Preamble: Hello! You’re looking smashing. And we are popping in between appointments with the hair stylist and the jeweller to let you know that from (approximately) 10.30 this evening, UK time, we will be bringing you our fifth annual Oscars liveblog coverage, kicking off with incisive and knowledgeable (YMMV) commentary on the red carpet and powering through with the aid of tequila and Wotsits until 5am when The Revenant wins Best Picture and we can all go home.

Your hosts for tonight are Laura, who will be driving and is therefore to blame for typos, misattributions, factual errors and accidentally hating on Cate Blanchett; Clio, who really, really hopes that the Oscars come up with some surprises this year or she’s going to wish she’d stayed in bed; Victor, who is willing to put down money that the In Memoriam spot will feature James Horner music, like the BAFTAs did; Ricky, MostlyFilm’s #1 purveyor of regrettable dick-jokes, thinly disguised as low-rent criticism; and MarvMarsh, who is showing his support for The Martian by growing potatoes in his own shit.

And remember to line up your salt, your lime wedges and your slammers for the annual MostlyFilm Oscars Bingo drinking game. This year we’ll be keeping our grapes peeled for the following:

1. An acting category nominee with their mum as their date
2. As mooted last year, so never try to tell us we don’t keep our promises, a winner thanking their dog
3. Obviously pre-prepared losing-face ‘stunt’ (cf Emma Stone and The Lego Oscar Of 2015)
4. Tuxedo bafflingly ruined by choice of brown shoes
5. At least three dresses in the Pantone Colours Of The Year (Rose Quartz and Serenity, in case you haven’t been paying attention)
6. Commentators going ‘ooh, there’s a theme!’ without knowing about the Pantone Colours Of The Year
7. A winner in a technical category has their speech Jaws-ed off
8. A woman in a tux, and/or a man not in a tux
9. The Annual Samuel L. Jackson Memorial Really Bad Loser Award
10. Any comment on the lack of diversity among nominees (NOTE: For hardened drinkers only. MostlyFilm takes no responsibility for injury or death that may occur as a result of playing this rule.)

We will bring you our predictions as we go along, so that we can fight among ourselves over each of them. Between us we’ve nearly seen most of the films, and some of us have spent days studying the odds, so never fear – we’ll science the shit out of this.

10:53pm: We’re back! And our hair, nails and jewels are looking good. We join you at the red carpet, where we’ve just been told that Saoirse Ronan is going to be “rocking green Calvin Klein tonight”. We’re excited. This is the part where lots of people mill around in suits and E!’s presenters gamely try to think of something to say about them. Hang on in there, there’s good stuff on the way, we promise. In the meantime, here’s a 15-second flipbook to keep you going.

10:59pm: Actual famous person! Andy Serkis! He explains that when you play a motion capture character “you don’t have to get all dressed up…the costume goes on afterwards”. Insightful stuff.

11:01pm: We are introduced to Sophie Turner, who is apparently from Game of Thrones but none of us has ever seen it so we can’t confirm. We do like her dress, though, although it is NOT in one of the Pantone Colours Of The Year.

11:04pm: Gena Rowlands, who will be receiving a lifetime achievement award later (spoiler!), spends an excruciating two minutes with Ryan Seacrest. Neither of them has the faintest idea what the other is talking about, and eventually and to everyone’s palpable relief they amicably agree to go their separate ways.

11:09pm: Bingo! First mention of all the acting nominees being white. DRINK. IN the meantime, Sly has Instagrammed a photo of his look for this evening. Strong look, Sly, although we can’t help feeling you’re going to be too hot.

11:11pm: Adam McKay, director and cowriter of The Big Short, is ironically the tallest person at the Oscars.

11:23pm: We missed Alicia Vikander because we needed snacks, sorry. More news as we get it.

11:25pm: We found her! But it’s sort of hard to see her dress properly. It looks a bit like something some of us would wear to the beach.

11:26pm: Sam Smith is here. Victor, our resident film music expert, tells us his choice for Best Original Song is “anyone but him”. The song is, to be fair, dire.

