People tune into awards ceremonies praying for moments like this, writes Shropshire Star movie critic Carl Jones.

Flustered, confused and tearful, a normally composed Hollywood star takes to the stage and loses it in front of millions of people.

Today it was the turn of the Kate Winslet to show that the Americans don’t hold the monopoly on rambling, sickly-sweet hyperventilation on the biggest night of their lives.

“Is this really happening?” she asked, as she stepped on stage to collect her second Golden Globe award, best actress for her performance in Revolutionary Road, breathing like she’d just run half a mile to catch the number 49 bus.

Yes, madam, it most certainly is. You’re going to bits, delivering a piece of grade A car-crash television, and your fellow nominees are sniggering at you.

“I’m going to try to do this off the cuff,” she said, having used up the acceptance speech on her first award, best supporting actress for The Reader.

“Thank you so much . . . thank you so much . . . oh, thank you so much.”

Pause for deep breath and applause. Well, you can see why these folk prefer to learn a script when they’re doing the day job.

To be fair to Kate, this was the day she was able to unleash all her pent-up disappointment. Always a bridesmaid and never normally the bride, she’s been nominated for countless big awards, including five Oscars, and missed out on
them all.

Like double decker buses, two then come along at once.

They always say the Golden Globes are a pre-cursor to the Oscars – and Kate’s set the bar high this year in the toe-curling speech stakes.

Let’s award her an honourable third place in the “I’ve lost it but I still have to speak” category, behind crybabies Gwyneth Paltrow and Halle Berry – she never quite reached the laughable heights of their Academy Awards
disintegration.

But considering she’s a stiff-upper-lip Brit, born in a nation which has achieved world fame for keeping its emotions under control, it was a five-star effort.

A word of advice, Kate. Write two speeches for the Academy Awards next month, just in case.

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