Robin Williams Fills Awkward Silence at BBC World Debate

At a recent BBC World Debate on technology, featuring some of the best and the brightest that industry has to offer, it was discovered just as the show began - and to the intense horror of the BBC staffers - that the cameras were not working.

As Matt Frei, the moderator of the event, began to stammer poor jokes of his own jokes, there was a disturbance that ... well, let's let him tell it:

Then I made out a Scottish accent. A heckler. Damn. He was getting quite abusive too. Expletives were heard. A physical tussle was the last thing I needed.

Suddenly the murmurs morphed into a wave of laughter that washed down to the stage. Carl Bernstein stood up, pointed and said. "It's Robin! Come on down Robin!"

"Robin? Who the hell is Robin?" I thought, not imagining for one second that perhaps the world's most famous actor and comedian would now run down the stairs and stand in front of me.

Robin Williams was not just in the house. He was on stage, stealing my show, or rather rescuing me from another tortuous silent political joke.

While cameras were being adjusted, he treated us to a brilliant, impromptu improvisation on the tussle between old and new technology.

It was spot on and deliciously rude. It had the audience rolling in the aisles, the organisers fretting about keeping time and me worrying about how I would ever be able to rekindle interest in a debate about journalism.

The full article is here, and best of all, they managed to catch the whole thing on video, which you can watch at the link above. (Which begs the question of which cameras, exactly, were broken, but it's all from one angle, so ...)