11:28pm: Alicia is back! The dress is a bit jazzier in real life than it looks in the clip. It sort of looks a bit like she made it herself. Maybe she did! That would stick it to the fashion police. Go Alicia!

11:30pm: Oh, it’s by Louis Vuitton. “I love the colour”, says Alicia. “What is the colour?”, asks Ryan, who is clearly so dazzled by the names of the Pantone Colours Of The Year that he has forgotten the word for “yellow”. Alicia confirms that her dress is yellow.

11:32pm: Sofia Vergara is boobalicious in midnight blue. Charlize Theron is in black and looks like a computer-generated Perfect Woman.

11:34pm: Jacob Tremblay from Room (aged 9) is on the red carpet. “What’s your perspective?”, asks Ryan, meaninglessly. “There’s a lot of lights”, says Jacob, doing his game best.

11:36pm: Jacob’s suit is by Armani. Do you think they had to make it specially? We suppose they make all the suits specially, you probably don’t get your Oscars suit off the peg.

“I would like to defend Sam Smith’s song as being a decent fit for a massive pile of hysterical, overblown, pointless, tone-deaf bullshit”, says Ricky, who has previously made his feelings on Spectre known.

11:37pm: It’s Whoopi! She has some incredible diamonds and is in a dress modelled on one worn by Bette Davis, although we don’t recall Bette’s version being accessorised with a giant shoulder tattoo.

It’s Daisy Ridley! She is in white, which is always a safe Oscars choice, especially for the young and exceptionally beautiful.

11:40pm: Victor concedes that the song may indeed be a perfect fit for Spectre but, he says, he hasn’t seen it because “I refuse to sit through anything with Daniel Craig where he isn’t a Stormtrooper or maybe Captain Haddock”.

11:45pm: What happens if Leo doesn’t win Best Actor? Do we all have to pack up and go home? It will be excruciating to watch. Poor Leo, winning because everyone would feel bad if he didn’t.

11:46pm: While Ryan talks to people we half-recognise, all of whom are wearing white, we are discussing possible upsets (not Leo, Leo will win). “I have noted that the odds for both Room and Mad Max have fallen CONSIDERABLY today”, says Ricky, “so perhaps somebody knows something <taps nose>. Plus, I put a fiver on both of them while the odds were still high.” JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY. “I’ll be upset if it’s as predictable as predicted”, says Victor.

11:51pm: Now that we can see Daisy Ridley clearly we are delighted to be able to inform you that she is wearing one of the Pantone Colours Of The Year (Serenity)! But you can’t have a drink yet, because for some reason we specified three dresses in one of 2016’s chosen tones.

Olivia Wilde looks even more like a beautiful alien than usual.

11:55pm: There are a lot of ads on E!, which is why we keep having to stop bringing you red carpet news. We could tell you about the ads, if you like, but we think you think we’re better than that.

11:56pm: Saoirse Ronan looks awesome in green sequins. “I wanted to ask you about Brooklyn”, says Ryan. “The place?” she asks. “No, the movie”, he explains.

We can see Eddie Redmayne (won’t win) in the background.

11:58pm: Now we can see Eddie Redmayne in the foreground, with Tom Hooper. It’s not your night, Eddie! Go home!

00:00: No sign of the Manicam so far, so we’re sadly unable to bring you detailed information about anybody’s fingernails. More as we get it.

00:04: So, right, we know we said we wouldn’t be telling you about the ads, but the last two were for blood in your pee (or something related, it probably wasn’t an advert for blood in your pee) and laxatives. Who do they think is watching this?

00:06: It’s Common, whom we know because he won Best Original Song with John Legend for Glory from Selma last year (the Academy was only a little bit racist last year), and also because we are young and cool.

00:08: There are a lot of red gowns on the red carpet tonight. Olivia Munn is in tomato-red, with a diamond bracelet that she has to give back and has clearly agreed to talk about in return for even being allowed to wear it, but sadly she gets a little tongue-tied and screws it up. No free diamonds for you next year, Munn!

Jennifer Jason Leigh is in pink (but not Rose Quartz, sadly), and appears to be drunk. She’s had “about a glass” of champagne, she says.

