March 3rd 2000
Earls Court/ITV
Donna and Richard Blackwood presented Robbie Williams with the Brit for Best British Video.
There’s so much wrong with this video that it’s hard to comprehend it all at first glance – remember, this was the Millennium, when we all felt like we were living in the future.
It was also the peak of Donna’s MTV career, so her reputation as a professional ‘ligger’ (there’s a word you don’t hear so often any more…) explains some of Davina’s stranger comments.
But that doesn’t explain any of the following:
- Donna’s 1980s Kylie Minogue hair
- Donna’s collar (is that actually a brown leather dog collar?)
- Donna calls Davina ‘Davinia’
- Richard Blackwood thinks the Brit award itself is his microphone
- Richard bashes the Brit against the podium as the nominees VT begins
Other highlights of this clip:
- Robbie on ice skates for She’s The One wins ‘best video’ over Fatboy Slim’s Praise You and Supergrass’ Pumping on Your Stereo (which are both much better videos)
- Robbie flew from New York on Concorde to attend the ceremony – these days, he couldn’t have got there in time
- Robbie asks an arena full of people who voted for the video of him ice skating: “Did you see me ice skate?” No Robbie, they voted without ever watching the video (some of them probably did)
I’m not entirely convinced that Donna wasn’t a little bit drunk, to be honest, but like I said, she had her reputation to uphold (and to be fair, she still looked great either way).
Looking back now though, it already seems strange to think that, at the time, we thought we were living in a brave new world, when in fact we were all just giving Robbie another Brit for his mantelpiece.