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Funny Women TV goes large backstage at the British Comedy Awards

Funny Women TV goes large backstage at the British Comedy Awards 3

Funny Women TV goes large backstage at the British Comedy Awards 5

Yes, that really is Jeff Goldblum and Helen Mirren – here in the UK to support the best of British Comedy. Funny Women had backstage access to such stars last night at the British Comedy Awards. Our very own Clare Lomas was there with Funny Women TV to capture the moment and we’ll be posting some of our ‘best bits’ over the next few weeks.

So it was a bumper night for the girls with Sarah Millican being crowned Queen of Comedy, Miranda Hart winning Best TV Comedy Actress for the second year running and Victoria Wood celebrating a welcome return to the small screen with Angina Monologues and winning Best Female Television Comic. It is testament to the fact that, given an equal playing field, the girls do rather well at comedy.

Sarah was not in London to receive her award so instead it was presented to her by Dara O’Brien and Jimmy Carr at a show in Birmingham – by return she was on hand to present Graham Norton with his award for Best Comedy Entertainment Personality.

S,o as well as celebrating the success of some great funny women, we had an opportunity to canvas opinion from some amazing Hollywood stars who are huge fans of British comedy, and get to meet and talk to them ourselves. Jeff Goldblum (who has dated a British funny woman in his time…) commented on his love of British humour and the contribution it makes to the entertainment genre and Helen Mirren who has played the comedy card to excellent effect in her prestigious career – was seen most recently in a remake of the movie, Arthur starring Russell Brand.

So, rounding up on the best of British Comedy it was great to see Stewart Lee (married to the lovely and very funny Bridget Christie) score a double whammy for Best Male Television comic and Best Comedy Entertainment Programme, and Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain for Best New Comedy Programme, Fresh Meat. Lee Evans was honoured with the inaugural Channel 4 Award for Special Contribution to Comedy and Armando Iannucci with the Writers Guild of Great Britain Award. The British Comedy Academy Outstanding Achievement Award went to The Inbetweeners, and TV panel show Have I Got News for You picked up the British Comedy Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.

There is still a bit of a ‘boys club’ culture to all of this, despite the accolades for women. There were more suits than dresses on the blue carpet and we still need to see more women on panel shows, and being given equal opportunities to write and produce comedy programmes. Yet we’ve set the ball rolling with the Funny Women Awards which goes into its 10th year in 2012.

We are delighted that some brilliant funny women were nominated and recognised on the night – Claire Skinner for Outnumbered, Tamsin Greig for Friday Night Dinner and Dawn French for Psychoville. It was also fantastic to see the lovely Sarah Solemani of Him & Her and Issie Suttie of Peep Show amongst the guests and tripping down the blue carpet to talk to us.

For more about this year’s British Comedy Awards and to watch them if you missed the first time around visit Channel4oD HERE.

We’ll be uploading our news package and backstage interviews to Funny Women TV very soon!

Pictured top to bottom:

Clare Lomas - backstage presenter for Funny Women TV

Helen Mirren talks to reporters on the blue carpet

Yes, that really is Jeff Goldblum (with attractive blonde on his arm... )

Miranda Hart enjoys a glass of champagne

Coming soon - interviews with:

Jeff Goldblum

Helen Mirren

Armando Iannucci

Lee Evans