Brits 2013

It's February yet again, so it must be time for my annual Brits rant.

Thankfully, the award itself was looking more presentable than last years thanks to an overhaul by Damien Hirst and his famous colourful spots.

But in terms of entertainment, the Brits was bland and frankly rather boring.

Sure, Muse kicked off the whole thing in unprecedented style and bombast, and Taylor Swift had plenty of jaws dropping as she owned the stage and set pulses racing with a large scale take on recent single Trouble, both performances took advantage of the award shows monumental stature within the industry, but aside from a mesmerising turn from Ben Howard, the other live sets seemed to be lacking somewhat.

And it certainly wasn't just the artists on parade that left more to be desired, James Corden's abysmal presenting was completely devoid of any charisma, instead playing a good puppet, smiling and mugging for the camera.

Where was the impulsiveness of years gone past, where was the risk that saw Brit-Pop era award shows postponing broadcasting until a day later following the unplanned onstage antics of Jarvis Cocker, Brandon Block and Ronnie Wood?

There is nothing exciting about a polished smooth machine that runs perfectly, why do you think the biggest talking point of last year was the abrupt interruption of Adele's acceptance speech over any other winner or performance?

But where ITV's coverage was lacking, ITV2’s picking up of the baton backstage proved to be the perfect antidote.  Rizzle Kicks' amateur red carpet interviews from earlier in the evening had been replaced by sozzled revelry, an extremely loose approach to scripted questioning and disastrous attempts to read the autocue.

Co-host, Laura Whitmore, seemed panicked by the young pop duo who had clearly enjoyed far too much of the evenings hospitalities, but little did she know that the relaxed atmosphere of post-award show chitter chatter mixed with a free-flowing table service had caught celebrity guests completely with their guard down, resulting in far more honest entertainment, seeing stars as we very rarely do... drunk, witty and very funny.

It was car-crash telly, especially when Robbie Williams reduced .... To tears with his kind words and commandeered the strangely free-form interview, and I doubt Rizzle Kicks will be invited back in the same capacity next year, but we caught a rare glimpse into the real back-slapping culture of the music industry.

So next year, lets run the risk of uncertainty, lets see some more unpredicted behaviour, and lets have an award show that is worth discussing for more than just the predictable winners.