BEST WHODUNNIT
Becky with the good hair
Trapped, Marcella, The Missing: this year has been jam-packed with mind-boggling mysteries. But, in a strange twist, the most compelling came not from the world of TV crime drama but audio-visual progressive R&B. When Beyoncé concluded her apparently Jay Z-baiting track Sorry with the lyric “he better call Becky with the good hair”, the hunt for its subject was on. Early suspects included Rita Ora and Taylor Swift, before it emerged that “Becky” was a generic term for a white woman and – according to the song’s co-writer Wynter Gordon – not a reference to any one person. And so the search continues… RA
BEST BLOCKBUSTER ACTION SCENE
Planet Earth II
Do one, Deadpool. See ya, Suicide Squad. Series two of the Beeb’s animal extravaganza bettered any big-budget Hollywood effort for spectacle. The lizard v snakes heart-stopper has been rightly celebrated, but just as dramatic was the scene in which a gang of marauding wasps attempted to pick off the tadpole offspring of a tiny glass frog, only for Dad to deliver an almighty kung-fu kicking courtesy of his amazing elasticated leg. Kapow! GM
BEST PROPHECY
Black Mirror’s San Junipero
After scaring even himself with his PM and the pig episode in 2011, the third series of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror was at times a bit pedestrian (certain scenarios being less dystopian, more already happening to teenagers and I’m A Celeb contestants on a fairly regular basis). But there was one instalment that was both hair-raisingly outlandish and hair-raisingly plausible. Centring on a young woman trying to get off with a glamorous lady in an 80s nightclub, it soon unravelled into a scenario that – without giving too much away – could well end up being the Pokémon Go generation’s equivalent of Brave New World. Haunting, but you know it’s going to happen. RA
THE RIHANNA FT DRAKE AWARD FOR WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK WORKRATE
Louis Theroux
Perhaps spurred on by the creeping sensation that some of the fringe lunatics he’d interviewed over the years were suddenly becoming very mainstream, Louis UK had an astonishingly productive 2016. There was My Scientology Movie, a sly skewering of the celeb-hungry organisation, and two gut-punching docs exploring alcoholism and the unseen side effects of brain injuries. Belatedly, he also turned the camera on himself for Louis Theroux: Savile, re-examining his 2000 encounter with a serial sex offender. GV
MICHAEL GOVE AWARD FOR BEST EXPERT
Amy Adams in Arrival
“We’ve had enough of experts,” harrumphed apple-cheeked antichrist Gove a couple of weeks before the EU referendum. And, in the short term, he was right: Britain’s decision to “take back control” was a clear rejection of technocrats, elites and generally knowledgeable people. But then came Amy Adams’s cunning linguist in smart sci-fi movie Arrival, who used her professional expertise to communicate with aliens and avert the total destruction of mankind. A timely reminder that, when it comes to the crunch, it’ll be the folk who know what they’re doing who’ll save us, not the bloke who looks like a Kinder Surprise toy. GM
BEST USAGE OF A MUM AT AN AWARDS CEREMONY
Skepta
When the Mercury prize panel decided to recognise the grittiest of music genres’ growing global domination by giving the 2016 award to grime artist Skepta, we doubt that they’d foreseen that it would also spawn one of the best guest appearances of recent memory: Skepta’s mum. What better way for a rapper to show his true realness than by bringing his own ma up onstage to perform a scene-stealing wiggle? Fingers crossed that next year Wiley accepts an award while his nan spits on a hanky and wipes his face with it. AD
SPECIAL AWARD FOR SERVICES TO THE MIDLIFE CRISIS
Divorce, Camping and Flowers
Enjoying a midlife crisis? Well, 2016 was the year that amplified it with all-too-familiar scenes of unsettled desperation on TV. You could almost smell the hate between Sarah Jessica Parker and Thomas Haden Church in Divorce. Julia Davis and her lederhosen was the catalyst for a mass unravelling in Camping; while Flowers took that pesky feeling of unhappiness to even darker places. Uncomfortable to watch, but very funny. HV
MUSICIAN WE’RE MOST SURPRISED TO FIND STILL ALIVE AT THE END OF 2016
Iggy Pop