00:12: Rooney Mara is wearing a dress which is simultaneously voluminous and revealing and looks dazzling and perfect.

Bryan Cranston, the only Best Actor nominee other than Leo not to have quit the campaign trail early on and hence the only one likely to cause an upset, looks elegant in a very shiny suit. “That’s how you wear a tux”, says Ryan, who ought to know.

00:16: We forgot to include “heavily pregnant woman on the red carpet” in our drinking game bingo rules, but here are Chrissy Teigen and husband John Legend, in full bloom (her, not him. He looks the same as usual).

Marv has switched over to Sky. “Boyd Hilton talks like he’s trying not to spit out bits of crumbly biscuit. And failing”, he tells us.

00:19: Listen, we’ve been up for a while so we need you to help out here…is this a joke?

00:21: We really hope it’s a joke that we’re not smart enough to get. We’re not all that smart, really.

00:23 We’re going to distract ourselves with this gallery of every outfit worn on Oscars Night by Best Actress winners over the years. Look at Sissy Spacek in 1981! Those were the days.

Bryan Cranston has brought a biscuit with his face on it to show Ryan. Perhaps that’s what Boyd Hilton was eating, it’s probably an Oscars tradition that we hadn’t noticed before. Oops! The biscuit has an untimely meeting with the red carpet, which at least means nobody will be spitting crumbs on camera.

The gulf between what Ryan Seacrest thinks he and Bryan Cranston are talking about and what they are actually talking about is even wider than usual.

00:36: We are back with the actual, official fashion police, whom you’ll remember from last year when Khloe Kardashian said that pink was not an OK colour for the Oscars. Tell that to Pantone, Khloe!

00:40: BREAKING: We have just determined that since Dumbo won Best Scoring Of A Musical Picture, a win for Trumbo could give us our first ever pair of rhyming winners.

“At least since Eddie Redmayne and 1930s heartthrob Teddy Bedframe”, says Marv.

00:51: It’s difficult, isn’t it, being Ryan Seacrest, not just in general, though probably in general, but also because you have to ask all the men who made their tuxes even though they are all identical and nobody cares, but what else are you going to ask them? And you can’t ask the women and not the men. Perhaps there should be a uniform everyone has to wear to the Oscars, so we can see through the trappings of fashion and focus on the real people, people! We will start a hashtag as soon as one of us thinks of one.

00:53: Cate Blanchett is in “Sea Foam Green”, according to the fashion police. She looks kind of pissed off. The fashion police are collectively unsure about her dress, like they want to like it but are a bit scared of it too.

Julianne Moore is in black with a grey beaded trim and has that thing going on where she’s Julianne Moore and it absolutely doesn’t matter what she wears because she is so smoking hot already. The fashion police are frothing happily.

00:59: We’re into the final preparations for the ceremony now, and wondering what Chris Rock will do, because at this stage he can pretty much do whatever he likes, and everybody will applaud him because nobody wants to look like a racist (apart from Charlotte Rampling).

01:02: Meanwhile in the world of Stuff That People On E! Care About, there are a lot of men in velvet, including Jared Leto who has broken with tradition by not coming as Jesus this year.

01:04: You’d think a velvet three-piece suit would be a bit hot for LA, wouldn’t you? But, you know, you have to suffer for art sometimes. Like that time Nicole had to wear a prosthetic nose. It’s not all glamour.

01:10: Matt Damon! That’s a film star. Marv remembers that he needs to check on his potatoes.

01:11: We’ve moved inside the Dolby Theatre, where the briefcase containing the names of the winners has arrived! Nobody tries to wrestle it out of anyone’s hands, sadly.

(Technically we are still on the sofa, but the cameras have moved.)

01:13: We’re hearing that Leo has brought his mum as his date! DRINK!

01:15: It’s time to make your final preparations for the ceremony, folks. If you haven’t lined up your Wotsits and tequilas, get them in now.

01:21: We’ve had confirmation from Charlize Theron (also in red) that the mini hamburgers which guests were served last year are “the best thing about the night”. But have you got Wotsits, Charl?

01:22: Here’s Russell Crowe. Remember when he was the biggest star on the planet? That was weird, wasn’t it?

