Comic Relief > Reviews > Comic Relief without the Comics it Seems

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Does such good work in raisining money for the charity
Disadvantages:	Makes you sick of the sight of the red noses sometimes !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

When Lenny Henry first started Comic Relief, it was I understood a way of raising money through comedy turns etc. Unfortunately I think some of the comedy has left Comic Relief.

A considerable number of celebrities have indeed been involved over the years - including John Cleese, Billy Connolly, Whoopie Goldberg, Ruby Wax, Dawn French, etc etc etc.

It was a fantastic idea and has raised a huge amount of money ALL of which I believe goes to help children in particularly in the UK and abroad. There is no doubt that so many lives have been improved and people helped by the work of the charity itself.

Basically there are various "turns" and sketches on the main Friday night show, which has several presenters throughout the evening. Leading up to this show are various activities during the preceding week.

Unfortunately though the show and it's preceding activities are fast becoming a total bore. This year (2007) there was Comic Relief Does Fame Academy - goodness me it was awful. OK we do not expect everyone to be able to sing - indeed the point is to get them to improve during the course of the show. But this year had the most awful contestants. Only two of them could sing at all - Shaun Williamson (Eastenders) and Tricia Penrose (Heartbeat). Easily the most awful person on there was Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. Although some of the others started off with voices just as bad - e.g. Ray Stubbs (sports presenter), they did at least improve. Tara did not improve at all - if anything she got worse and yet when she ended up in the bottom three, the judges saved her. In the end she won - I could not bear to watch the final show so cannot imagine how she managed it!

By the Friday evening I found that I no longer wanted to watch the show at all - I did start to watch but the events that were shown were incredibly poor quality too. An interview between Tony Blair and the appalling Catherine Tate was possibly the lowest point of the evening (out of what I saw), but I confess that in the end I turned over to avoid the rest of the show. I did watch quite a bit of the Apprentice and this was funny - which was just as well when so much else was not. Peter Kay's collaboration with The Proclaimers I thought was also absolutely excellent even though I don't like Matt Lucas.

Sorry to be so down on this programme and perhaps others will disagree with me, but I really do think the standard of contribution has gone downhill. There is also far too much on both radio and TV beforehand and I think people get bored with the whole thing. I have really enjoyed this show in the past and it is only this year that I have been really disappointed - so my rating of "poor" only refers to 2007's events. I have reommended it because it is such a good cause that I would not like not to recommend it and am fervently hoping that the next one goes back to it's previous standard.

This is such a great charity that it is worrying because if people get bored with it or dislike the acts and turns they are less likely to give money I suspect.