Pity Chris Baker. Every time the Photoshop enthusiast posts his Sgt Pepper commemoration of 2016’s celebrity deaths, another music icon bites the dust. The Grim Reaper is, at least, democratic: there have been losses from prog (Emerson, Lake) to disco (Rod Temperton, David Mancuso); from superstars such as Prince and Bowie to cult heroes Sharon Jones and Leon Russell. Altogether more hearteningly, the new Rolling Stones album came with tales of Keef (72) partying to 7am; Giorgio Moroder (76) threw a summer NYC warehouse bash; while, shirtless on the red carpet at Cannes, a distinctly chipper Iggy Pop (69) noted: “I seem to have been able to regenerate from the various things I put into myself.” MH
MOST FLAMBOYANT IRRITATION OF RADIO 1 LISTENERS
Kurupt FM
You know it’s been good going for your BBC radio sessions when one of your performances spawns a viral video of you duetting with Craig David while informing him that you invented the word “rewind”. Also when your Radio 1 Live Lounge performance is so brilliantly precise in its spoofing of garage culture that enraged listeners can’t tell that it’s a joke and take to Twitter to label your comedy insults and bad MCing as “the worst Live Lounge in history”. Trolling has rarely been so funny: is there no stopping Brentford’s finest pirate radio mob? AD
BEST BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH
Benedict Cumberbatch
From Hamlet to Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch continues to be ubiquitous. Magazine covers, chatshows, gifs, at the end of the supermarket checkout helping pack your big shop: you couldn’t get away from Cumbers in 2016. Even a controversial turn as supermodel All in mega-flop Zoolander 2 couldn’t slow him down. The best Cumberbatch though? Doctor Strange, because anyone who can make the plotline “he’s a neurosurgeon, trained in mystical arts!” into an accessible blockbuster character is clearly a genius. IS
BEST ROBOT
Maeve from Westworld
Not a bad year for robots: Robot Wars’s Sir Killalot was back smashing the WD40 out of rickety wrecks built by the lonely in their sheds, and Humans returned with a sexy, synthy wallop. But, realistically, 2016 can only belong to one android: Thandie Newton’s mechanical madam Maeve in HBO’s Westworld, who became the star of a series not exactly short of them, morphing from a soulless automaton to an emotionally wrecked, knife-toting Terminator of cowpoke badassery. She’ll be back. LH
THE WITCH HOUSE AWARD FOR WORST NEW MUSICAL GENRE
Tropical house
From Rihanna’s Work to Justin Bieber’s Sorry and Drake’s Views, dancehall influences were rife in 2016. But where the Jamaican genre should have been getting its dues, the internet crowned it “tropical house” instead. With no mention of the debt the tracks owed to dancehall, this was appropriation of the most irritating order. Which means it beats the unbearably niche sub-genre of Simpsonwave – vaporwave set to visuals from the Simpsons – to scoop this gong. RA
THE AWARD FOR BEST BIG-BUDGET BOTTOM
The Night Manager
Bums were big news in 2016. The Turner prize glorified a huge pair of buttocks, but even Anthea Hamilton’s cheeky entry couldn’t eclipse the bottom that captivated the nation this year. The moment when Tom Hiddleston’s Jonathan Pine bared his derriere in the BBC’s The Night Manager was the moment that launched a million memes. What the show lacked in plausibility, it delivered in showy, take-your-trousers-off intrigue. Forget Emmy nominations, Hiddleston received the ultimate pop culture accolade: a stint as Taylor Swift’s boyfriend. HV
MOST UNLIKELY COMEBACK
Craig David
Craig David had a No 1 album and won a Mobo this year. THIS YEAR. How did that even happen? Leigh Francis’s rubber-masked assassination of his credibility in the early 00s in Channel 4’s Bo’ Selecta felt so complete that there didn’t seem to be any way back for Southampton’s souliest son. So Craig became hench. Then: distressingly so. And then BOOM, here he is, in our lives once again, beating Sketpa to Mobos. Next year, incredibly, he headlines two nights at London’s O2. What sound does Craig David make when he bounces back? Boing. (Sorry.) LH
THE ‘POCKETFUL OF KRYPTONITE’ AWARD FOR BIGGEST SUPERHERO FIASCO
Superman v Batman: Dawn Of Justice
