Glittering Prizes
Sep. 10th, 2004 01:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gervase_fen I collected my black tie suit at 2pm, and then delayed, for as long as possible, dressing up in it and leaving the flat. Unlike the other microsite attendees, I wouldn't be staying in a hotel room at the company's expense - so I'd have to walk the streets dressed like an actor auditioning for the next Bond movie.
Having made my way very self-consciously to the train station, I lost myself in the anonymity of the coach and then the Underground. Out at Green Park and then a stroll down, past various embassies, to Park Lane and the Dorchester hotel.
Inside the ballroom lobby are mirrors from floor to ceiling (in case of any intruding vampires, perhaps), polished marble floors and an abundance of gold lacquer. I had a look at the seating plan and recognised about half a dozen names - Matt Lucas, Emilia Fox, Phillip Madoc, Dave Gorman and Stephen Fry. None of them would be sitting at my table, number 22. Before I could work out if I recognised any of the people who would be, I spotted Emma for Llandudno, who looked very relieved to spot someone she recognised.
"You're on the same table as Dave Gorman", I said, "So you might be in his next book."
As the crowd built up we looked around to spot anyone vaguely celeb-by, and could only really spot Matt Lucas, who would probably stand out in a crowd of anybody, any size.
Through then, to the ballroom, all lit very prettily in tones of subdued dark blue. Table 22 was pretty far away from the main stage, but close enough to a large LCD screen relaying the camera feed.
Clockwise round my table were : Peter, a studio manager, formerly of the BBC, now plugging his own audiobook list. ("We've just done 'Tom Brown's Schooldays'. Would you like fifty copies? Here's my card")
Two Bright Young Things from Walker Books, an imprint with a tiny audio backlist - they've got the Anthony Horowitz Alex Rider titles, and nothing much more.
Three unidentifiable people who didn't say hello.
Yvonne A, and partner, who adapts and abridges books, and who had recently worked on John Simpson's "The Wars Against Saddam" (which won a prize).
A gap, where someone called Claudia R didn't show up.
Unfortunately, this gap was immediately to my right, leaving me with nobody to talk to except Peter. I explained where I was from. "Ottakars? Is that a Finnish name?"
The President of the Spoken Word Association introduced himself on stage - an ebullient Scot resembling a more innocent version of John Leslie, or that annoying actor who appears in the "confused.com" car insurance advert. He mentioned the various audio A-Listers in the room, picking out Dave Gorman "who, if you've read Googlewhack Adventure, you'll know frittered away his advance of £20,000 from Random House by staying at home and surfing the internet. I've had a word with them" (cue cheering from a table) "and they don't mind."
Last year's host had been Clive Anderson ("He was very good" - Peter), tonight's presenter turned out to be Mariella Frostrup, possessor of one of the more distinctive voices on air these days. She was pleasant, professional, if a little too much controlled by the autocue.
Like the Sony Radio Awards, there are prizes in as many categories that you can think of, and a few you probably haven't - "Retail Initiative of the Year" being one of the latter. This was the award that we were up for, competing against, and losing to, "Waterstone's Christmas 3 for 2 offer".
As there were about twenty prizes being given out - and, again like the Sony Awards, with each separate category awarding finalists with Gold, Silver and Bronze - nobody was allowed to make an acceptance speech apart from the Big Three Category Winners. Emilia Fox, as Female Performer of the Year, said nothing. Stephen Fry, as Male Performer of the Year, wasn't there - he had had a fall in the afternoon, and couldn't collect his prize for Harry Potter and Paddington.
Audiobook of the Year was "Forgotten Voices of the Great War", an extensive anthology of first person testimony recorded in the 1960s by the Imperial War Museum. The individual accounts are linked by narrator Richard Bebb, who looks exactly as he did when he guest starred, twenty five years ago, in the spookily named Blake's 7 episode "Voice from the Past".
