Comic Relief 2023: David Tennant leads reassuringly traditional show that tugs at the heartstrings

This year’s Comic Relief red noses feature a radical new honeycomb look courtesy of former Apple design guru Jony Ive. But if the novelty noses are from the future, the three-hour charity broadcast (BBC One) was reassuringly traditional.

Kylie Minogue singing I Should Be So Lucky to a room of ghosts, Ewan McGregor sharing Darth Vader jokes with Mary Berry and Blackadder’s Baldrick hefting a sackful of turnip gags were among the highlights of a show that settled into a cosy groove early on and stayed there for the rest of the evening.

With television fundraisers, there is the ever-present risk of all that zany energy leaving everyone frazzled. There was some of that during Comic Relief. In particular, the sight of Paddy McGuinness jigging frantically as B*Witched belted out C’est La Vie will linger long in the memory of fragile viewers. Generally, this was a chortlefest low on stress and high on laid-back laughs.

It started with Lenny Henry excusing himself by turning into Doctor Who. The guiding spirit behind Comic Relief was absent because of mysterious “other projects”.

But he did brew up a storm in a Tardis before he departed, with a cold open transformation into David Tennant’s Doctor Who.

Tennant held the fort for Henry through the night, aided by nothing other than enthusiasm and a black suit with scarlet trimmings around which the laws of space and time appeared to bend. The sketches had their moments, too. A mini-episode of wry supernatural comedy Ghosts featured Kylie Minogue, last seen gracing the final instalment of Neighbours. Final, that is, until Amazon brought it back from the grave.

Unnatural forces were similarly at work here as it was revealed that Kylie could see the undead. There’s a joke there about Jason Donovan’s hair but maybe this isn’t the time (not least because Donovan popped up on Kylie’s phone).

Kylie wasn’t the only Eighties pop star putting in an appearance. Bono dialled in to croon Dana’s All Kinds of Everything in a funny Eurovision sequence where Graham Norton, Sam Ryder and Lulu auditioned potential singers for the contest. They included David Walliams, Buck’s Fizz and a bopping Dalek – the weirdest robot to grace Eurovision since Madonna a few years ago.

Comic Relief each year faces the challenge of engaging with the funny bone while pulling at the heartstrings. Amongst the serious moments in 2023 was a visit by the Prince of Wales to Groundswell, a homelessness organisation supported by Comic Relief. He spoke to Nawshin and Miles, who have experienced homelessness. He also expressed frustration at the lack of progress around the issue since the days when his mother campaigned on behalf of homeless organisations.

“My mother introduced me to the cause of homelessness from a young age and I’m really glad she exposed me to that – that part of life,” he said. “I think she’d be disappointed that we’re still no further along the line in terms of tackling homelessness and preventing it than probably when she was interested in and involved in it.”

With three hours to fill, the comedy was inevitably hit and miss. A sketch in which Tony Robinson’s Baldrick read the CBeebies Bedtime story couldn’t decide how bawdy it wanted to be. Watching with my children, I fretted that Robinson was only one quip away from a rude joke about his turnip. Instead, his riff on Cinderella finished with the princess turning into a skeleton upon encountering Baldrick’s smelly feet. After a 20 year hiatus, it wasn’t quite the fairytale comeback for which Blackadder fans might have hoped.

Better by far was a pastiche of backstabbing reality show The Traitors in which Dawn French impersonated Claudia Winkleman (“half woman / half fringe”). You have to credit the BBC for rustling up some impressive guests – among them Mary Berry and Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, who had fun telling Berry to “use the fork” as she tucked into a cake.

Tennant hosted throughout the evening. The presenting duties at Salford’s Media City UK were elsewhere split between AJ Odudu and Joel Dommett in the first 90 minutes and Zoe Ball and Paddy McGuinness for the concluding half. They were all appropriately perky – though McGuinness’s B*witched routine turned the wacky dial up to alarming levels.

A week ago, the BBC was having a bit of a Red Face Day as the Gary Lineker controversy rumbled ever onwards. Red Nose Day was far more agreeable. Ribs were tickled, money was raised – and there was even a singing Dalek. It wasn’t exactly comedy heaven. But as charity marathons go, this one crossed the finish line with a spring in its step.

You can donate at comicrelief.com/rednoseday