The recording programme on my computer fucked up today, and I had to wait for Mandi to get home from work as she has the patience to fix technical problems. My method of shouting and swearing at electronic gadgets has a very small success rate. I had wanted to record Moonage Daydream and this week's The Sound Of Nottingham UK, but only got as far as the latter. A one hour show actually takes me about two and a half hours to record, and so by the time I was ready to start I was already behind. The major thing I was looking forward to was the return of David Brent, which I missed although I did see the video for 'Equality Street' a bit later on.
The whole thing seems to be a shadow of what it once was, I remember the first ever Red Nose Day 25 years ago, (blimey), and it created a buzz at school. Everyone was in a good mood, it was no uniform day, the teachers put on a silly comedy revue which was every bit as embarrassing as it sounds, and our music teacher Mr Phillips abandoned the lesson and in return for 20p each from the whole class, (back when 20p was a lot of money) he did an impromptu gig for us at the piano. Then when we got home, we had a night of quality comedy to look forward to.
I know that charity is the main intention, and we all do our bit, but somewhere along the line the word 'comic' seems to have been diminished in the planning of the show. Maybe it's because comedians aren't as good as they used to be, but the show seems laboured. Also, no offence to Dermot O'Leary, Claudia Winkleman, and Davina McCall, but they aren't comedians. Dermot should stick to radio where he shines, his Radio 2 show on Saturday afternoons is a brilliant selection of quality music and live sessions, (if you need a stand in while you're on X-Factor duty?), but put him on television and he becomes a growling light entertainment fool. The dream presenting line up was for many years Lenny Henry, (now reduced to a bit part), Griff Rhys-Jones, and Jonathon Ross. Jonathon Ross has not so much lost his edge as had it beaten out of him, and is now a watered down version of what he once was. His presenting stint with Jack Whitehall was simply embarrassing.
There is also too much preamble these days, where it was once a night, it is now more than a week. There's been Red Nose Day stuff on television for ages now, leading up to a film of highlights and a pat on the back on the main day. With regard the pre-recorded stuff, there is far too much of it. I'm sure it used to be a lot more studio based than this, with Mike Smith presenting from British Telecom with a call centre made up of C-list celebrities taking your pledges and donations. Of course there were always some recorded sketches, but not on this scale. Also, the gunge tank should come back.
Finally, the 'comic' element seems to have escaped the attention of whoever is in charge of commissioning the official Comic Relief song. The only funny thing about this year's effort is Wand Erection thinking that they were capable of covering Blondie, to use one of my old jokes for the occasion, this is where the starving of the world send the money back and tell us they'll try and manage without us. I still have on 7" vinyl the very first Red Nose Day single, 'Living Doll' by Cliff Richard and The Young Ones, (do your bit for charity Cliff, it'll keep the police away until you die and you can escape justice in a legal move known as 'Savile's rule'), and also such comedy fund raising classics as 'The Stonk' by Hale and Pace, 'Elected' by Mr Bean, and the one that rolls out during every music channel's Christmas period, 'Rocking Around The Christmas Tree' by Mel Smith and Kim Wilde, (they called themselves Mel and Kim which caused hilarious confusion with the 1980s pop duo Mel and Kim). The first serious single came in 1995 with 'Love Can Build A Bridge' by the collaboration of Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry, and Eric Clapton. There were a couple more comedy singles, becoming less amusing each time; The Spice Girls single 'Who Do You Think You Are' had a video featuring French and Saunders, Kathy Burke and others dressed as Spice Girls, basically rehashing the Bananarama/Lanananenenono gag from 1989's 'Help', and 2003 saw Gareth Gates team up with one joke comedy family The Kumars for 'Spirit In The Sky'. Aside from that, we have seen the official Red Nose Single taken by flavour of the month pop acts who have been forgotten about by the time the next Red Nose Day comes along; Boyzone (1999), Westlife (2001), McFly (2005), Sugababes and Girls Aloud (2007), The Saturdays, no me neither (2009), The Wanted (2011), and this year's appalling effort from Wand Erection. The nearest we have come in recent years was Peter Kay and Matt Lucas in 2007 with '(I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles', and Kay's earlier effort 'Is This The Way To Amarillo?' Neither of these were official Comic Relief singles, but Peter Kay's videos that were released as singles later on, possibly to prop up the poor efforts from those respective years. One imagines that James will have released 'Sit Down' by the time the weekend has finished.
It's a crying shame that Ricky Gervais has too much artistic integrity to release 'Equality Street'. He certainly has far too much artistic integrity to use a charity telethon as an advertising springboard for his newly opened YouTube channel. Hasn't he?
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