Awards Season Isn’t Over Yet: RTS Awards, Oscar Parties

Sick of seeing and hearing about Helen Mirren? Don’t tell me you’re suffering from awards fatigue just yet! That’s the great thing about being international: we have all those British awards to cover, like the Royal Television Society awards, which had their nominations announced last night. And yes, Dame Helen rears her head again, as she’s up for Best Actress for Prime Suspect. Representing the best of British TV in 2006, the list included several BBC AMERICA shows. In fact, for us, it’s like picking favorites among children: I don’t envy the people who have to choose a winner among Doctor Who, Life On Mars, and The Street in the Drama Series category. The biggest controversy of last night’s nominations is the absence of Eastenders for Best Soap(ITV’s Coronation Street, Emmerdale, and The Bill are the contenders).

Here are select nominees:

Actor – Female

• Julia Davis – Fear Of Fanny
  
• Susan Lynch – Soundproof
  
• Helen Mirren – Prime Suspect

Actor – Male

• Jim Broadbent – Longford
  
• Philip Glenister – Life On Mars
  
• Michael Sheen – Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!

Comedy Performance

• Kevin Bishop – Star Stories
  
• Stephen Merchant – Extras
  
• Catherine Tate – The Catherine Tate Show

Drama Serial

• Low Winter Sun
  (coming soon to BBC AMERICA)
• Prime Suspect
  
• Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather

Drama Series

• Doctor Who
  
• Life On Mars
  
• The Street

Presenter

• Jeremy Clarkson, James May, & Richard Hammond – Top Gear
  
• Bruce Parry – Tribe
  
• Gordon Ramsay – Gordon Ramsay’s F Word

Situation Comedy and Comedy Drama

• Green Wing
  
• Extras
  
• The Royle Family: The Queen Of Sheba

Soap

• Coronation Street
  
• Emmerdale
  
• The Bill

Writer – Drama

• Peter Morgan – Longford
  
• Simon Donald – Low Winter Sun
  
• Abi Morgan – Tsunami, The Aftermath

Get the complete list of nominees here.

Oscar partying, British style: according to those party crashers The Sun, Helen Mirren scarfed a burger and joked that she wants to play Camilla (at least, I hope she was joking…I thought she was sick of playing dowdy); Elton John kissed and made up with Simon Cowell over Cowell’s dismissal of Elton fave Jennifer Hudson; Simon and Sharon Osbourne apparently had a row that included a “F*ck you!”; Daniel Craig almost smiled but not quite; and Peter O’Toole shakes off his Best Actor loss by diving into Cate Blanchett‘s cleavage.

The Daily Telegraph also presents a UK take on the Oscars: writer Tom Leonard ran into Billy Connolly who said the parties were “s*** – people just eating cheese straws, talking rubbish, getting drunk, and complaining about being stared at.” Welcome to Hollywood!

James Christopher of The Times regurgitates my post from yesterday: Mexico triumphed, and Brits were big losers at the Oscars. Except his article is racist, natch: “no speak English equals trim speeches.”

In other news

• I’m sorry, I think Daniel Radcliffe is adorable, but with facial hair he looks like an FTM transsexual who just started hormones. I’m just sayin’.(Daily Mail)
• Can I read an article in The Sun that doesn’t inform us that Beth Ditto of The Gossip is “15-stone”?
• Turns out, ABC doesn’t like Heather Mills so much either now that she’s no longer a “Lady.” Regarding her name change for Dancing With the Stars, a source tells The Sun, “It was a bombshell for ABC. Getting a Lady who was married to a Beatle was almost like signing royalty to them. They are gutted they had to drop the title.”
• Oh, and disabled people hate her, too: From Digital Spy: “Campaigners argue that the estranged wife of Sir Paul McCartney should refrain from using her blue disabled badge to park her Mercedes four-wheel drive if she is mobile enough to compete on the celebrity dancing contest.”
• Good Heavens: That “Beckhams in America” reality show is being talked about as if it were a done deal. They forget that no one other than the most devoted of Anglophiles gives a flying crap about them here.
• Now here’s a reality show I want to see: “Supermodel Naomi Campbell is to star in an MTV reality TV show following her recruitment of a new personal assistant. ”
• Sophie Ellis-Bextor praises the new crop of female British pop stars: “I’m glad to see the emergence of people with a brain and personality in pop like Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse.”
• Catherine Tate is the patron of the Young Writers Festival in London, in which first-time playwrights have professional stagings of their works. Tate talks about her own writing style in the Telegraph: “I’m interested in the way people speak. I don’t write gags; I wouldn’t know how to. My comedy isn’t about saying funny things, it’s about saying things funny.” P.S.: is it me, or is CT morphing into Cynthia Nixon before our eyes?
• Portishead has debuted a new song.(Gigwise)
• The Good, The Bad, and The Queen are set to play the final show ever at Hammersmith Palais.(Gigwise)
• Arctic Monkeys have recruited Dizzee Rascal to rap on their new album.
• Badly Drawn Boy has commenced his British acoustic tour of local chip-shops. It’s all about preserving tradition, ya see. (Telegraph)
• American tycoons are snatching up British soccer teams. Is British football in danger of losing its identity?
• Jonas Armstrong, our own Robin Hood, is today’s Hunk du Jour.