Because Fame Academy is rubbish and Strictly Come Dancing is for old people, Comic Relief have invented a new format for 2009′s reality-performance strand. And this is it. It’s basically loads of famous but not that famous people dancing to old songs from films. Acting the giddy goat for coin, essentially. ‘So open your purse’, they’ll say, ‘and spray us with sterling’.
And look who’s hosting! It’s only E102-charged, fringed twig Winkleman – daughter of the violently disagreeable Eve Pollard.
And who’s that beside her?
It’s that big lunk, Steve Jones. Steven ‘Berluddy’ Jones – the half bred offspring of a tree and a bull with damaged sperms. A lump of bum-muscle. An oafish, grinning tit, with his skinny tie and three-steps-behind-indie stylings. And YES. I would say that to his face. Before running away and jumping down a hole.
I can’t fucking wait!
So, who’s dancing? You asking?
I’ll tell you. The list is as follows, lovingly cut and pasted from this here press release:
Jo Brand, Robert Webb, Dick & Dom, Keith Lemon & Paddy McGuinness; Peter Jones, Duncan Bannatyne, Deborah Meaden from Dragons’ Den and Blue Peter presenters Tim Vincent, Anthea Turner, Mark Curry, Diana Louise Jordan, Peter Duncan, Janet Ellis and Helen Skelton. Also, the cast of Hollyoaks (names to be confirmed), chefs (Paul Rankin, Sophie Grigson, John Burton Race, Nancy Lam, Kevin Woodford, Sophie Michel, Tony Tobin, Reza Mohammad and Silvana Rowe), Les Dennis, Neil Fox, Angela Rippon and Nancy Sorrell
So, that’s seven ex-Blue Peters, three Dragons (where the hell is Caan? Lumbago got the better of him?), Jo Brand, Robert Webb, that bouncer off Phoenix Nights, those two morons off Saturday morning TV and the Bo Selecta man.
We’ve also got some Hollyoaks kids I won’t recognise, some chefs I might recognise, but only just, Neil ‘Foxy Doctor’ Fox, Vic Reeves’s missus, Les Den and Angela the Rippon.
It’s win win. The charity gets a boost, the celebs get fantastic PR and we, the lucky audience, get some quality entertainment packed with laughs, proficient presentation and funky moves.
Actually… now I think about it, is that technically a three way win? Can’t help but feel someone’s got the bum end of the deal…
Are you excited?
Tags: Angela Rippon, BBC, BBC1, Charity, Claudia Winkleman, Comedy, Comic Relief, Culture, Do Something Funny For Money, Entertainment, Les Dennis, Let's Dance For Comic Relief, Media, Steve Jones, Television
February 17, 2009 at 10:08 am
Bloody hell! That’s a lot of dancing folk.
I won’t be watchig this.
February 17, 2009 at 10:08 am
Nancy Sorrell is NOT a celebrity. Keith Lemon is about as funny as the BNP and proof positive that Leigh francis’s meagre talent didn’t go past the first series of Bo Selcta.
I would give money though if the Beeb promise, hand on heart, that Neil Fox and Les Dennis have agreed to a sponsored murder-suicide pact.
February 17, 2009 at 10:09 am
When I woke up today, I thought: “wouldn’t it be great if I could watch some vaguely recognisable people dancing.” This is jolly amazing. I’m so excited that I could make a hippopotamus snort.
February 17, 2009 at 10:10 am
not really…
February 17, 2009 at 10:12 am
I’m glad this news has made you all happy.
February 17, 2009 at 10:16 am
Jo Brand dancing? No thanks…
February 17, 2009 at 10:20 am
it’s wot i moved to britain for, the teev shows.
we grow up in oz with many an expat waxing lyrical about the top nosh teev in the uk has to offer.
i did used to like the bill before pc dave went all baldy.
February 17, 2009 at 10:21 am
Surely we can’t be that far away from Comic Relief asking for our money to NOT show stuff like this? I’d happily pledge £20 for them to broadcast some good movies back to back on all four Beeb channels one Friday night. No celebs dancing. No sponsored silences. No baked beans.
Just some … quality.
February 17, 2009 at 10:30 am
Excited? No! Although Anthea Turner always provokes a tingle (you know that under all of that cheese and dimples she is pure filth!) and I do find Winkelman rather easy on the eye!
February 17, 2009 at 10:30 am
I’d pay cash for repeats of stuff I already own on DVD rather than this.
February 17, 2009 at 10:31 am
Middle Man – you should be locked up.
February 17, 2009 at 10:43 am
I’m looking forward to lots of very rich comedians phoning in their acts then demanding that the cash-strapped working class people who actually watch telly on a Friday give them their money.