Victor and Charlie are watching Sky’s coverage, and have four hours of Alex Zane to look forward to. Luckily, they also have access to the mute button.

01:24: Keen readers will recall that we had trouble with Alex’s hair last year. Marv confirms that it’s still “no good, but not a disaster”.

01:25: Five minutes to go! “Leo looks more like a sea mammal every year”, says Marv. “Not a sea lion, not a seal, but something. Maybe something new.”

01:27: Maybe an otter?

01:28: “I thought that at first”, Marv agrees. “In fact I wrote the whole thing out with him as an otter. then I looked up otters and he isn’t weaselly enough. Ottery enough. He’s too sleek. Like a sea lion and an otter had sex (thanks to climate change).”

01:30: Clio is here, in time for the main business of the evening. Meanwhile over on Twitter, this:

01:32: The opening montage is a bit sinister, in a Harry Potterish sort of a way.

01:33: The music was specially written by Danny Elfman, Victor informs us. Here’s Kate Winslet, in black, and here comes Chris! “I counted at least 15 black people in that montage!”, he says. “You realise if they nominated hosts I wouldn’t get this job and y’all’d be watching Neil Patrick Harris just now?”

01:36: The montage made 2015’s films look quite a lot better than they were. “Was not expecting a laudatory look at the year in film to include GET HARD and TED 2”, says @vulture on Twitter. And Total Beauty have deleted the tweet where they called Whoopi Goldberg “Oprah”. Good job, Total Beauty.

01:38: Chris is explaining that the reason there historically aren’t many black members of the Academy is that back in the day “they were all too busy getting raped and lynched to care about who won for Best Cinematography.”

01:39: Chris is winning so far. “This year’s In Memoriam package is just going to be made up of black people who were shot by the cops when they were on their way to the movies.”

01:41: Look, about that drinking game thing, we should maybe just agree that the whole of Chris’s opening monologue (which is brilliant, look it up later if you’re not watching with us) counts as ONE mention of the lack of diversity among nominees, so we don’t all get irretrievably hammered before anyone gets an award?

(“Rocky takes place in a world where white athletes are better than black athletes, so Rocky is a science fiction movie”.)

01:43: Two Kevin Hart jokes, probably because there aren’t many other black actors there to make jokes about.

01:44: Chris makes the same observation we did about the men all wearing the same outfit, despite the fact that he is in a crisp white.

“You want diversity, we’ve got diversity!”, he tells us. “Please welcome Emily Blunt and somebody even whiter – Charlize Theron!” And we’re off!

01:46: The first award is for Best Original Screenplay. Will it go to Spotlight, as the pundits have suggested, or Straight Outta Compton in an attempt to head #OscarsSoWhite off at the pass?

The audience applaud Spotlight the most.

And the Oscar goes to Spotlight, which probably won’t win anything else!

01:49: A low-key but entirely acceptable acceptance speech, and the winners are Jaws-ed off. Not important enough to speak for that long, sorry! Next!

01:50: The next award is Best Adapted Screenplay, presented by Ryan Gosling and Russell Crow, who looks like he has the meat sweats.

01:51: This will probably go to The Big Short, although a significant contingent of the MostlyFilm Massive are gunning for Nick Hornby and Brooklyn. Others among us would award it to The Martian, because it’s funny and [spoiler] nobody dies.

01:53: And the award goes to Charles Randolph and Adam McKay, the Tallest Man At The Oscars, for The Big Short.

01:54: The Shortest Man At The Oscars is also on stage. It looks like a formal experiment in perspective.

The winners are orchestra-ed off again, and we begin to wonder whether the musicians are being paid a bonus each time they manage to cut off someone’s winner’s speech.

01:58: We’re back from the ads, and Chris is introducing a sketch about black actors in the Best Picture-nominated films which we’re not going to be able to describe to you, but which you will definitely find on YouTube tomorrow.

02:01: It feels a little as though there is some overcompensating going on here.

Here’s Sarah Silverman, who isn’t black, but is wearing it.

02:04: It’s Sam Smith, with the first musical performance of the night. It’s a shame there’s no Let It Go this year, isn’t it? And  not just because we all have such fond memories of the way John Travolta pronounced “Idina Menzel” (“Adele Dazim“).

