Bravo, Nigella – if someone turned their back on me, I’d have unleashed my inner Grace Jones

When a Hollywood lunk snubbed Nigella Lawson on the One Show sofa, she serenely ignored it – but that’s not the only way to deal with rude guests, especially in party season, says society writer Simon Mills

Frozen out: Nigella Lawson maintains her poise as actor Jason Momoa turns his back on her on The One Show sofa (BBC)

What should you do when, at a party, someone turns their back on you?

I ask not only because this is peak “Christmas work do” season, fa la la, but also because it happened this week, on live TV, to lovely, funny, clever, beautiful Nigella Lawson, of all people – and she looked as hurt and lost by the experience as we all would be.

Nigella was on The One Show sofa, next to superhero-film lummox Jason Momoa, a great bear of a guy who shifted position to better face fellow guest, actor James Nesbitt, but somehow skewed himself in such a way so as to shut out our national treasure from the coversation.

Momoa, the big, clumsy human portcullis, has been roundly condemned for his ungallant behaviour, which some viewers called "bad-mannered" and "the height of rudeness".

Who doesn’t know this is unacceptable behaviour? Yes, when seated, engaging with the person next to you while they’re speaking to you is the natural, decent thing to do – but not with one’s entire body. And not at the expense of physically closing down other people like a social eclipse, by contorting legs, arms, face, head and torso into a position that telegraphs disrespect and indifference.

I’ve been to enough dinner parties in my time to know that if a turn does happen, it must be quickly reversed and combined with a friendly, conversational cue that invites the backed-out third party back into the chat. For all its subtlety, Momoa’s pink suit may as well have had the words “Not Interested In You” written on it.

What should Nigella have done? Tapped Momoa on his fleshy shoulder and communicated a corny “Hello… I’m here too!”? Certainly, when her turn came to speak, she could have frozen him out by aiming her conversation directly to the One Show hosts, which would have communicated a frosty displeasure.

As it was, Nigella did the very graceful thing and simply maintained her poise and a dignified silence, letting the etiquette-less boor make a Neanderthal-sized berk of himself on live TV.

Well, I think I have the answer to this age-old problem – and it’s the Grace Jones solution.

In 1980, the Jamaican ultra-diva, all dressed up in black leather – “like an Amazonian seductress” – was a guest on Russell Harty’s chat show, and quickly found herself shut out of a four-way conversation.

“I was meant to sit next to Russell Harty and keep still and quiet,” Jones wrote in her autobiography. “I was being treated like the hired help. I thought: ‘This is no way to treat a guest’. Being stuck there while he ignored me made me feel very uncomfortable.”

“If you turn your back to me for one more minute!” she protested at Harty, who was talking to the guest on his left and shifting in his seat.

“P****d off, I poked him in the back.” Grace then proceeded to box Harty’s offending back like a fighting kangaroo. Extreme? Certainly – but Grace never does things by half.

Perhaps formalising things beforehand is the answer. I have been to posh dinner parties at grand country houses for 20 or 30 people where the form has been to distribute equally the conversation between guests on one’s right and left using a social device known as “turning the table”.

To best effect this, the host will decide on appointed conversational start and end times, with guests’ assigned partners (usually between courses), raising a hand, subtly nodding or simply turning herself to indicate the change. At this preposterously Woosterish moment, all female guests (this works best with the classic boy-girl-boy-girl placement) must turn from the gentleman she has been talking through the soup and the fish course and work on the fella on her other side.

When repeated around the table, in a capricious moment, everyone is now talking to a new neighbour.

That’s the theory, anyway. In my experience, it seems rudely abrupt to be mid-anecdote (or even worse, mid-flirt) with a woman to suddenly have her turn away and start talking to another man, leaving you to begin your bantz all over again. A bit, well… old-fashioned, as well.

Perhaps this is a British thing? Maybe Americans view the back-turning manoeuvre as less of a social faux pas and more as a Big Dick Energy power-move. Gangsters have long deployed it as a way of ending a friendship of business arrangement. Remember the heartbreaking scene towards the end of Goodfellas where fallen kingpin wiseguy Paulie palms desperate Henry a desultory wad of notes and says goodbye forever: “And now,” says a grim Paulie to Henry, “I have to turn my back on you.”

Should you find yourself frozen out at a works drinks this Christmas, you can always console yourself with the fact that this happens to the very best of us.

The late Queen was publicly rear-ended in 2018 by another fat-backed oaf, Donald Trump, who broke protocol when he repeatedly walked in front of Her Majesty while inspecting the guard at Windsor Castle. But at least we eventually saw the back of him.