The Sony Awards tonight and time to find out if RHLSTP (rhlstp) could defy the odds and take on the big boys and girls of the BBC and win Sony Gold. I was fairly convinced that this couldn't happen and very satisfied that my independent podcast had done this well. But a tiny part of me thought that maybe if we'd got this far, we could get a little bit further.
I was attending with my wife and my producer Ben and the evening and the entry fee was going to end up costing me over £1100, so it would be galling to walk away empty-handed as we did when AIOTM (aiotm) was nominated in the internet category a couple of years back. But I had decided to justify that exorbitant expense by recording a podcast whilst we were there - not that that would claw any of the money back, just that it wouldn't feel like such a waste of cash. And whilst the AIOTM loss had made me bitter and cross I was determined to have fun tonight and to celebrate our remarkable achievement. I had intended to not get drunk straight away, just on the off-chance I had to make a speech. But a double gin and tonic in the bar before we got there and a couple of glasses of wine before we'd even sat down put the mockers on that one.
We were on a table with one of our competitors for the comedy gold, Rufus Hound and with some burly Welsh guys who were up for the sports award (battling Radio 5's coverage of the Olympics). I was a bit put out that Me1 vs Me2 snooker had not been nominated against them. Terry, who produces that show and my Warming Up podcasts insisted it had been entered, and I had paid him the cash for the entry (apparently he doesn't have a bank account) so it's a travesty that I wasn't a double nominee.
I managed to interview nearly all my fellow nominees during the night (we are going to wait for the dust to settle to see if the recording is of a good enough quality to put out - and I was pretty blasted too so it might be terrible, though that's no reason not to put it out of course). I was genuinely happy to be beaten by any of them - they're all great comedians and the shows all good. My money was on Isy Suttie, someone I gigged with quite a few times when I returned to stand-up who I always knew was going on to great things. We once had to deal with
some horrible hecklers in Taunton (the day before I had to deal with the heckler in that infamous
Youtube clip). It was a good feeling to know we'd both made it through those difficult times and I bet all those idiots are massive Peep Show fans and don't even realise they gave one of its stars an undeservedly horrible night.
And we were incredibly lucky to have Rufus and is wife on our table. They were a whole lot of fun and really took the tension out of the evening by suggesting a sweepstake where for each award we all had to choose a number from a little pot and that number corresponded with one of the nominees. If your nominee came third then you got a point and whoever got the most points at the end of the awards won the money (£5 from each person at the table). This not only gave the long night some focus, brought the whole table together as a group (often there's just an awkward frostiness between nervous strangers) and also meant that whoever came third in any category would get a big cheer from at least a couple of people on our table. We got very drunk on bottles of wine (that cost £40 each!) and the evening zoomed by. We also got entertainment from Robbie Williams and the Saturdays, which was a bit bizarre, but helped to explain where all my money had gone. Robbie was funny, self-effacing and arrogant and although full of cold put on a good performance. He'd be a great RHLSTP guest. Though I doubt I could afford him.
After a break for the main course it was time for our awards. I was number 5 on the list and I picked number 5 from the pot, as did producer Ben, which seemed like an omen. And indeed we won the Sony Bronze, though to begin with I was cheering because I'd won a point in the sweepstake, so I didn't really get to process the fact that we were third. Initially when that struck me I was a little disappointed, as alcohol and comments from others had made me think our chances were better than I had believed when I was sober. Rufus took the silver and Isy, as I had guessed, won the gold and you can't be too upset to lose to her. And she put some proper work into her show rather than just making it up as she went along, like some people I could mention (me).
A woman came over to give us a big chunk of perspex, so I had won a Sony Award and after the inevitable pang of loss I quickly came to realise how amazing it was that our stupid show had come third. It really is extraordinary that a podcast can now compete and do so well against the resources of a major broadcaster. And as the only exclusively web-based show (I believe) nominated in the whole awards, we had also won the internet.
My wife also won the sweepstake, so we clawed back £45 (well £30 as I had paid for her and Ben to enter) of our lost money, paying for almost a bottle of wine. And now I could get properly drunk and I did. All the broadcast funded tables who hadn't paid for their own booze or entry or tickets were rather more blase with their booze than we were with ours. And after the whole thing was over many of them walked away leaving whole bottles of wine and beer behind. So I hoovered some of that up and shared it with my comedy pals. Just like when we were young writers at BBC Radio and I would attempt to steal bottles of wine from the occasional parties we were invited to because I was too poor to buy any myself. Some things don't change (except now I can afford to buy wine, but still enjoy it more if it's stolen).
We drank, we danced, my wife lost a shoe, but I found it. I saw Alan Titchmarch in the toilet (nothing titchy about him), though failed to ask him if he'd ever seen a Bigfoot. Ben was a little disappointed that we hadn't won and questioned the wisdom of entering this competition - the expense does make it very difficult for non-profit making podcasts to be involved, but I tried to convince him we'd done something remarkable. Of course it would have been newsworthy had we won, where as it was our tiny success would pass by largely unnoticed, but in a year when Sony had scrapped the internet award (and I think maybe correctly - it seems meaningless to lump all that content together for one award and judge comedy against documentary or interviews or men playing snooker against themselves - they either need a dozen internet awards or the internet shows have to fight against the radio shows on a level playing field) it means something to have steered a podcast to an award. And you know that coming first doesn't suit the persona of the comedy character Richard Herring. He's very much a man who will spend his life in the wake of others. And as the sweepstake showed, sometimes coming third can be the best thing of all. Thinking about it the person who comes third in that should probably be the one who takes the money. That might have been me.
