National TV Awards & San Sebastian

Last night, I attended The National TV Awards at the Royal Albert Hall, dressed up to the nines with a bow-tie and cufflinks (and of course clothes). It was all tremendously exciting, both in terms of celeb-spotting and witnessing how a big live event is run. We had excellent seats, almost directly to the right of the stage - all the better for peering across at the rows of famous folk sitting in the middle of the floor. There was a whole row of Doctor Who royalty: Russell T Davies, Catherine Tate, Julie Gardner, Phil Collinson, Steven Moffat, Jane Tranter, Noel Clarke, Camile Coduri, Elisabeth Sladen. Who won Most Popular Drama (the picture above hazily shows Russell and Catherine accepting the award), while David Tennant picked up Most Popular Drama Performance - and astonishingly, during a live link-up video, broke the news that 2009's four specials will be his last performances as the Doctor. Sob, wail, etc. It initially seemed like a bizarre announcement to make, with another year to go, but I guess the reality is that producers and casting directors need to know that David's available for work in 2010...


The world of talent shows was well-represented too, with the entire panel of X Factor judges sitting together in the middle of one row. Hollyoaks people were present in force, as were EastEnders folk - as was made clear when they all got up en masse to collect Most Popular Serial Drama. There were some impressive Hollywood types present to hand over gongs, including Paris Hilton and Desperate Housewives' Nicollette Sheridan - even if both appeared to be stop-motion animated, resembling sinewy stick figures.

Tomorrow, I'm off to San Sebastian, as is now traditional, for the 19th Horror & Fantasy Film Festival. On Halloween! Cool. I'm just as excited about it as I was last year (I just re-read that post from almost exactly a year ago, and was amused to see that I considered writing "102 pages in 26 days!" to be impressive). I'm not there for quite as long as usual - a 'mere' six nights - but I shall make the most of it. Here are some pictures from the last four years, featuring my good friend Jay Slater. As you can see, we've never missed a vital opportunity to soak up the local culture...


























Buffoonish boozing aside, the Festival is superb - totally professional and prestigious, but not so big that it sacrifices intimacy. It also features the loudest audiences I've seen anywhere in the world! Talk about the lion's den: if a film bores this crowd, they make their displeasure known very quickly. I'll never forget the screening of H6: Diary Of A Serial Killer, during which the director and the crowd had a big argument, trading insults in Spanish!

San Sebastian is also a beautiful city. Its Old Town quarter is one of my favourite places in the world, chock-full of cool little bars, restaurants and shops. This year, for the first time in three years, my hotel is right in the middle of it, so I'm going to be in seventh heaven. Until the mornings after, of course. Those will be seventh hells. I may post during my stay, but can't and indeed won't guarantee this. Let's wait and see, eh? It'll make it all the more edgy and exciting.

Love you. Bye, then.