Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan at Cipriani, 2006
Mayfair, London · October 2006
I am Charles Pycraft, a London photographer. Twenty years ago tonight, at 23:36 by my camera's clock, I photographed Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan walking out of Cipriani on Davies Street in Mayfair. The four frames on this page were all taken within eight seconds, from 23:36:13 to 23:36:21. This piece keeps to what the files show and what was reported at the time.
The timing of the anniversary is rather good. Britain's Got Talent auditions are under way at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, with Bradley Walsh sitting in Cowell's chair as guest judge for the auditions. In the autumn of 2006, the British version of that show did not exist yet, and the man walking beside Cowell in these pictures was part of how it came about.
The pavement
Cipriani opened in London in April 2004, on Davies Street in Mayfair, so by October 2006 it was a well established stop on the Mayfair dinner circuit. The frames show Cowell in his famous off-duty uniform, a dark V-neck top and blue jeans, and Morgan in a navy suit with an open-necked white shirt and one hand in his pocket. In the first frames they are deep in conversation as they walk. By the last one, both are looking straight down the lens. Whatever they were discussing over dinner, the body language says two men who knew exactly where the cameras would be.
The camera was a Nikon D2H, which the files' own data confirms.
The world that week
Thursday 26 October 2006 fell slap in the middle of The X Factor's third series, which ran on ITV from 19 August to 16 December 2006 with Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh on the panel. On the Wednesday morning, the day before these pictures, Cowell went on GMTV and promised that "something big is going to happen this week that none of the contestants know about". The surprise turned out to be a double elimination on the Saturday live show. That series ended with Leona Lewis winning on 16 December and her single A Moment Like This going on to be the Christmas number one.
At the top of the singles chart that week was My Chemical Romance with Welcome to the Black Parade, in the second of its two weeks at number one. It is still the band's only UK number one. And Bond was on the way: Casino Royale, Daniel Craig's first outing as 007, had its royal premiere in Leicester Square on 14 November 2006, less than three weeks later.
Where they were in 2006
That summer, Cowell and Morgan had already shared a talent show. America's Got Talent, Cowell's creation, ran on NBC from 21 June to 17 August 2006, with David Hasselhoff, Brandy and Piers Morgan as its first judges and Regis Philbin as host. Cowell had planned for the British version to launch first, but production in the UK had been suspended, and it was the American show's ratings success that got Britain's Got Talent going again.
It arrived on ITV in June 2007. Cowell, Morgan and Amanda Holden were the judges, Ant and Dec were the hosts, and the first winner was the opera singer Paul Potts.
Where we are now
Twenty years on, Britain's Got Talent is filming its auditions in Blackpool with Amanda Holden still on the panel, alongside Alesha Dixon and KSI, and Ant and Dec still presenting. While Cowell is away, Bradley Walsh, the host of The Chase, has been unveiled as guest judge for the auditions. The official reveal clip had the panel trading rumours about who the mystery judge might be, before Walsh popped up with his famous Chase line: "Stop the clock, that is wrong." Cowell is hoping to be back in time for the main show.
My own work has moved a long way from that Mayfair pavement. My photography years ran from 1999 to 2014, and that archive is now licensed through Backgrid UK. I work on business development and communications for Partisan. Partisan records a file's fingerprint without seeing or keeping the document, gives a dated receipt, and shows a file is unchanged since it was recorded.
The pictures
Four frames from a body of work I made in London between 1999 and 2014, all taken outside Cipriani within the same eight seconds on 26 October 2006.
Credit: Charlie Pycraft / BACKGRID. Licensing: Backgrid UK Sales, backgrid_uksales@shutterstock.com
