Comic Relief: a mix of mirth and misery

BBC show features appearances from Andy Murray, Kim Cattrall and Simon Callow – plus Ronnie Corbett hiding in the bushes Who knows how many favours the Comic Relief powers-that-be had to call in, but they managed to open with a clip of The King’s Speech – intercut with scenes of Lenny Henry pointing agonisedly to his watch as Colin Firth stutters in the sports ground and telling him they’ve only got seven hours to get everything in. And then – boom! – we’re into the studio and everything that is Comic Relief’s 2011 outing. The hosts are always some of the safest hands in the business, but the early shift naturally goes to the safest of them all – this year, Claudia Winkleman and Michael McIntyre. In a moment typical of the background thoughtfulness and intelligence that marks out Comic Relief from the herd, Winkleman lifts us gently over the hurdle of how we can turn our minds to supporting the traditional mixture of African and domestic projects in which the charity specialises while the tragedy in Japan continues to unfold, and the audience is free to relax. And then it’s on with the show. There’s a perfectly functional if not side-splittingly funny mini-episode of Outnumbered involving Andy Murray who is all but crippled – physically by the boys, mentally by Karen – by the end of his meeting with the family, and a Doctor Who adventure concerning the appearance of a Tardis within a Tardis by Stephen Moffat that manages brilliantly to nod to just about every Whovian in-joke, demographic and fetish within the span of two tiny instalments. The first proper laughs of the night are served up by the pathologically incompetent Winkleman, Ruby Wax and Miranda Hart – “the three worst cooks in the country” – in Celebrity Masterchef. They have two hours to cook dinner for the prime minister. Despite their worst efforts, we are alas denied the inestimable comic pleasure of watching David Cameron choke to death on Ruby’s shell-strewn crab salad or mad-eyed Claudia’s massively overspiced chilli con carne. He survives unscathed and everyone agrees Miranda’s trifle should win. “It was EDIBLE!” she says, beaming with pride. “They ATE it!” After that hosting responsibilities are taken over by Davina McCall and Graham Norton until Norton swaps out for Dermot O’Leary. A spoof of Autumn Watch (with Ronnie Corbett hiding in the bushes – always funny. Don’t know why. But always), and of the latest rash of costume dramas in Uptown Downstairs Abbey follows. The latter centres round the mysterious appearance of a scratch on a spoon and includes sterling work from Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall and Simon Callow having the time of his life as “His Majesty Lord Julian Fellowes”. Musical numbers are provided by The Wanted, Take That (providing the always comic sight of Robbie Williams straining to keep his performance ego down to manageable proportions for the occasion) and Peter Kay duetting with Susan Boyle in an increasingly mountainous Barbara Dickson wig on I Know Him (who turns out to be Sir Trevor MacDonald) So Well. Later, Gareth Malone will be trying to knock some singing sense into a collection of telly chefs, which should knot a few emerging themes of the night together nicely. And of course, amid all the merriment, there are the tightly pulsing little documentaries which illustrate the great gouts of human misery that flow here and abroad. We watch doctors choosing from four sick children the three to hook up to the remaining lifesaving machines. Toddlers dying from malnutrition or convulsing with malaria. Nine-year-old Esther orphaned by Aids who wanted to climb into the grave with her mother. And Comic Relief doing its matchless job of warning us of the sights to come, urging us not to look away and then averting despair with another dose of comedy. Not every sketch hits its mark, not every spoof is as funny as it could be, but it doesn’t matter. When you unpack it, the real secret of Comic Relief’s success is the sense of goodwill and hard work that has gone into every little bit of it and it is this, more than the laughter, if not more than the profound gratitude that our children will never know a life like Esther’s, that marches them onwards to a total hopefully even grander than last year’s £82m. Comic Relief BBC Television Comedy Entertainment Lucy Mangan guardian.co.uk

Posted by on March 18, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.