Lucy Lumsden’s TV diary

Lucy Lumsden’s TV diary

By Lucy Lumsden,
Tuesday, 14th July 2015
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Gigs, Guinness and going to Soho screenings are all part of a week’s activities for Lucy Lumsden
 

Just back to Sky’s new hot-desking haven, "The Hub", after a Guinness-fuelled weekend in freezing Kilkenny at the Sky Cat Laughs Comedy Festival. Boss Stuart Murphy plonks himself opposite me, which is disastrous for concentration levels.

Tonight, it’s the Sky News party for MPs at the top of the Millbank Tower. I wish Yvette Cooper good luck; she’s wearing a baby-blue jacket – easy to spot in a sea of grey suits.

The RTS Student Television Awards, chaired by Stuart, on a gloriously hot day at BFI Southbank. The chilly wind of Kilkenny is a distant memory. Came out feeling full of inspiration and admiration for the nominees.

Forced my kids to watch the new Clangers. Hubby and I are transfixed, they are bored after two minutes. How depressing!

New series of Doll & Em starts this week on Sky Atlantic. So nice to see the girls again at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards at the Savoy. Made the mistake of thinking they might win, but The Trip To Italy gets it... again. And well deserved. Hey ho.

I’m delighted to be sitting next to Don McCullin who presents an award to the guys behind the poppies at the Tower of London. The running theme across the evening is the fragility of a truly original idea: if it feels difficult, then it’s likely you’re on to something special.

Up at 3:30am to take son to meet coach for school day trip to France. Back to bed.  

Woken up by the doorbell at 5:30am: my son, standing on the step looking forlorn. Trip cancelled as teacher with all the passports didn’t show up. We’re all speechless.

I go bowling later with my lovely team. As it’s Ben Boyer’s birthday, I let him win.  

I’m seriously aware of how much time I spend on my iPhone. Doesn’t generate ideas for me, just regurgitates them. I know far too much about things like "the top 10 disastrous facelifts."  

As a tiny antidote, I’m going to a life-drawing class tonight. I draw a very naked Barry to the sounds of Frank Sinatra. Not an iPhone to be seen, it’s very restoring.

Insane day with a ton of reading to do, followed by three screenings to attend across Soho in one night.

A quick hello to Idris Elba at King for a Term, then hot foot it to Working Title to see the Yonderland cast, then on to Kim Cattrall’s Ruby Robinson.  

I end the night drinking Guinness (again), surrounded by a bunch of acrobats asking me if the show’s any good. "Good? It’s brilliant, of course!"

Blur tonight in Hyde Park with my friend Nira Park in the rain. A brilliant gig, it’s a total 1990s-nostalgia fest.

Blur look happy, the crowd are ecstatic. I even briefly jump up and down with my umbrella.  We meet up with Alfie Allen and Kit Harington afterwards. Nira and I spend the night chatting about the 1990s, when we worked at The Comic Strip Presents... together.

We took the day job so seriously but, boy, did we have a ball. Unadulterated pre-Twitter fun.

I’m on the RTS diversity panel event tonight. Oh my, thank God our targets are simple. A scrap breaks out in the crowd – amazingly, between three people from the BBC disagreeing about their own policy on diversity. This is a scene from W1A, surely.  

At the Broadcast Digital Awards on a beautiful balmy evening, Sky 1’s Wild Things collects an award – one of the team dressed as a squirrel.  

Very happy for my old pal Cheryl Taylor, who wins award for CBBC. We reminisce about BBC days for the few minutes we share before being swept back to our respective camps.

Lucy Lumsden is head of comedy at Sky.