Yahoo News 'Am I bothered, Tony Blair?' Nine of the best Comic Relief moments
Can Comic Relief seriously have been going for 32 years? Founded in 1985 by actor Lenny Henry and writer Richard Curtis after the latter had visited Sudan, the aim, Curtis once said, was “to raise money, but I also knew that it was fine to be as funny as we could be while doing it”.
It can be patronising, infuriating, and dull. As David Lammy argues, it helps perpetuate the tired old stereotype of Africa as one big zone of starvation and misery, rather than a continent of 54 countries, many of which are thriving. And the organisation got into trouble in 2013 when they were found to be investing in arms, tobacco and alcohol; they have since stopped investing in those areas.
But it can also be sweet, funny and surprising, and it has spawned a surprising number of comedy sketches which have gone on to be classics or television series in their own right. Over the years it has raised more than £1bn for projects in Africa and in the UK, from fighting for rights for disabled people in Britain to funding groups like mothers2mothers, a Kenyan NGO that helps women with HIV.
This year there are plans to show a sequel for Love Actually along with a whole tonne of comedians – Russell Brand (where’s he been?), Romesh Ranganathan and Greg Davis. God knows, we all need a laugh.
A few highlights from the past ...
When Catherine Tate’s Lauren turned up for work experience with Tony Blair (above), things started slowly. But this sketch ended up being one of the all-time classics with a belly-laugh moment midway through that is still funny now.
Hugh Grant and Dawn French look so ridiculously young in this kissing sketch. Grant’s hair is so very floppy, like the ears of an Afghan hound. French is merciless with him. It’s very Comic Relief.
Jack Dee confirms in this interview with Graham Norton that he has all the footage of his 2001 stay in the Celebrity Big Brother house on complete lockdown. For those of you who’ve wiped it from your minds, we’d only had one season of Big Brother, and were, as a society, still coming to terms with it. Dee, asked to take part in a celebrity version of BB, had no idea what it would mean and blithely said yes. He went on, brilliantly, to win, and to also become a sort of National Icon of Grump. In his words: “It was a complete nightmare”. By the way, there have now been 20 series of CBB.
Elton John gets the giggles in this skit which crams in every possible innuendo and double entendre. He comes out of it incredibly well.
Back in 2011 James Corden was finally climbing out of the awkward post-Gavin and Stacey phase in his career (the 2009 Brit awards were probably the nadir). But no one would have guessed that his Comic Relief appearance – singing karaoke in a car with George Michael – would be the first of hundreds of carpool karaokes as he went on to conquer the US. Actually, all the elements that make CK so great were there right from the beginning.
The joy of extreme silliness. Lenny Henry was always the master of some seriously silly stuff – and this battle of the sex gods between him and Tom Jones is just delicious.
Ricky Gervais, as always, likes to be pretty near the bone. And this spoof on a bunch of white male celebrities using Comic Relief and Africa in general to promote themselves and various products (a sample line from Jamie Oliver: “I haven’t been seen on TV caring about anything for at least three and a half days”) is kind of funny ... but also even more uncomfortable than The Office.
Yes, Doctor Who is the greatest TV show ever made blah blah blah. But it’s also a bit silly and, really, doesn’t always make much sense. Which is why it is extremely enjoyable to watch Rowan Atkinson mercilessly taking the piss out of time travel, space-time continuums, daleks and the rest.
Watching the Simon Cowell wedding sketch is weirdness in the highest degree. It just seems impossible that two years ago we were still discussing whether Cowell was becoming too powerful for the good of civilisation (although peak Cowell was probably a bit earlier). And now? The world is a much more serious place. Frankly, Comic Relief couldn’t come at a better time.
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