So farewell Danny Cohen, who is leaving the BBC after eight years.
The leaving party for the director of television, held at the Royal Society of Architects on Tuesday night, was attended by many of the great and good of the world of television, including Fiona Bruce, Richard Osman from Pointless and Alan Sugar. Even Jimmy Mulville, arch critic of the BBC for putting his beloved BBC3 online only, put in an appearance.
Which is more than can be said for Cohen’s boss Tony Hall. The director general was, to be fair, attending the memorial service for Charles Kennedy, a longstanding engagement which made the lack of a video tribute for his senior TV executive slightly surprising. Instead, it was left to James Purnell and Peter Salmon to give fitting tributes to the man responsible for some of the BBC’s biggest hits, from Call the Midwife to Poldark, Happy Valley and Car Share.
Earlier reports that Alan Yentob, also a no-show on the glowing video tribute panel, had failed to attend were scotched. The BBC creative director had popped in to the Portland Place gig before heading for a Charles Aznavour concert.
With Cohen off to consider the “number of exciting opportunities” he mentioned in his departure notice, one fabulous rumour doing the rounds was that he could do some work for Amazon. There, he would of course be reunited with his nemesis Jeremy Clarkson. Now that’s a hot ticket, as opposed to a hot meal of course, Monkey would love to receive.
