Everything That’s Going to Happen During the 2019 BRIT Awards

Gather your housemates, get the tinnies in, order a massive takeaway and stick on ITV because tonight’s the night. The British music industry’s most ridiculous tradition, The BRIT Awards (2k19 edition) is right on the horizon. Anne-Marie and Dua Lipa lead the nominations this year, with Jack Whitehall hosting and performances from Calvin Harris, Jorja Smith, George Ezra and various other artists that your dad will proudly announce that he’s never heard of in his life. Also Pink (???) who he sort-of knows.

By now, it’s no secret that the BRITs fully evolved from feeling like an unhinged night buoyed by unfathomable amounts of high-quality gak, to James Corden screaming constantly for three hours. Jack Whitehall’s gig as host for the first time last year picked things up, though, and at least returned humour to the televised show. And we all know how it’s gonna go down, don’t we? It’s gonna go exactly like this. Make it into a drinking game if you like. Just…go easy yeah? It’s only Wednesday.

Is it even the BRITs if one of the live performances isn’t completely ruined because somebody was getting merry backstage and forgot to switch on a microphone or properly ‘X’ mark the spot where the moving parts of a stage might otherwise trap a performer? Truly it is not. Who will it be this year though? Calvin Harris, I reckon. Just feels a lot like his entire performance will hinge on a load of fuck-off lasers, half of which will conk out right in the middle, so then it’s just him in a plain grey T-shirt and brocade blazer stood behind some decks that aren’t really plugged in, pretending to DJ while Dua Lipa completely misses her cue. This is why you tune in every year, don’t lie.

Somewhere in the footnotes of ITV’s licensing contract is a small clause saying that they legally owe Gemma Collins £2 million if they don’t feature her in every live show they broadcast from now until 2025. How it got there is anyone’s guess, but it means that we’re probably gonna get at least three good memes out of tonight, the best of which will be the GC kissing George Ezra on the cheek while Jesy Nelson pulls a weird face in the background. 2019’s answer to the ‘woah, what’s that over my shoulder’ distracted boyfriend, for sure.

There’s always a whole section at the start where they talk up the design of this year’s award, which (soz to be a bitch about it) sort of looks like an ornament my grandma would pick up in the sale from Matalan. Might still go for a decent amount on eBay 20 years down the line though.

You can picture it now: Jesse Lingard or one of the other slightly more charismatic England internationals stiffly walking out with somebody from TOWIE on his arm, delivering what the autocue is telling them to say, and doing it in total deadpan. Maybe a whole thing where they announce the nominees in the wrong order so the video clips they play don’t match up and everyone gets really confused for a bit, and then an awkwardly long pause where they’re both waiting for the other person to say who the winner is. Football might not have come home but this is absolute gold.

Calvin Harris will not look Jack Whitehall in the eye, and Jack Whitehall doesn’t know what to do about it, so makes a terrible joke about Taylor Swift that only lands with about 10 percent of the audience, and you can see from his eyes that a little part of his soul has just died. We love it.

It is absolutely inevitable that one of the lads from The 1975 who’s not Matt Healy will unexpectedly outdo Liam Gallagher in their acceptance speech. All indoor sunglasses, messy hair, stumbling around hugging everyone before mumbling something completely incoherent and dropping the microphone on the stage. You don’t know this person’s name but will relish in the gorgeous memes that float on Insta for a day or two after the telecast.

Alex Turner is gonna tell somebody to “fuck off” right next to the microphone, generating 417 Ofcom complaints and forcing us all to watch Jack Whitehall do the whole faux-shocked “There are children watching!” routine, while the rest of the Arctic Monkeys carry on their conversation completely obliviously in the background. Half a page in the Mail about this tomorrow (“The ‘R U Mine?’ singer seemed to be having quite the night, forgetting that there would be children watching at home as he swore loudly into the microphone before the watershed.”)

Whitehall does a ‘bit’ where he sits down for a chat at Little Mix’s table, and you can almost hear his gears grinding into ‘OK fine, pretend to make this a bit sexy even though you’re not interested, they’re not interested, and Dad’s watching.’ They mix trying to ignore him with a few squeezed-out giggles, before he makes Perry give a shout-out to his ex and pretends to get upset when Jade won’t give him her number. You’re watching this out of choice.

Anne-Marie (who your mum keeps referring to as Marianne) is crying and shaking on your television screen and has forgotten who to thank. She’s saying “Oh my god oh my god” a lot and telling her mum and dad that she loves them, and now one of the Love Island girls is having to gently lead her off-stage, except she’s left the award on the podium so they have to come back and get it. The audience are absolutely loving it.

Ariana is probably too busy getting her tattoo corrected for the 18th time and you know Drake won’t set foot inside the O2 unless it’s for a week-long residency at £120 per ticket. Unfortunately, nobody outside of this doomed little island really pays attention to the BRITs, which means that there’s a strong chance we’re getting 40 percent of Brockhampton doing an awkward, though very tastefully framed, video acceptance speech where Joba looks away from the camera for the entire thing, and it’s pretty clear that they’re not really sure what it is that they’ve actually won.

Has the BRIT’s ever actually finished on time? No. No it hasn’t. Strong, strong likelihood that the credits roll right over Sam Smith trying for an emotive a cappella chorus and we cut straight into Chuka Umunna chatting about his new “political party” on the News at Ten.

Huge political story swept under the carpet in favour of Jorja Smith and Anne-Marie smiling with two statuettes each, and a double page spread by Jan Moir about how they’ve both “let down the side” with their “barely visible” skirts. See you all next year.

You can find Rosie on Twitter.