It’s all a Brit of a let down

A fact that only occurred to me as I watched him present the newly-packaged Brit Awards from London’s 02 Arena, because for once he didn’t have his face screwed up laughing at his own jokes. Largely because there were none.

The sponsors – MasterCard, in case you never noticed all the plugs and connected commercials – chose Corden, the white-van man’s favourite gagster, to present the live show, then for some inexplicable reason, got him to play it straight.

He’s nothing without jokes, some would argue he’s nothing even with them, and so, unsurprisingly, his delivery was dull and, worse, at times, such as during a sycophantic sit-down with Cee Lo Green, even cringeworthy.

A stranger to the British comedy scene would be forgiven for thinking that he was the show-offiest sixth-former in school who’d won a competition where the prize was to present the Brits.

Shuddersome moments continued. After Tinie Tempah’s gorgeous, orchestrally-enhanced performance of Pass Out, Cordo-lad stood, arms sticking out, mouth gaping, eyes like drops of oil from a pipette and went: “How do you follow that?

“I’ll tell ya how. . . be outstanding for the legend that is – Dermot O’Leary.”

Bless.

Then, obviously chuffed at being declared legendary, O’Leary told Corden what a great job he was doing and when the chubby cheekster tried wave the comment aside (though secretly loving it), O’Leary said, “live with it.”

Man, those boys are so street.

Rhianna (Best International Female), Arcade Fire (Best International Band and Best International Album), Cee Lo (Best International Male), the puzzlingly popular Justin Bieber (Best International Breakthrough Male) and the likes must have been wondering when the rehearsals would end and the real representatives of all that is cool Britain’s music industry would pitch up. Where was the edginess, the drunken acceptance speeches or the daft Jarvis Cocker bum-wiggling moment? Where was the rock and roll? At one point I yearned for Samantha Fox and Mick Fleetwood.

I suppose it’s down to the three genres currently dominating mainstream music in the UK, namely hip-hop/R&B, fop-folk and balladeering.

It’s all about bling, banjo bothering and birds with faux fag-smoke damaged voices, hardly the basis for a night of anarchy and mayhem.

Saying that, it was fun, too. Our artists rarely take themselves too seriously so Take That and Plan B happily shared the same Louis Spence-style riot squad dancers for their performances, Adele managed to squeeze out an obligatory teardrop at the end of her song for the broken-hearted that actually sounds a bit like a Whitney Houston remake, Someone Like You, and Jessie J (Critics’ Choice) did a great impression of Catherine Tate’s Lauren Cooper, innit though?

The swanky new climate change Brit statuette, given a makeover by the new queen mum, AKA Dame Viv Westwood, looked very fetching and the giant venue worked, in as much as the live performances were big and showy, with sets and lighting that would give any award show in the US a run for its money.

Yet among all the posing and pyrotechnics, the stand-out moment for me, and the one that summed up why Britpop, rock, whatever, is always perceived as being the last word in cool around the world, was when Laura Marling went up to collect her award for Best British Female.

Dressed, with complete confidence, in a fiercely un-showy outfit comprising what looked like an adapted pillowcase and a pair of leggings, with not a bit of flesh on show, nor a scrap of make-up on her face, let alone a hair do, she looked delightful.

Then, quietly, as if they couldn’t possibly know who she was, she introduced herself to the cheering arena: “I’m Laura. Here you go mum, this is for you. This is really weird.”

Simple, understated and very British.

Which leads me to the star of that other big award show, the BAFTAs, this week.

Despite a better-than average turn out of big movie names and plethora of the most beautiful, pneumatically-assisted, pampered and preened thesps on the planet, Helena Bonham Carter stole the show. On she shambled to accept Best Supporting Actress award for her role in The King’s Speech.

She rambled on in that amusing way eccentric British actors do yet still cleverly managed to remind everyone that acting was a fairly superficial thing where she got to dress up, pretend to be somebody else, get very well paid for it and even get an award for it.

Then she gave a slightly random, but utterly endearing speech, which left all the previous, bling-studded gushers looking a little shallow.

The expression on her equally-out there director husband Tim Burton’s face could have been: “You tell them aitch, that’s my girl.”

Then again, it could just as easily have been: “Thank God we live in separate houses.”