‘The most random guest list of all time’

WTF at the Chortle Awards

‘There are so many people to thank for this award. Unfortunately, they are all dead.’ Alan Simpson on collecting his and Ray Galton’s lifetime achievement award.

Best newcomer Lucy Beaumont revealed that Johnny Vegas is to make an appearance in the BBC Radio 2 show she has in development. She said: ‘I've worked with him a bit so I'm chuffed about that.’ She’s making the show after winning the BBC New Comedy Award.

Butterfingers James Lowey got one of the biggest unintentional laughs on the night, when collecting the prize for sketch and character act for Pappy’s – for whom he operates the sound and lights – and managed to drop the award. Let’s hope he’s more nimble fingered on those faders.... Arthur Smith later dropped Stand comedy club owner Tommy Sheppard’s Offstage Contribution award - but that was only to see if it would shatter. (Answer: No)

Tony Law handed his club comic award over to fellow nominee Phil Nichol so he could put it on his mantlepiece ‘and see my name every day... it’ll drive him mad and back to doing drugs again’.

Thanks to Hello magazine for covering the awards... although they did call them the Charlotte Awards in their tweet.

Award presenter Omid Djalili knows which side his bread's buttered: ‘I read Chortle every day,’ he told me. ‘I'd never have known about Louis CK's London gigs without it. The live stuff it covers is very important. I was doing gigs for years and nobody noticed - I was just this weird Arab bloke doing comedy. Do I read my reviews? Of course! I'm usually phoning up to ask when they're going online.’ Not so for host Jo Brand who says she stopped reading anything about herself after her first year in comedy. ‘Having spent the first year of my career reading everything - and taking it all very personally - I steer clear now and I'm much happier for it.’

Brand revealed she loves a heckler though. ‘I like to wring them out,’ she grinned. ‘My heckle scale runs from whimsical to nuclear. You have to be prepared. I think my favourite heckle was “Show us your knob”. I said “I will if I can see yours...but nobody's brought a microscope.”’

Unlikely inspiration? King of deadpan Stewart Lee says he was inspired by the manic idiocy of Goodie Bill Oddie. ‘He was one of the people who made me want to go into comedy,’ said a star-stuck Lee.

Tweets of the night:
Caitlin Mora(@ caitlinmoran ): Amazing night at the Chortle Awards - not least because most people in the room mistook Dappy from N-Duz as Prince.
Wendy Wason (@Wendy_Wason ): Some were impressed by Dappy. I didn't recognise him and he wasn't very friendly when I asked him where the loos were.