Even after the bleached-out muddle of 2013’s Man Of Steel, an interlinked screen universe featuring the DC Comics spandex gang still seemed inevitable: it was simply Too Bat to Fail. But instead of confidently inaugurating a shared cinematic playground, Zack Snyder’s fanboy fever dream Superman v Batman: Dawn Of Justice – a deafening, illogical nonsense of random plot threads and miscommunicated motivations – threatened to neck-snap it at birth. Biff! Bang! Ka-plop! GV
BEST USE OF SMUT IN A PODCAST
My Dad Wrote A Porno
While the art of double entendre is forced down TV viewers’ throats these days, there’s not enough of it in podcasting. Until, that is, Belinda Blumenthal hit the scene. The sexy saviour of audio lust burst into the mainstream with a second series about her antics this year. “Author” Rocky Flintstone took her unbridled lasciviousness out of a “medium-sized maze” and all the way to “Amsterdammmm.” Who’d have thought hearing a woman talk about popping their vaginal lid would be so unsexy? (Everyone.) HV
THE ‘SHOW YOU’D LEAST LIKE TO WATCH WITH YOUR PARENTS’ AWARD
Fleabag
Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s casual anal sex commentary on BBC3’s Fleabag was the most shocking, funny and real scene of the year. Talking about how much you loved the show, though, was even more uncomfortable than watching it – pub chat resulted in people around the table revealing way too much detail about the size of, well, y’know, and mumbling “yeah, so true to life” while trying to pretend they watched the whole episode and didn’t just go and sit in a bath with their arms around their knees after the first two minutes. Between this and Naked Attraction, 2016 was the year we realised that watching TV was no longer a family activity. IS
THE BAHA MEN AWARD FOR CANINE EMANCIPATION
Sansa Stark
As well as setting a grisly new benchmark for gizzard-slitting ultraviolence, GoT’s Battle of the Bastards also brought home a record haul of Emmys. The most satisfying scene arguably took place after the supersized medieval havoc, though, with industrious sadist Ramsay Bolton finally getting his just deserts at the command of his least deserving victim (and the teeth of his hungry hunting hounds). Who let the dogs out? Sansa, that’s who (who, who, who). GV
MOST DISPIRITING POLITICAL ENDORSEMENT
Kanye West
The internet self-combusted when Kate Bush called Theresa May “wonderful”. But no pop performer would come out for Trump, would they? During the campaign, only Azealia Banks and Loretta Lynn, and until last week the president-elect’s inauguration lineup was risking looking as threadbare as Leave EU’s Bpop Live event. But then came Kanye and that photo op at Trump Tower. What, the world sighed, could these two minted serial attention-seekers possibly have in common? MH
MOST POINTLESS TANTRUM
All those idiots who whinged about Ghostbusters
When the all-female Ghostbusters was announced in 2015, it was like Paul Feig had revealed a TV show called Puppy Murder: Live! And as the film’s release date got closer, and the cast dared to – gasp! – speak up for themselves, the internet went into meltdown. Women? Taking lead roles in films? Making jokes? Daring to have opinions? It was only after cast member Leslie Jones was subjected to a torrent of racist abuse and had to leave Twitter, and the film actually came out, that people realised that the movie was actually all right, Kate McKinnon was amazing and those childhood memories were … still intact. Is it possible that everyone overreacted just a tiny bit and it wasn’t the worst thing to happen this year? IS
BEST FORMATION DANCING
Christine & The Queens
There are plenty of awards that French pop star Héloïse Letissier could have won this year: best style, best album, best take on gender fluidity, best Gallic rap bits, best backstory (her alter-ego Christine was reared by drag acts in Soho). But her dance routines – a fluid, body-popping mix of voguing, mime and Michael Jackson, alongside a troupe of backing breakers – were in a league of their own, whether performed to a rapt Glastonbury crowd or on Graham Norton. Her rise has been unstoppable; long may this dancing queen reign. KH
UNLIKELY WOKE ICON OF THE YEAR
Gary Lineker
What a year for Gary. Presenting Match Of The Day in his pants after Leicester won the league was actually one of the less weird things that happened to him. Because, in the absence of anything much from the Labour party, Gary – along with comrades James O’Brien and Charlotte Church – has accidentally become the unofficial opposition. He’s committed the ultimate sin in post-referendum Britain: taking a stand for decency. As a result, this crisp-flogging Guevara wandered into the crosshairs of the Mail, the Sun, Ukip and the massed ranks of the UK trollocracy. Still, he’s not stopping. Fight the power, Gary. PH
