I was delighted to be hosted this weekend by these lovely people from BAFTA LA at the 67th EMMY Awards, held in downtown Los Angeles.  There are few experiences like it really! An awards night, dinner and various parties for about 3,000 TV people; talent, producers, writers [yes, writers get lots of nods], comedians, musicians and technicians.  The event was hosted by Adam Sandberg, who was OK, but probably a little bit too smart, so some of the very "in" jokes fell flat.  The three-hour event was polished within an inch of its life, with the show never managing to get in the way of the 4 minute ad breaks, which absurdly broke the pace and rhythm of the event. Appropriately, all the great highlights of the show were the Brits: Armando Iannucci swearing while winning a writing award for Veep, Ricky Gervais pretending he'd won an Emmy [despite only being booked to dish out an award], James Cordon for his hilarious homage to accountants Ernst & Young.  We'd warmed up [literally in 95 degrees heat] for the main show at the BAFTA LA #tvtea the day before, which was packed with ambitious young thesps stumbling on vertiginous heels through a throng of older, wiser, more sun-soaked ex-pats who had served their time before the cameras when there were fewer channels and the British accent alone had been aphrodisiac enough.  A lovely moment for me was when a young British actress, surrounded by admirers, offered the perfect self-deprecatory line, with irony, of course:  "Yes, I'm currently working as an actress, but I am trying to break into waitressing."  24 hours later we were in the bar with Doug from House of Cards.  Not surprisingly he was drinking mineral water.  More surprisingly, he smiled, briefly.  We shuffled towards the stage as Andrea Bocelli broke into a rendition of Maria, or Tonight, or something evocative and meaningful.  Bocelli sang three numbers and then a brilliantly attired cover band murdered every song you've ever loved with such aplomb that I have decided not to seek out the originals ever again. They were that good.  Oblivious to the entertainment, 3,000 people continued to network.  The dance floor remained sparse.  At the Emmys, Game of Thrones cleaned up about a dozen awards and long-overlooked John Hamm finally won a best actor gong for his decade of being the inimitable Don Draper.  We ended up that night at the HBO party which was suitably 'aflame' with a Dragon theme, which only made the nighttime humidity that bit more unbearable, but it did make the bar stations and 'air-conditioned' disco the only cool place to be.  

Those of you who have followed the Wave Your Arms blog for some time will know of this writer's long struggle* to a) get read, b) get optioned and c) get made.  I maintain, the tricky bit is always getting read.  So to stand amidst hundreds who had trod that treacherous path, who had sworn and sweated and lied and cajoled and schmoozed and begged and pleaded and yes, ultimately had been read and optioned and made was a thrill of a sort I will never forget.  It was a real pleasure to be amidst friends who work so hard to make creative stuff come alive and look amazing.  Finally, as an exercise in seeing how the entertainment capital of the world lets its hair down, it was also quite an eye opener.  Uber picked us up from the Game Of Thrones after-show party, about 1 am.  Yes, 1 am.  And we were almost the last to leave.  

*See more on creative writing and current projects here.