Comic Relief 2013 - Mildly Amusing at Times for Money

A TV highlight for many of us, airs tonight. That last few have felt a little tame and lacking something, so hoping tonight's will be much better.

The presenter line up seems pretty good tonight with Russell Brand making his return, there is no one like Fern Britton who somehow was given a gig 4 years ago, totally contributing to the credibility of the programme falling.

I do think it's odd, they've added the 'Funny for Money' subtitle to the listing, unless they're trying to remind viewers they're only bothering for their donations.

Feel free to chat here about it.

And I know the guys at ** are running a live chat tonight here: http://chat.**/chat

The last one was dire - I seem to remember it was pre-recorded sketch after pre-recorded sketch (perhaps to be able to flog them on iTunes immediately?) and climax of the evening was that bloody choir thing which wasn't remotely funny. Hoping it improves this time around, particularly as it's the last large-scale live production from TV Centre before the redevelopment.

No doubt Tumble-weed will liven it up.

Don't forget this kind of thing, is all tommy rot to him.

I preume this year we're not going to have Jimmy Carr standing in the studio doing the pious begging routines after they've played a weepy film.

I do miss the older Comic Relief nights. I've heard a few interviews with people involved in the first ones where they say how shambolic they were, but I preferred them to the very polished shows now. I suppose it's symbolic of the way that comedy in general has gone, 25 years ago there were no big arena gigs and the comedy business we have now didn't exist.

The charity itself has become far more mainstream as comedy has done too. That and the introduction of Sport Relief has made it a lot less about comedy than it used to be.... and I still don't get the point of non-comedy Comic Relief singles either, although the last few weren't that great.

The big change in the last decade has been much more involvement from non-comedians (so the likes of Davina McCall, Zoe Ball etc) when previously it would be comics hosting each slot. As Sport Relief also does this it seems the emphasis is mainly on the fundraising using the theme - so doing something silly for Comic Relief and something sporty for Sport Relief.

They seem to have settled into a pattern of a poppy-single released before the event and a comedy single released during the show, although to be honest I'm surprised they're letting Peter Kay do it yet again, especially after that one with Susan Boyle last time was a huge flop - perhaps the least successful Comic Relief single ever I seem to recall.

Yeah it misses the live stuff in the studio.

It always had lots of pre-recorded items though. It's a shame they don't do those sketch sequences with odd combinations of comedians/cameos that always get repeated whenever there's a Comic Relief retrospective. I suspect that they're a little too expensive

Isn't it just a thing that Peter Kay offers to do? At least that's what they've always make it out to be. If so I suppose it's not something they can really turn down... and Peter Kay's ego isn't going to stop it from happening either!

Perhaps, I guess. Including this year he's now done 4 Comic Relief singles and one Children In Need one (the year he took off from Comic Relief, when they did that thing with Rob Brydon and Tom Jones instead. It's about the only "original" thing he does these days...

I think it's more to do with how television in general has moved away from live unrehearsed entertainment in the name of risk aversion and "compliance" (yuck). Comic Relief, as with much live television in the 80s and 90s was indeed shambolic at times, and that's why it was so magical to watch. Whether it was Noel's House Party or TFI Friday, I loved that palpable feeling that mistakes or awkward moments could happen at any moment, as they do in real life. And the execs knew we loved it - that's why occasionally they purposely sailed too close to the wind, by putting George Best on Wogan, or Shaun Ryder on TFI.

But of course we now live in an age of fear that someone might say or do something deemed offensive.

Things reached their farcical conclusion in 2011 when David Walliams' 24 hour panel show marathon wasn't actually broadcast live and we only got to see heavily edited highlights of it (1 hour long IIRC), raising the question: what was the bloody point?

I don't really think that's much of a factor, if it was it wouldn't be live at all.

It's more that TV in general is just a lot more polished these days. The BBC just can't get away with putting out 8 hours of shambolic making things up as you go along TV. These days it's competing for audience so has to be a big mainstream production.

Of course Comic Relief is a much bigger organisation now than in the early days. Much more organised and savvy, and has more experience in running TV shows.


It was shown live on the internet, it might have been on the red button? You can hardly expect a BBC channel to show it all, not that it was really suitable for broadcast as is with big gaps for setting-up the studio and audience changes.

Also, there's a reason why no panel shows is live and it's not because someone might be offensive!