Richard looked very dapper as he prepared to announce the winners of the 2003 Empire Awards last night. Wearing a warm-navy blue high buttoned suit with purple windsor-knotted tie, he read out the auto-cued welcoming speech and introduced each nomination.

Hugh Grant stepped up to accept his Best British actor award – blowing Richard a kiss before delivering an amusingly flippant speech.

It wasn’t until Johnny Vegas came up to accept the Best Actress on behalf of Kristen Dunst that the evening moved into territory few award ceremonies reach – real, tear-inducing laughter. Johnny even admonished Richard for rattling though the words before adding “Even if someone else wrote them you give them magic!”

By 11.50pm the final award, the Lifetime Achievement Award was announced – the award going to Dustin Hoffman for his work. Dustin shook Richard’s hand and told the audience “This guy was brilliant in LA Story.”

Mr Hoffman was obviously quite taken by Johnny Vegas inviting him up on the stage before giving a rather anarchic acceptance speech. Other actors were also invited onto the stage – Christopher Lee, Hugh Grant, Samantha Morton and Sir Ian McKellan (who was vesting the rest room).

At 12.30 Richard rounded up the proceedings with a line from Withnail, “We’ve been in here too long. We must get outside.”

For more information on the event – including full acceptance speeches, quotes, video clips and a gallery, go to http://www.empireonline.co.uk/awards2003.

There’s an 8 minute trailer on the sky website containing Richard at both the beginning and end. It’s worth viewing for those who haven’t seen the show and want to see a little of the evening’s festivities.

http://www.skymovies.com/skymovies/article/0,,1079322,00.html#.

Thanks to Denise for the report and SueW. for the additional info.