With three hours to fill, the comedy was inevitably hit or miss. A sketch by which Tony Robinson’s Baldrick learn the CBeebies Bedtime story couldn’t determine how bawdy it wished to be. Watching with my youngsters, I fretted that Robinson was just one quip away from a impolite joke about his turnip. As a substitute, his riff on Cinderella completed with the princess turning right into a skeleton upon encountering Baldrick’s smelly ft. After a 20 12 months hiatus, it wasn’t fairly the fairytale comeback for which Blackadder followers might need hoped.
Higher by far was a pastiche of backstabbing actuality present The Traitors by which Daybreak French impersonated Claudia Winkleman (“half girl / half fringe”). You must credit score the BBC for rustling up some spectacular visitors – amongst them Mary Berry and Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, who had enjoyable telling Berry to “use the fork” as she tucked right into a cake.
Tennant hosted all through the night. The presenting duties at Salford’s Media Metropolis UK have been elsewhere cut up between AJ Odudu and Joel Dommett within the first 90 minutes and Zoe Ball and Paddy McGuinness for the concluding half. They have been all appropriately perky – although McGuinness’s B*witched routine turned the wacky dial as much as alarming ranges.
Every week in the past, the BBC was having a little bit of a Pink Face Day because the Gary Lineker controversy rumbled ever onwards. Pink Nostril Day was much more agreeable. Ribs have been tickled, cash was raised – and there was even a singing Dalek. It wasn’t precisely comedy heaven. However as charity marathons go, this one crossed the end line with a spring in its step.
You may donate at comicrelief.com/rednoseday
