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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 ITV1, in December. Michael Parkinson presented the inaugrual 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.
[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)[1]
- 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.
- 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?[2]
- 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 it's way into the audience.
[edit] Former Winners
[edit] References
[edit] External links
