Children In Need 2018

Agree woth most of this, I used to watch it and it used to be a really great night. Now it's all a bit dull and needs a bit of a change to put the old magic back into it.

I'd go as far as to say Graham and Mel should be the main presenters next year, at least for the 7-10pm section, have two of the younger presenters after the news, until around midnight, and then have Graham and Mel come back to present repeats of the best bits of the evening up until the final total of the night at 12:30 pm, 1am or whatever.

If it was up to me, I would have Michael Mcintyre join Graham Norton, Mel Giedroyc, Rochelle and Marvin Humes for the 2019 event to air from The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Michael would bring some best bits from his Big Show to Children in Need night, such as "Send to All". Have big musical guests. More audience participation.

The One Show item should be limited to a 10 minute Rickshaw Appeal item around 8.30pm.

More proper items should be made, specials of Eastenders of course, but bring back the BBC Newsreaders special routine, to go along with the usual Strictly Come Dancing episode.

The "previews" of Doctor Who and Call the Midwife should be real previews, not just a 90 second clip. Especially Doctor Who. Remember when the 2007 dedicated Children in Need sketch with Peter Davison and David Tennant?

The BBC needs to get ITV and Channel 4 to help, with specials from Corrie, Emmerdale etc.

We also need a musical item which links celebrities - remember the 1993 Comic Relief musical skit of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody? For 2019, we would do something similar.

The show should end with a "Musicals Hour" from 12.00am-1.00am, with live performances of musicals on the Theatre Royal Stage. The Westend is right on their doorstep, so it would be not a hassle. Trying to get musicals from the Westend to Elstree must be a hassle?

Just some ideas, to bring a return-to-form for the telethon, because even though they are pulling in the millions, the presentation is truly dire, lacklustre and just plain lazy in many respects.

I would agree.

Tess and Ade generated so much atmosphere they might as well have had David Dimbleby hosting. Their section was so pedestrian.

I'm sure Graham and Mel could do the full 2.5 hours (or ideally 3 hours from 7pm)

"We enjoy sitting down on a Saturday evening to watch Dr Who"

I mean there is iPlayer but...seemed like a bit of a blooper!

Drury Lane is out of action next year as it's being refurbished and I think most West End theatres aren't available on a Friday unless it's say the Palladium and that tends to be booked up as well.

DUPLICATE POST DELETED

Err - Greg's already presented Children in Need hasn't he? In 2016, after Sir Terry had passed away, and Dermot O'Leary (who had stepped in to cover Sir Terry's illness in 2015) had returned to ITV, Greg presented the opening section of the show with Tess Daly, effectively covering Ade's role this year?

Greg's got a good track record of live TV (Glastonbury, Sounds Like Friday Night, The One Show to name a few) and is a consummate live broadcaster (the fluency he has on the radio translates perfectly to TV).

(Or were the ...'s ironic?)

I am sure one theatre would be available for just one Friday night in the year, especially the promotion they will get from hosting the event. It is only one night.

It is of no advantage to Children in Need to move to the West End. The set isn't the issue - it's the content and the hosts.

In replacing the irreplaceable Wogan with around 7 people a year there isn't the connection there needs to be between the hosts and the event. Focusing on fewer hosts would just make it a bit more streamlined and as others have said the choice is fairly obvious from their line up of the last couple of years. Ship Tess off to Blackpool early and have her involvement be the CiN special, but from Blackpool instead. Indeed they could make the Strictly Blackpool show a non-elimination week and have the show come under the CiN umbrella on the Saturday with the acts dancing to raise cash rather than for votes.


Overall though just as with the same old Christmas schedules the BBC haven't got the catalogue of shows to go to in order to give us somewhat unique specials now for these events. Nowadays probably as many sitcoms airing across an entire year as you used to get on BBC1 in a week in the nineties, and the shift in direction of the drama dept in the last couple of years doesn't really lend itself to charity specials so easily too, though making Richard Madden Pudseys' bodyguard has some mileage in it.

Clearly he has *some* experience, but the post I was quoting implied he’s someone who’s renown for the amount of live tv of this type that he’s presented, which isn’t all that much. I’m not sure I’d consider him to be in the same league as your Dermots or your Wogans - not yet anyway. Agree he’s certainly a decent chap who’s got a bright future, but if I were a producer looking for a host of a big live spectacular who’d be a safe pair of hands, he’d probably be a little way down the list right now.