 In
1993, Richard hosted the British Music Awards. The English equivalent of the
Grammys, I was quite surprised to discover that the whole show, which lasted
just over an hour in length- did everything that American award shows do in
well over four hours.
Naturally, as it always seems to- Richard's entrance was preceded by a chorus
of "The Time Warp" playing over the loud speakers.
Richard claimed it was the most exciting night of his life... "Well,
second most exciting. The first was a bus shelter in Bournemouth..."
The show itself is standard award show fare... guest presenters-among the
most notable of these included Meat Loaf and Ruby Wax. Meat Loaf, who presented
the award for Best Classical Record ("I think this was someone's idea
of a joke...") came on stage in a jacket very reminiscent of the one
Richard was wearing.
 Richard:
I think we should have phoned one another..
Meat Loaf: Yeah... (pause at the laughter) I can't believe you got a laugh
out of that!
Richard displayed his normal talent for bantor- at one point
when an act took the stage and destroyed a microphone after a mere twenty
seconds of song, then walked off stage, he remarked "I thought that was
a perfectly good microphone... ", and in another instance, when an award
winner returned to the stage to comment that he'd gone the wrong way- Richard
pointed him in the correct direction and turned back to the camera. "He'll
never win a crystal". When the lead singer of Simply Red took the stage
for an award, he went to retreat back to his seat. Richard stopped him before
leaving the stage. "It says here that you're supposed to sing. If you don't there will be this great gap in ITV's programming schedule...
so I think you'd better do the right thing and sing, don't you?"And directly
before the entrance of Kylie Minogue, he recited a poem for the occasion:
When she was a little nipper,
She was cute and smiley
But now she's a little ripper-
Yeah, you're right- it's Kylie.
He also displayed a distinct habit of peeking over shoulders
as the guest presenters read the cards with the nominees and winners in their
hands.
Ruby- pictured at right with Richard- presented the award for
Best Album- which went to Annie Lennox for Diva. Annie could not be
there, having just had a baby girl, but sent in video (in the video she was
still very pregnant) to accept the award. Ruby then went on a tangent about
pregnancy and having a baby, and I think it was most amusing to watch Richard's
face as she talked.
The show concluded with a special award given to Rod Stewart. |