You’d think they could shave bits of the songs off so that the winners could get to finish their speeches. That would seem fair, wouldn’t it?

02:07: Henry Cavill introduces the first set of Best Picture-nominated films, beginning with The Martian, which we love but which will not win (the clue is that Ridley Scott is not nominated for Best Director, although Ben Affleck wasn’t nominated the year Argo won, so you should probably ignore us). The second film is The Big Short, which may have already taken home its only gong of the night.

02:10: Best Supporting Actress. We think Alicia Vikander, though we would love a win for Rooney Mara, who is brilliant in Carol, or for Jennifer Jason Leigh, just to see whether she’s even drunker now.

That said, there seems to have been a groundswell in support for Kate Winslet, even though her performance in Steve Jobs was frankly Quite Weird.

It won’t be Rachel McAdams, which is a shame because she looks awesome and should totally get to be on stage.

02:13: And the Oscar goes to Alicia Vikander! She comes up to the stage out of breath, either because she is excited or because it’s a long way up those stairs.

02:14: Even Alicia is Jaws-ed off! Would Kate have been?

02:17: We’ve had our first look at Alex Zane’s Oscars hair. It’s a definite improvement on last year, which is the faintest praise imaginable. The Sky team agree that Sam Smith won’t win for his Spectre song, because they “don’t go humming it around the house”.

The next award is Best Costume. Mad Max, Carol or Cinderella? The latter two are nominations for the same person, so she has double the chances. “I hope the bag lady wins”, says Clio.

02:20: The nominees are presented by Cate Blanchett, who is having to walk around in her Oscars outfit on live TV without falling over. She does it perfectly, of course.

And the Oscar goes to Mad Max and Jenny Beavan, AKA the bag lady! She is dressed almost exactly as she was at the BAFTAs and begins her speech “What another lovely day”. First Brit winner of the night! British winner, we mean, she hasn’t won a BRIT award, that we’re aware of. She is orchestra-ed off too, possibly before she has the chance to mention Stephen F*y. DRINK!

02:23: Tina Fey and Steve Carrell (with a massive beard – on his face, we don’t mean Tina Fey) introduce the Production Design category. We think Mad Max for this too – it has such a river of goodwill flowing in its direction, and it ain’t gonna win Best Picture.

And the award goes to Mad Max: Fury Road! We are killing it tonight, you guys.

02:25: THIS IS HUGE: The winners for Mad Max are ALLOWED TO FINISH THEIR SPEECHES.

Next up: hair and make up. We’re going for a holy trinity for Mad Max.

02:27: And the Oscar goes to Mad Max: Fury Road! Some of us didn’t realise Nicholas Hoult was in it until the credits rolled and we are choosing to ascribe that to the makeup artists and not our own lack of observational skills. Go Mad Max!

At this point Mad Max: Fury Road has the most Oscars out of all the films.

02:29: Benicio del Toro and Jennifer Garner introduce the next pairing of Best Picture nominees: The Revenant, which will probably win, and Mad Max: Fury Road, which probably should.

02:33: Ads. We have gone off Alejandro González Iñárritu a little bit after seeing how ungallant he was to Jenny Beavan!

02:36: Rachel McAdams and Michael B. Jordan are here to award the Cinematography Oscar. Could it go to Mad Max again, or will they give it to The Revenant? Is Mad Max sneaking up on The Revenant after all?

Big cheers for The Revenant…

And the Oscar goes to Emmanuel Lubezki for The Revenant! So far, this is all going very much to plan.

02:40: We’re whipping through it at a smart pace tonight! Next up is Film Editing, which they can now give to Mad Max while still giving The Revenant Best Film, because The Revenant has Cinematography. It’s all very much keeping to the script.

And the Oscar goes to Mrs George Miller, aka Margaret Sixel, for Mad Max: Fury Road. She is orchestra-ed off! Darn this orchestra.

“The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has long honoured people of colour”, says Angela Basset in a prefilmed insert which turns out to be a joke about Jack Black. Is anybody paying attention any more?

