This is the infamous episode that lead to many complaints over Julian Clary's Norman Lamont joke.
This is an eye opener watching this back in 2022. The most bizarre presenter of an award is Hulk Hogan who says he is doing a single which is a cover of the Gary Glitter song "I'm the leader of the gang" - oh dear. Jokes about Prince Andrew as well, possibly referring to his break-up with Sarah Ferguson, but I'm not sure of the context.
As you would expect many comedians featured are no longer with us: Dennis Norden, Rik Mayall, Ken Dodd and a few have since more or less retired like Tony Slattery.
The speeches are very short often less than five minutes, with very little trash talk. It's actually civilised. Rik Mayall is given one for his Rik Mayall Presents. He's charming and funny, but you feel a bit short changed, same goes for Jennifer Saunders.
Britt Ekland presents an award and Jonathan Ross mentions her nude scene in Wicker Man; the film was relatively obscure then. Oddly enough Noel Edmonds laughs, who would have thought he has great taste in films?
Most interesting is seeing people who had a meteoric rise to fame about five years later. Chris Evans was presenting the Big Breakfast and would score a megahit with music and chat show TFI Friday a few years later as well as his Radio 1 breakfast show. Steve Coogan seems shy when giving a speech, but went on massive things. Richard Curtis won a writer's award and says he hasn't written anything for nine months, he scored one of the highest grossing British films of all time with Four Weddings about a year later.
Michael Barrymore wins two awards and would score even more at future comedy awards show. He had a catastrophic decline nobody could have predicted. Here he was at the height of his fame.
Highlights include Vic and Bob's speech were it goes down like a lead balloon. I've no idea why, but this was before Shooting Stars. The biggest highlight is Julian Clary absolutely smashing it with one liners and seeing Mark Lamar's and Martin Clunes' laughing to the point of tears is comedy gold.
