awards 2007 will be postponed.
"ITV will not make any further comment regarding this matter until the conclusion of the investigation."[2][3]
[edit] References
- ^ ITV scam Comedy Awards vote, The Sun Written by Colin Robertson on 26 July, 2007. Accessed 26 July, 2007.
- ^ ITV axes British Comedy Awards, sky.com Written by Sky News on 21 September, 2007. Accessed 21 September, 2007.
- ^ ITV Drops British Comedy Awards. Written by the BBC on 21 September, 2007. Accessed 21 September, 2007.
[edit] External links
Wikinews has related news:
ITV postpones broadcast of 2007 British Comedy Awards