02:46: Emmanuel Lubezki has now won for Cinematography three years in a row, with Gravity, Birdman and The Revenant, setting a new Oscars record in the process. Will Iñárritu make it a brace with the Director prize later, or is George Miller going to sneak up on him?

The skits are getting a little overdone now. We get it, The Oscars, you’re not racist, even though you are. Fine, whatever.

02:48: Next up is Achievement In Sound Editing. We originally predicted MM:FR in both Sound categories (pay attention, there are two and they are different in a way we have never quite managed to get our collective heads around), but can it sustain its momentum?

And the Oscar goes to Mad Max: Fury Road! And the winner shouts “Fuckin’ Mad Maxers!”, and we can’t disagree. Do you think, being a sound guy, that he nobbled the bleepers so he could swear at 80 million people? Good job, sound guy.

02:51: And now it’s Sound Mixing, which is completely different from Sound Editing, but not in a way we can describe to you because Mad Max wins this one too, so we’re none the wiser.

“I like how Mad Men is winning everything. It was a good show”, says Ricky.

02:53: That makes it six for Mad Max: Fury Road, but that’s the end of the technical categories we all thought it would win, so any more awards will be a bit of a surprise. Wouldn’t it be awesome if it won Picture or Director or both, though? The preferential voting system the Academy uses for the Best Picture award means if a film is lots of people’s second-favourite, it can sneak a win in Best Picture, so the category is still potentially wide open. Although we still think it’ll be The Revenant, because we’ve had no surprises so far and voting closed on Tuesday so it’s too late for them to withdraw the Director award from Iñárritu because he was mean to Jenny Beavan.

02:57: It’s time for the Visual Effects award, and in the first minor upset of the night, the Oscar goes to Ex Machina!

“That’s great, because it was a small-scale movie with great effects work” says Clio. Ricky disagrees: “Star Wars should have got that if only for Harrison’s Ford’s hair. He looked like he had just been woken up by a policeman for sleeping on a bench.”

02:58: Victor, our in-house music expert, is not enjoying the musical choices for this evening. And there doesn’t seem to be any obvious reason why winners have been played off stage with Que Sera, Sera and the theme from Star Trek, among other things.

Now it’s that part where they tell us as quickly as they can about the technical awards that are so uninteresting to the Oscars audience that they have them on a different night.

We are over halfway through, chaps!

03:00: C-3PO, R2-D2 and BB-8 (we checked, those are where the hyphens appear) arrive on stage and do a John Williams joke, and one about how C3PO looks like an Oscar, which he does. We’re just grateful for a joke which isn’t a race joke. And it’s never not fun to see BB-8 in action.

“By the way, the music director is called Harold Wheeler, so send your hate mail to him”, says Victor.

03:10: OOPS, we all went for a collective wee (we have five bathrooms, we didn’t cross the streams) and missed Animated Short, which in another minor upset went to Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala for Bear Story. Chile now has its first Oscar ever!

03:12: Next up is Animated Feature, which we can’t believe won’t go to Inside Out, a film in which an adorable young girl gets manipulated into months of personal hell by five hideous, sentient brain-parasites.

And the Oscar goes to Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera for Inside Out! It was such a sure thing that they animated Buzz saying it (although not with his real voice). At least they play the winners out with the actual music from the film, rather than Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.

03:15: A performance from The Weeknd with his nominated song from Fifty Shades of Grey. The nice thing about the Best Song and Original Score categories is that you can give prizes to films which actually aren’t any good. Although obviously this won’t win (we think Lady Gaga at MF Towers).

03:17 In a touching tribute to Chris Rock, The Weeknd has good hair.

03:20: In a touching tribute to Showgirls, he also has a burlesque dancer with him on stage.

03:22: Kate Winslet and Reese Wetherspoon appear in nearly matching dresses, though only Kate’s appears to be made out of a bin liner, to introduce the next two Best Picture nominees: Bridge of Spies (which will come last, though we’ll never be able to prove that claim) and Spotlight.

03:25: And now Chris is back, talking about taking a fresh perspective on #OscarsSoWhite, and we can’t tell when, or whether, there is going to be a punchline to this.

