Manchester 1, London 0: The Brits highs and lows

For London music journalists, the news that The Brits 2026 would take place in Manchester was both annoying and a relief. The fact it would be impossible to attend given working journalist wages and the cost of train travel – though I bet the guy from the Times had a lift – was frustrating but on the other hand, we were spared of having to spend the evening talking about how the record industry was better in the old days and trying to get into third tier afterparties.

Instead, this Brit Awards was about simply enjoying it on TV – and, it was a good one. A very good one. Here are the highs and a few lows:

Unlike the Baftas, the Brits have realised the most important thing is to have a good comedian host. After Roman Kemp demonstrated what can happen when your host is not a good comedian in 2024 – now that was a long night – the Brits have since returned to Whitehall (this was his sixth time) with winning results. Despite one Mancunian interrupting grabbing his mic to call him a “nobhead”, this nobhead delivered at a laugh a minute as he milked the Manchester move for all it was worth. A couple of winning lines included him referring to the Brits move to Manchester and Oasis reforming making “a great year for Manchester drug dealers,” and reassuring viewers about bad language since they had, “the guy from the Baftas on beeping duties.”

The night made sure to nod plentifully to the great sons of Manchester, or rather Madchester, which included a couple of priceless moments with the Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder and Bez, who, for reasons no-one would ask since it’s Bez, was dressed as a Tudor magician. After having earlier introduced them by saying they had “aged as well as service station flowers,” Whitehall sat down with him during one of his table walks for a suitably chaotic chat, which featured a awkward Aitch vs H joke (Ryder knew the latter, not the former) and then a pre-prepared stunt where Paddington’s legs were shown sticking out from the table, as if the poor bear had had another bad awards experience after the Baftas, which ended with an unprepared response from Ryder: “Me and Bez had sex with Paddington Bear.”

Reading speeches off phones at the podium has been creeping into award ceremonies of late, and its immensely annoying. Not only does it undermine any humble notions of ‘surprise’ but it feels unconfident and, as Lola Young and Wolf Alice demonstrated at the Brits, leads to the temptation of writing a little essay that fails to register when its actually read out. If you want to raise awareness to small venues struggling – a very important cause Wolf Alice flagged – you don’t need to stick to a script, just speak from the heart.

Her album, Lux, was a huge triumph last year, but you it feel was more talked about than listened to. Well, this performance delivered to the nation/ITV viewers exactly what Rosalia is all about with a track that started as opera, before a cameo by Bjork dressed as Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants cued a climax like a rave in an 18th century brothel. Probably one of the best performances in years. Even better than…

Apparently Alex Warren spent 12 weeks at number one with his song Honesty. The charts were never a sign of quality even in their heyday, but this seems to have been a reflection of the song appearing as background music to cat videos. Anyway, a sign of its musical quality was signified by the fact James Blunt (dressed as Noel Coward) accompanied Warren (dressed as a middle manager at a Bond-themed company party) on piano.

The Godlike Irish superstar CMAT backed up a nice red carpet appearance in which she dismissed Radiohead and Wim Winders’ notions that art shouldn’t be political – “Everything is politics… you don’t get to make art in a fascist state” – and as Rosalia beat her to International Artist of the Year, the camera took to her breaking the usual gracious Losers face rules by mock sobbing to hilarious effect. Next year, CMAT, next year…

Harry Styles performed his new single Aperture, which was a little Coldplay-lite but enlivened by some excellently weird dancing that recalled Let’s Dance-era Bowie or any-era David Byrne. Best of all were Harry’s high-waisted trousers, which made him look like an 80s trainee bank manager, in a good way.

It’s always someone in particular’s night, and this was firmly Olivia Dean’s. While fellow Brit School grad Raye trumped her performance-wise on the night, Dean is just so likeable it felt feel-good every time she was on the stage. What are they feeding the kids at Brits School? It’s getting almost suspicious now.

The in memoriam section featured a tribute to Manchester son legend Mani (Tim Burgess giving a tribute in a pleasingly un-slick manner), before Robbie Williams fronted Ozzy Osbourne’s band for an exceptional version of No More Tears to pay tribute to the big man. Williams dialled it down for a surprisingly muscular performance which brought the fire down on what was a triumphant night for the North.