NATIONAL TELEVISION AWARDS

I know, I know – I’m at it again writing about awards, but how can I help it when UA has yet another client honoured in yet another big awards ceremony?

This time it is Katherine Kelly. Last night she won the award for Best Serial Drama Performance at the National Television Awards for her portrayal of Becky McDonald.

Katherine was voted for, not by a panel of judges, but by the general public. Sadly she couldn’t be there to collect her award as she was onstage at the National Theatre.

A fitting end to Katherine’s time on the cult soap. I wrote about her departure from Coronation Street earlier in the week when her character jetted off to sunny Barbados with on-screen boyfriend Jeremy Sheffield.

And whilst I’m on Coronation Street I might as well tell you it won Best Serial Drama. UA has a host of regulars, most of whom were on the stage last night to celebrate, including Antony Cotton (who also popped up on stage collecting the award for Best Reality TV Show for I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here), Charlie Condou, Ben Price and Michelle Keegan.

OK, I’ll stop now and maybe tomorrow the word “award” will not be mentioned, but who knows with our client list …

CHARLIE CONDOU 10 – BRIAN SEWELL 0

I’m meeting Kirk’s client Charlie Condou today to talk about the new column he’s writing for the Guardian.

In July Brian Sewell wrote an article in the Daily Mail and I quote:

Is it true that the lives of heterosexual Mancunians are haplessly intertwined with transvestites, transsexuals, teenage lesbians and a horde of homosexuals across the age range? Is Manchester now the Sodom of the North?

Sewell stated that there were far too many gay characters in the soap and the sane man may feel his nose is being rubbed in it.

Luckily we have Charlie Condou who plays Marcus Dent in Coronation Street.

Not only is Charlie a great actor, he is also a great writer. He wrote a response to Sewell’s article (in the Guardian, not the Daily Mail) that was grown up and full of common sense.

 

Read it here.

Charlie is also happens to be a father and recently wrote another piece in the Guardian about fatherhood as a gay man. It was articulate and immensely moving:

I used to have a fantasy about being a father. It involved me gently lifting my sleeping child from the car and carrying her upstairs to her bed. I would imagine the small weight in my arms and the soft breath on my neck, even the feel of her hair on my face. That’s my truth now; I can’t count the times I’ve re-enacted this scenario for real. And it feels exactly as I imagined it would. I put her down into her cot and watch her chest rise and fall, and I feel so completely happy and calm. I don’t feel as if she has given my life meaning, my life was already meaningful, but the sense of responsibility I have now makes me feel more of a man somehow; maybe more adult is a better way of describing it. I understand what it is to put someone else first, to know that you love them more than they will ever love you, and that’s as it should be. I’m a dad, and it just feels right.

You can read the whole article here.

The Guardian has had the foresight to commission Charlie to write a weekly column for them on a Saturday. It’s called The Three of Us and it started last Saturday.