The best ad lib of the evening came from Matt Lucas, a very popular winner for "Little Britain". As the Scottish President was introducing the Performer of the Year award, he observed : "People like Matt Lucas and Stephen Fry don't just read the words, they perform them"
"That's because I can't read" a voice not too dissimilar to Lou's shouted out.
Having made my way very self-consciously to the train station, I lost myself in the anonymity of the coach and then the Underground. Out at Green Park and then a stroll down, past various embassies, to Park Lane and the Dorchester hotel.
Inside the ballroom lobby are mirrors from floor to ceiling (in case of any intruding vampires, perhaps), polished marble floors and an abundance of gold lacquer. I had a look at the seating plan and recognised about half a dozen names - Matt Lucas, Emilia Fox, Phillip Madoc, Dave Gorman and Stephen Fry. None of them would be sitting at my table, number 22. Before I could work out if I recognised any of the people who would be, I spotted Emma for Llandudno, who looked very relieved to spot someone she recognised.
"You're on the same table as Dave Gorman", I said, "So you might be in his next book."
As the crowd built up we looked around to spot anyone vaguely celeb-by, and could only really spot Matt Lucas, who would probably stand out in a crowd of anybody, any size.
Through then, to the ballroom, all lit very prettily in tones of subdued dark blue. Table 22 was pretty far away from the main stage, but close enough to a large LCD screen relaying the camera feed.
Clockwise round my table were : Peter, a studio manager, formerly of the BBC, now plugging his own audiobook list. ("We've just done 'Tom Brown's Schooldays'. Would you like fifty copies? Here's my card")
Two Bright Young Things from Walker Books, an imprint with a tiny audio backlist - they've got the Anthony Horowitz Alex Rider titles, and nothing much more.
Three unidentifiable people who didn't say hello.
Yvonne A, and partner, who adapts and abridges books, and who had recently worked on John Simpson's "The Wars Against Saddam" (which won a prize).
A gap, where someone called Claudia R didn't show up.
Unfortunately, this gap was immediately to my right, leaving me with nobody to talk to except Peter. I explained where I was from. "Ottakars? Is that a Finnish name?"
The President of the Spoken Word Association introduced himself on stage - an ebullient Scot resembling a more innocent version of John Leslie, or that annoying actor who appears in the "confused.com" car insurance advert. He mentioned the various audio A-Listers in the room, picking out Dave Gorman "who, if you've read Googlewhack Adventure, you'll know frittered away his advance of £20,000 from Random House by staying at home and surfing the internet. I've had a word with them" (cue cheering from a table) "and they don't mind."
Last year's host had been Clive Anderson ("He was very good" - Peter), tonight's presenter turned out to be Mariella Frostrup, possessor of one of the more distinctive voices on air these days. She was pleasant, professional, if a little too much controlled by the autocue.
Like the Sony Radio Awards, there are prizes in as many categories that you can think of, and a few you probably haven't - "Retail Initiative of the Year" being one of the latter. This was the award that we were up for, competing against, and losing to, "Waterstone's Christmas 3 for 2 offer".
As there were about twenty prizes being given out - and, again like the Sony Awards, with each separate category awarding finalists with Gold, Silver and Bronze - nobody was allowed to make an acceptance speech apart from the Big Three Category Winners. Emilia Fox, as Female Performer of the Year, said nothing. Stephen Fry, as Male Performer of the Year, wasn't there - he had had a fall in the afternoon, and couldn't collect his prize for Harry Potter and Paddington.
Audiobook of the Year was "Forgotten Voices of the Great War", an extensive anthology of first person testimony recorded in the 1960s by the Imperial War Museum. The individual accounts are linked by narrator Richard Bebb, who looks exactly as he did when he guest starred, twenty five years ago, in the spookily named Blake's 7 episode "Voice from the Past".
The best ad lib of the evening came from Matt Lucas, a very popular winner for "Little Britain". As the Scottish President was introducing the Performer of the Year award, he observed : "People like Matt Lucas and Stephen Fry don't just read the words, they perform them"
"That's because I can't read" a voice not too dissimilar to Lou's shouted out.
