Being An Event Host – Tip No. 40 – Learn From A Master

London, UK

About half-way through the BAFTA’s last night, Steve Coogan paid homage to the host Stephen Fry, who, he said, “turns the job of an MC into an art form”. This is a sentiment with which I concur wholeheartedly.

Stephen Fry gave us a masterclass in running a high profile event and let’s face it, there isn’t anything bigger in the UK film industry. Fry was funny, self-deprecating, humble and gracious. His humour hit a high note when he described one of the female co-presenters as “so Swedish , that she arrived in a flat-pack”  and continued when he describing Leonardo Di Caprio as having lupine characteristics, a reference to the American star’s leading role in the Wolf of Wall Street.

Doing the rounds on social media is the term “grammar Police”. This refers sarcastically  to those who express disapproval of the incorrect usage of conjunctions and words such as “literally”. An American or two, overstepping the mark, incurred his wrath and the audience was suitably amused.

Fry’s use of language is unsurpassed. His magnificent outburst about disrobing and stepping in to a bath of asses milk like Cleopatra in Carry On Cleo, was anachronistic on three levels – by epoch, gender and physique and his introduction of a female co-presenter as utterly xxxx, utterly yyyy and utterly zzzz is a case of anaphora. Topping both of these was his opening description of himself as “humbled, honoured and in the best sense of the word, paid” a perfect use of that well-known figure of speech, a paraprosdokian.

Tags: events

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