Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand aside, isn't it time Sir Trevor McDonald was put out of his misery?
I was watching the National TV Awards through my fingers last night (professional interest, you understand), in disbelief that this charisma-free old goat is still presenting this shit. I think ITV are under the mistaken impression that it gives the occasion gravitas. They're wrong. His poorly scripted topical 'jokes' just don't suit him, he gets few titters from the teenage audience, and the grimacing stars who are forced to sit in line for hours on end suffering through it. He makes it even more dull than it is already. He's entirely personality-free.
I've been to the NTAs many, many times, but last night I was glad I wasn't in attendance. It's got to be the most boring ceremony, with the loudest aftershow party ever. I've been to all sorts of awards ceremonies, but everyone in the industry, stars included, agree it's the dullest one. You can't even get a drink until afterwards. I've seen it all over the years, in the press room and outside of it - the Spice Girls collecting for Top Of The Pops, Judy Finnegan's wardrobe malfunction, Michael Barrymore coming out - it's all been going on, but it doesn't make it any more interesting.
Now they've lumped actors' and actresses' performances into one cumbersome category, and the rest of the show is more or less a plug for ITV shows, much as you'd expect. But even Sir Trev must have baulked when they bought the Brittania High cast out - no one's watching that, it's shocking. I went to launch and felt like I was trapped in an 11-year-old girl's bedroom in hell.
The problem with the NTAs is it suffers from delusions of grandeur. There's no kudos here. People are forced to go to make ITV look good. And now they've fiddled about with and reduced the size of the categories it's become kind of meaningless, more so than before.
I bet they'd all rather have been at the Quantum Of Solace premiere.
*The only interesting thing to come out of last night, plus, it should get the hit rate up no end. Did someone say Emma Watson's tits?
9 comments:
As ever, F-C, you’re right: Britannia High is shocking – a new low for ITV, and that takes some doing.
What intrigues me, though, is that you can't have been the the only person to have come to the same conclusion after seeing it at the launch, and yet it still got loads of glowing pre-publicity in the press beforehand. I can’t understand why anybody would devote space to puffing something when they know full well that it is crap of the first order.
Or is it that they too, like the gurning seat-fillers at the NTAs, feel obliged to make ITV look good?
Well, some people at the launch thought it was actually quite good - I thought it was just me and another person who thought it was execrable. Seems it was me, that person and the viewing public.
ITV genuinely believed they had a hit on their hands, but of course they thought they had the new High Musical Musical, which this clearly is not.
I didn't see it, I was at football. Who got the Lifetime Achievement thing which so entertainingly went to Clarkson last year?
Simon Cowell
I remember seeing the start of the NTAs a few years back, when Trev arrived on stage flanked by four dancing girls. I don't think I've ever seen anyone look quite as awkward on television.
I've lost any lingering respect for him since he appeared on a trailer for News At Ten during Euro 2008 announcing that they had pictures of Wayne Rooney's wedding hideaway. At what point does the bloke who covered the Polish crisis and interviewed Nelson Mandela think "why am I doing this?"
It's the same with Melvyn Bragg (sorry, this is turning into an F-C style rant) continually going on about how ITV is fully committed to the arts (at 11.15pm on a Sunday).
Is John Noakes officially mad now do you think?
You don't need gravitas to host the NTA's, do you? Macdonald must need the money to put himself through this annual embarrassment.
I had a search on my blog for 'John Noakes dementia', so it must be true, OP.
That Blue Peter thing was very ill-advised, and deeply unfunny. In fact, I think more or less every joke fell flat throughout the whole show.
John Noakes is clearly bonkers.
Yeah I wouldn't want him to have proper dementia, who would, but an amplification of his zani-ness into full on Dr Magnus Pyke style eccentricity would be a welcome change from the identikit presenters we get nowadays.
Good on him.
You just knew that Ant 'n Dec were itching to say "what's this shit" when given the trophy, but clearly it's not the week for that kind of high jinks.
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