03:27: However, TWO of his interviewees are wearing Rose Quartz, one of Pantone’s Colours Of The Year, which means that (even though one of them was a t-shirt) we can officially all have a DRINK!

03:28: And now here’s Patricia Arquette, who once again hasn’t done her hair, to remind us that the #paygap also still exists. She’s introducing Best Supporting Actor, in which we’re predicting a win for Sly and his blue velvet suit, though other notable nominees include Mark Rylance, of whom none of the voters has ever heard, in Bridge Of Spies, a film where the bridge was more exciting than the spies.

We also get to see a clip of Tom Hardy in The Revenant, but none of us can understand any of the words he says, so we can’t see a win here.

Mark Ruffalo gives a precision-designed Oscar performance in Spotlight, but can he spoil the Rocky-like trajectory of One Last Hurrah for Stallone?

03:31: The Oscar goes to Mark Rylance! Perhaps he has the Day Lewis/Streep gene where if you’re nominated, you win. “I’m not going to forgive Rylance after seeing his balls in Intimacy”, says Ricky. Mark is also orchestra-ed off, unforgivably – though, ever the professional, he squeezes the remainder of his speech into the ever-narrowing window they allow him.

03:35: Sorry for talking about balls and squeezing in the same paragraph there.

03:37: On Sky, Sanjeev Bhaskar “feels good” about Mark Rylance’s win. “Mark Rylance has such an incredible body…of work” says Zoe Ball, leaving a gap so precise that we hope and believe she intended it.

03:38: Next up is Best Documentary Short. The rule is, if there’s a Holocaust short then the Oscar goes to the Holocaust short, and this year there is a Holocaust short so we are expecting a win for Spectres Of The Shoah.

03:40: But the Oscar goes to A Girl In The River! Louis CK there, with his increasingly less-fun schtick of making an EXCELLENT point, then saying it again four times, each version slightly less well-crafted than the first one. The orchestra attempt to dismiss Sharmeen Obaid as she’s talking about honour killings in Pakistan, which is very much their lowest point yet.

03:43: Best Documentary Feature, and the British are coming! We’re expecting a win for Asif Kapadia and Amy here.

The Oscar goes to Amy! Everyone but Mitch will be happy.

03:49: Chris Rock’s daughters have been selling Girl Scout cookies to the audience, and have raised $65,243 for, we presume, charity rather than their own pockets, though it’s not made entirely clear.

(Iñárritu didn’t buy any cookies. He grabbed a box, licked them, and threw them on the ground. And then stole the money.)

Now it’s Oprah Winfrey Whoopi Goldberg doing the honorary Oscars bit, about which we have, as is traditional, nothing to say.

03:53: Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy, is on to do her annual talk. She’s doing her best, but the Academy hasn’t solved racism just yet.

03:56: It’s the Montage of the Dead, with the role of Bette Midler played this year by Dave Grohl singing Blackbird.

(“Muted”, is Victor’s sole comment.)

03:58: To be fair, the music of Dave Grohl and pondering the long, slow slide to the grave are fairly well associated in our minds.

But really, if they want us to play the Oscars Bingo Drinking Game, and we’re pretty sure they do, they should put In Memoriam at the top of the show, so we don’t get all tequila-maudlin at it. There’s a perfect Bowie clip, and ending with Nimoy (“I have been, and always shall be, your friend”) is a nice touch.

04:02: “For all the people moaning that certain individuals were left out of the Death Montage – we’re upset that YOU have been left out of the Death Montage” says Ricky.

04:03: We’re into the final strait! Less than an hour to go. Hang in there. You’ll be glad you waited, because here are Jacob Tremblay from Room and Abraham Attah from Beasts Of No Nation, standing on boxes so they can reach the mic (they are children, not just short, although coincidentally they are introducing the Oscar for Best Live Action Short).

The award goes to Stutterer (“Me neither”, says Clio). As you’ll remember, avid reader that you are, we covered the live action shorts nominations just a few days ago.

04:07: Next up is Foreign Language Film, which everyone expects will go to Son Of Saul.

04:09: The Oscar goes to Son Of Saul!

