The Show Will Go On

At yesterday's traditional pre-Oscar lunch held in Hollywood for this year's nominees, the show's organisers promised that even in the event of war, the show would go on. But the Oscar show's producer, Gil Cates, warned the assembled screen stars that while the threat of war wouldn't impact on the Oscars, the threat of the orchestra playing winners off was ever-present. 'If we go to war,' Cates said, 'the telecast will reflect that reality both in those parts of the show that we can control and those parts that we can't control - your acceptance speeches. 'If you pull out a piece of paper and start to read a list of names - you're done. The orchestra will begin to play and you are finished. While most of the nominees present thought the show should go on, even if the US is at war, there was one dissenting voice - that of Best Actor nominee Daniel Day Lewis. 'It would seem a bit obscene if we (danced) up a red carpet while people were dying,' the actor told press.