Lower the Stars and Stripes, put away the champagne it’s time to hoist the Union Jack and put the kettle on for a nice cup of tea.
It’s BritWeek here in Los Angeles and the locals are celebrating all that’s great about the United Kingdom.
Aside from that nasty business when they sacked us as their colonial overlords, Americans tend to be fans of us Brits.
BritWeek is very British. For a start, it’s actually held over 11 days.
Secondly, the goodie bags given to guests a must for any event here in La La are notably different.
Some Hollywood bashes give out Jimmy Choo handbags or vouchers for laser eye surgery. The party at the Consul General’s Residence handed out a bag that contained . . . a packet of HobNobs. Given it’s difficult to get any home comforts here in Hollywood, I was delighted with that.
There were lots of big names here. In fact, it was like a zoo there was a Cat, a Seal and a Monkey.
Well, it was actually Cat Deeley, pop star Seal, and a former Monkee, Micky Dolenz. Cat and husband, comedian Patrick Kielty, looked smashing. They are obviously very happy together.
Patrick’s an old friend of mine, and I first met him at a comedy club in Ireland. We were watching a stand-up gig there and the crowd were incredibly vicious.
Jo Brand came out and said: “You’re a small crowd.”
“And so are you,” shouted one wag.
BritWeek is a celebration of British business and entertainment in LA. My favourite of the 40 events being held is a celebration of British villains such as Jason Isaacs, Tom Hiddleston, Mark Stone and Sir Ben Kingsley.
I grabbed a chat with Jason Isaacs, better known as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. Never mind chatting about how the UK has influenced Hollywood he was just delighted that Liverpool are on the verge of clinching the Premier League.
“I can finally hold my head up high,” he told me. I’ll be the same when Partick Thistle finally land the SPFL title, Jason.
Speaking of football, Tony Curran, star of Thor and Miami Vice, was at the British Consulate, too. He was being quizzed by a crowd of American reporters and one asked him which moment in history he’d like to visit.
“May 25, 1967,” answered Tony, as quick as a flash. There was what could only be described a loud silence as the baffled American journalists, who hadn’t heard of Jock Stein and Celtic’s European Cup win, looked blankly at him while trying to work out what he meant.
Seal is looking great despite his recent divorce from the model, Heidi Klum. He seemed to have a great time, but didn’t go out afterwards. I’m not surprised Seal didn’t go clubbing…
Also there was Supernanny Jo Frost. She’s a big name over here these Yanks love her style. Jo is about to launch her new chat show, Family Matters.
I bumped into Claudia Christian, who sci-fi fans will recognise as Commander Ivanova from Babylon 5.
“The last time I saw you there were hot-water bottles taped to your body,” she told me. She wasn’t wrong. Claudia and I worked on a Steven Seagal movie called Half Past Dead back in 2002. It was set in Los Angeles but filmed in Berlin in the dead of winter. We had a scene together looking out over Berlin harbour and the crew had to tape hot-water bottles to us to stop us freezing to death.
I got chatting to Fantastic Four star Ioan Gruffudd. One of the events at BritWeek was a celebration of William Shakespeare on the 450th anniversary of his birth. Ioan performed with Malcolm McDowell and Jane Seymour and I thought I’d try to get in on the act. I gave him some of my finest Shakespearean dialogue and asked what he thought.
At first I thought he said I would be as good as The Bard for the evening.
It turns out he was saying I was as good as barred.
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