Grand entrance for Cranford

Monkey knew he wasn't in what could be described as ordinary company on tipping up for the screening and party of the latest BBC1 period drama Cranford in Mayfair last night. In the queue for entries, an incredibly plummy voice piped up to the people checking the door at the Curzon cinema with the words: "I am not actually invited myself, I am a guest of the Baroness Scott of Needham Market". This rather set the tone for what was undoubtedly the most glamorously attended TV launch of the year which was graced by a whole host of what the BBC always rather ickily calls "opinion formers": novelist Julian Barnes, his agent wife Pat Kavanagh, actor Colin Firth, theatre director Richard Eyre, actor Donald Sinden, poet Tom Paulin, former Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe and his wife Lady Howe, former BBC chairman Sir Christopher Bland, BBC director general Mark Thompson, former Five chief exec David Elstein, Lib Dem Peer Shirley Williams, star of the piece Judi Dench and of course your very own Media Monkey. As one of the posh party goers quipped at the aftershow: "They probably booked all this before the licence fee settlement. It is probably the last big posh BBC party there will ever be". Let's hope not.