04:10: Joe Biden is here (actually here, which is still less exciting than the time Michelle Obama appeared on live video link), although sadly he hasn’t strolled on with an Old Fashioned like Dean Martin would have. It turns out he’s talking about sexual abuse on university campuses, as a preamble to Gaga Herself singing her song from The Hunting Ground.

Actually, scratch that. You can’t drink an Old Fashioned while you’re talking about sexual abuse.

04:15: Gaga is giving it her all here. This is a level up from her Sound Of Music performance last year, and feels like a winner to us.

04:17: 

04:20: It’s Quincy Jones! To present the award for Best Original Score, which has to be Ennio, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?

04:22: It does!

04:23: So at 87 Morricone, legend of movie music, get his first Oscar, and he’s here to accept it. He gets the standing ovation, as is only right and proper, and we all cross our fingers and hope that the orchestra don’t dare to Jaws him off.

04:24: Or that if they do, they never work in this town again!

04:26: Ennio is allowed to speak for as long as he likes (actually twice that length, since he uses a translator). And now for Best Song! We still think Gaga. And we hope Gaga, because she is awesome and should have an Oscar.

04:27: The Oscar goes to The Writing’s On The Wall from Spectre, to which Victor’s response of ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?! is shared by us all, with the possible exception of Marv, but since he went to bed an hour ago (we didn’t want to tell you), he doesn’t get a vote.

04:29: Although Sam gives a sweet speech and we remember that mostly, we like him a bit. Now here are Olivia Wilde and Sacha Baron Cohen, who has come as Ali G, and starts with “I know what you is thinking, here is another token black presenter” and wins us over from what we initially worried was an unpromising setup.

04:36: We’re into the final leg. Best director next, for which we all want Miller and expect Iñárritu. Wait, are we the racists?

Whoever wins this will take Best Film too, surely? Actor and Actress seem pretty sewn up, so this is the last big unknown of the night.

04:39: And Iñárritu makes it two for two with a win for The Revenant. The orchestra tries to play him off with The Ride Of The Valkyries but he’s not having any of it and keeps going until he’s finished. He beat the music! Good for him. That’s the sign of a great director.

04:43: Although he won’t win next year, because Donald Trump will have built that wall.

04:44: “It is infomercial-late!”, says Chris. Try watching from the UK, Chris. Next up is Best Actress, and Eddie Redmayne to present the award to Brie Larson, who seems to have it in the bag despite strong competition from Saoirse Ronan and Cate Blanchett. Cate is in an Oscar winner’s dress, more than anyone else is. What could it all mean?

04:47: The Oscar goes to Brie Larson! Try making your own dress next time, Cate.

04:49: Brie thanks the film festivals that picked up Room at the start, as well as “my partner through this in every way possible”, co-stay Jacob Tremblay (steady on, Brie) and director Lenny Abrahamson, who probably knows that was his last starring role of the night.

04:52: Actor now. If it’s NOT Leo, that would be a surprise to make up for all the other boringness.

(It will be Leo).

Julianne Moore comes out to the orchestra playing “Mrs Robinson”. Is that OK?

04:55: Leo gets a diversity clip. He can’t not win.

04:56: The Oscar goes to Leonardo DiCaprio, and we can’t work out whether he’s happiest, the audience is happiest or we’re happiest.

04:57: Go on, thank Kate Winslet.

04:58: Instead of thanking Kate, Leo gives us a talk on climate change. Fair dos, Leo. Now here’s Morgan Freeman, the Official Voice Of God, to present Best Picture. We’re sticking with The Revenant.

05:00: Well, they saved the surprise for last, because the winner is Spotlight! One of the least-awarded nominees of the night, with six nominations but just two wins, this and Best Screenplay – the first and last awards of the night.

05:02: According to Joyce Eng on Twitter “Spotlight is the first film to win only two Oscars including Best Picture since 1952’s The Greatest Show On Earth”.

So there you have it. Spotlight: The Second-Greatest Show On Earth. That’s it from us for tonight, folks; we’re all off to the Vanity Fair party. Tonight Steve Jobs played the orchestra and the orchestra played God. One day they’ll have to tell us how they did it.