Oscars 2021 live: the winners and the speeches from the 93rd Academy Awards | Film

And now we’re back with King, introducing the best adapted screenplay nominees. And it’s the same format. It’s like being a party, being introduced to other people because the person you’re currently talking to has grown bored of you. I sort of hate it.

Emerald Fennell hasn’t written a speech, so is just describing the weight and temperature of the Oscar itself. But she’s charming, riffing about Saved by the Bell. Carey Mulligan gets thanked. But most of the cast and crew aren’t there. What a weird, lonely ceremony this is going to be.

It’s BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY. And instead of clips, King is introducing each nominee in the same way a gameshow host might introduce a set of contestants. I don’t want to be hyperbolic, but if this is the way the whole show will be, I’m going to throw myself out of a window into a skipful of infected syringes.

And with Zendaya in a lemon yellow bandeau dress which matched her mask, that’s it from the fashion desk. So how was it? Small, but powerful. Tulle, bows, socially distanced dresses and some absolute stellar twists on the tux from the men, the first in-person red carpet event this year was about scale, glamour and gold Crocs

King has a hard job here; introducing the show, explaining the weirdness, commenting on Black Lives Matter and performing what might generously be described as a monologue, albeit a monologue about vigorous Covid-testing. AND she’s presenting an award. What a woman.

Barely anyone is in attendance. This has all the ambience of a morning zoo radio show. It’s WEIRD.

We begin with a sort of relay race, as Regina King walks into the train station with an Oscar, and then sort of keeps walking. This isn’t actually a relay race at all, sorry. It’s just Regina King walking through a train station with an Oscar.

Finally – finally! – the Oscars are here, live from a train station. Strap in, the three people who are actually watching the Oscars this year. This will be something.

Laura Dern

In another fitting homage to Björk’s swan dress from 2001, Laura Dern has gone for the anti-Zoom look of the night: gussied feathered skirt down below, sober polo neck up top. Moira Rose meets Animal Farm.

Colman has just let slip that Anthony Hopkins isn’t at the London hub. He certainly doesn’t seem to be in LA either. If he wins, this could be the first old-school non-attendance we’ve seen in years.

Over on the Sky pre-show, Olivia Colman is being interviewed from the London Oscars hub on the South Bank. She seems very aware that it is 1am and the hall seems sparsely attended and quite echoey.

Halle Berry

Halle Berry looks happy to be out of the house tonight.

I’m going to abandon the red carpet in a moment to get ready to liveblog the actual Oscars, but one of the red carpet people just got extraordinarily excited about “a low messy pony” and now my next children’s book has a new lead character.

Not to say that Regina King has walked off with the red carpet, but her stylists are now being interviewed on the red carpet. This is happening because Regina King is wearing a once-in-a-generation dress, and not because this red carpet is a howling vacuum of nothingness and the E! executives are currently sitting in a room riddled with anguish over the fact that they decided to dedicate three hours to this madness.

Angela Bassett

Quality Street couture from Angela Bassett. Super-sized sleeves and a tulle cape, with a huge bow on the back, make it extra delicious.

Questlove

Gold Crocs on socked feet? After the year we’ve had? There’s always one.

Vanessa Kirby

It’s a red carpet of two halves as far as the womenswear is concerned: crop tops and boob tubes in one corner, roll necks in another. I know which I would rather be wearing, but Princess Margaret looks spectacular in this dress with its half-moon shaped cut out. The blood red lips – and visible lockdown roots – bring bite to the blush pink satin.

There has been a ton of talk on the red carpet about THE RETURN OF GLAMOUR, and how it has banished the year-long funk we have all been suffering though. GLAMOUR WINS OUT, they said.

And then this happened.