MOST EXCRUCIATINGLY AWKWARD CELEBRITY DEATH MIX-UP Tiffany Pollard
This year, celebrity deaths came so thick and fast that the odd miscommunication was probably inevitable. However, the deeply odd and fist-bitingly uncomfortable David Bowie/David Gest misunderstanding that took place between Tiffany Pollard and Angie Bowie on Celebrity Big Brother was an early sign that in 2016, if it could go wrong, it would. PH
THE BOB DYLAN AWARD FOR POP STAR POETRY
Solange Knowles
In a year of pretentious pop star verse, the 1975’s Matt Healy revealed that his album title could have been even more excruciating if he’d used a different line from the same poem (“I love it when you sleep, for i swear i’ll protect her from the wheedling, redolent, saccharine nectar”, anyone?); Frank Ocean littered his Boys Don’t Cry zine with poetic musings (not as impressive as his carpentry); while in retrospect Kanye West’s childlike ode to McDonald’s in the same publication may have been a cry for help. But Solange went the full Pete Doherty. She released a “poetry book” consisting of lyrics from her excellent album A Seat At The Table – typeset in a such a maddeningly quirky way that it made EE Cummings look like an amateur. SR
BEST 23RD SERIES OF TOP GEAR
The Grand Tour
The Clarkson Steak Implosion of 2015 has resulted, rather brilliantly, in a sort of accidental best-case scenario coming to pass. It has killed Top Gear, it has killed the legitimacy of recycling programme ideas simply because you can get away with it, and it might even have killed the baffling currency of the Clarkson-May-Hammond triumvirate itself. By wandering off to indulge themselves pointlessly in their Amazon black hole, they’ve lost the mainstream visibility that gave their act its tension. They’ve become ignorable. So we’ll do that, shall we? PH
THE DREXL SPIVEY AWARD FOR DODGIEST DREADLOCK
Shia LaBeouf for American Honey
Sure, it’s hard to picture a more disturbing coiffure in 2016 than Trump’s yellowed bouffant. But trumping that – sorry! – the worst follicle offender this year was surely Shia LaBeouf’s lone manky rat’s tail in Andrea Arnold’s roadtrip youth movie American Honey. It whirled around the screen like a firework, threatening to burrow itself into love interest Star’s neck at any opportune moment. It sweatily flapped around like a dachshund’s ear in summer. It definitely smelt rank. Perhaps the most astounding aspect of LaBeouf’s natty braid, though, was how we absolutely fancied him in the film spite of it. Which must mean he is the greatest actor who ever lived or something. KH
THE ‘STOP BEING GOOD AT SO MUCH STUFF’ AWARD
Riz Ahmed
The socially acceptable thing when someone is doing well is to be happy for them, even if, inside, you’re a broiling caldera of jealousy. Say things like “good for you” and “you deserve it”, stuff like that. So, Riz. You stormed Jason Bourne. Gripped the nation in The Night Of. Found time to be an actual rapper, all while coming across as a decent bloke who’s also in Star Wars? Well done, Riz. You deserve it. You bastard. LH
MOST GANGSTER FICTIONAL PRIEST
The Young Pope
Machiavelli in a cassock and flip-flops anyone? Jude Law’s Pope Lenny is an utterly terrifying creation. The fags and the Cherry Coke Zero are red herrings. This man is ice cold. Brave is the cardinal who steps to him. Foolish is the politician who seeks to curb his will to power. He doesn’t even seem to be afraid of nuns. He’s got Papal Infallibility and he’s working it to death. Father Dougal, he ain’t. PH
THE GRIZZLY MAN AWARD FOR APEX PREDATOR FAIL
The Revenant bear
It’s only been a few weeks since that Aussie sucker-bopped a kangaroo for putting his dog in a headlock, so humanity’s still puffing its chest out, thinking it’s the hardest of all the animals. Wrong. The Revenant was a stark reminder of this, as Leo DiCaprio’s beautiful face was slapped clean off his body by an ornery grizzly in a dispute over a patch of woods. Though his character survived, the message was clear: don’t mess with nature. It has claws, and teeth, and a temper, and it will happily kill you to death. LH
