Tributes do not come more classy than this. The late poet laureate John Betjeman died in 1984, but the calibre of performers at last night's celebration of his work, in the presence of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, spoke volumes about the esteem in which he is still held in fields as diverse as soaps and rock music.
They came from all aspects of the arts to pay homage. Hugh Grant, looking the epitome of bespoke cool in black suit and crisp white shirt, chipped in with Betjeman's paean to his Cornwall home, Trebetherick ("sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea"). Bill Nighy, running Grant a close second in the sartorial elegance stakes, bagged a peach of a piece, A Subaltern's Love Song, featuring the seductive Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, "furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun".
Almost every participant had a Betjeman connection. Peter Baldwin and Thelma Barlow — Mavis and Derek from Coronation Street — were a reminder of the poet's love of the northern soap. Ronnie Corbett in blue tartan trousers — "my wife bought them for me in the sales … at Mothercare" — harked back to his beloved music hall. The evening's host, Barry Humphries, forged an intimate, lasting friendship with Betjeman in 1960 after writing an admiring letter to his hero.
When there was not a tangible connection there was an emotional one. Suggs's band Madness shared the Laureate's fascination with Metroland's underbelly. The singer confirmed his interest in the dark side by delivering On A Portrait Of A Deaf Man, with its bleak, comically cadaverous images: "In Highgate now his finger-bones/stick through his finger-ends."
Nick Cave, another musician drawn to the offbeat, though not immediately associated with a heritage-heavy world of tea, vicars, steam trains and lumpy marmalade, added sublimely moving piano to the lustful, lyrical Senex — "the tennis-playing biking girl, the wholly-to-my-liking girl".
Despite a bill that also boasted Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, Richard E Grant, Rachael Stirling and an immaculately funny turn from Edward Fox, it was footage of Betjeman himself that stole the show. Whether hacking a golf shot or famously admitting that his greatest regret in life was not having had enough sex, that playful, avuncular smile was enough to melt the hardest of hearts.
Was anything missing? Perhaps Ricky Gervais reprising his recital of "Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough" in The Office. But maybe that would have been too much of a glorious thing.