Cnuts.
February 17, 2009 at 10:46 am
Comic Relief’s embarrassing nowadays. What used to make it exciting was that it was hosted and filled with comedians of our generation. The sad thing is, they’re all still there twenty years later. Instead of Lenny Henry handing over the reins to Jonathan Ross who then hands them over to Chris Evans who then etc., they should quietly retire this lot and get whoever the kids like nowadays to write it and present it and what-have-you. Or are we still going to get Comic Relief presented by Lenny Henry and French and Saunders when they’re in their eighties?
February 17, 2009 at 10:49 am
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there, Nappers. They need this generation’s comics up front. Brand, Boosh… Christ, even Carr and Corden…
At least then we’d be moaning about how it was better in the old days rather than how it’s exactly the same as the old days.
February 17, 2009 at 10:50 am
I might be wrong but do I detect a hint of cynicism? Have you not got your red nose packs with fun ideas on how to do something comical and collect money for charity?
February 17, 2009 at 10:51 am
Corden will be there, let’s face it. Fat bastard would turn up at the opening of a door if the invite said ‘Free Can of Heineken and sausage roll’, especially if he’s getting on Telly.
February 17, 2009 at 10:54 am
Exactly. A Comic Relief with those Boosh fellas at the reins would annoy the hell out of me, whereas the kids’d go mad for it. And even though I’d not like it, I’d still donate as I always have done. Unlike Children In Need, say, Comic Relief needs to move with the times. In this respect it’s like Top Of The Pops – without the edgy new stuff nobody over thirty five likes, it dies on its arse.
But that’s not going to happen, is it? Instead we’ll have twenty year olds turning off in droves (and thus not handing over their ill-gotten moolah) because they either don’t know who the fuck Lenny Henry or Billy Connolly are, or just don’t find them very funny.
February 17, 2009 at 10:57 am
They’ll be there alright, ELM, but demoted to the graveyard shift. We’ll get all the oldies in peak time, boring our socks off.
On another note – bizarre quote from Wenger on Eduardo…
“He is always wanting more. This guy is small but he has the mental strength of a mountain.”
I’ve never managed to stare a mountain out, so a point well made.
February 17, 2009 at 11:00 am
And, please, can we not have a clip of Ricky Gervias holding a Golden Globe telling us he’s only agreed to do this short promo because it’s for charity … not that he cares because he’s won this Golden Globe and, look, here’s my friend George Michael? Because that really has grown fucking tiresome.
February 17, 2009 at 11:01 am
In the good old days Joanna Lumley used to strip down to her basque and stockings to encourage donations……or did I just imagine that?
February 17, 2009 at 11:03 am
i might have a girl-crush on the lumley.
February 17, 2009 at 11:03 am
The Comic Relief graveyard shift! I remember the good old days when you waited patiently for the (unfunny) Dawn French kissing bit and the (unfunny) Chris Evans throwing water at the audience bit to end just so you could watch half an hour of Vic ‘n’ Bob hitting each other with frying pans. It’s that graveyard shift we need pushed to the front. Shove bloody Ross and the rest on at one in the morning.
February 17, 2009 at 11:05 am
It could be an urban myth, but I heard Lumley had to have reconstructive surgery on her arse after spending the ’70s and ’80s being done up that arse with penises coated in cocaine. Allegedly. The dirty bitch.
February 17, 2009 at 11:07 am
I suppose they put all the variety type stuff on early for the mums and dads. Then the youngsters can watch the graveyard shift when they come in pissed.
I hate the fact I’ll wait for three hours for Partridge and then find I’ve missed it because of the kerrrazy scheduling! It’s all live and exciting!
If you pay a fiver to the cause, you should be able to press the red button and not have to see the appeals.
YES I AM A HEARTLESS BASTARD.
February 17, 2009 at 11:10 am
Oh, the appeals. The fucking appeals. Fiona Bruce crying in an AIDS orphanage in Uganda, Lenny Henry looking suitably sombre as he plays with mentally retarded children in Wolverhampton. Awful. Appeals ruin telethons, in my opinion.
February 17, 2009 at 11:20 am
Peter DUNCAN!?
Fucking hell. IN addition to him telling me to fuck off I know for a FACT it was he that smashed up the Blue Peter garden
*has WWM deja-vu*
February 17, 2009 at 11:21 am
I’d attend the opening of a door for free beer and a sausage roll. And I dinna care who knows it.
Bring back DLT, that’s all I’m going to say.
February 17, 2009 at 11:22 am
I’m still suspicious of that Peter Duncan story, Piqued.
February 17, 2009 at 11:28 am
I can prove it, NC by repeating it over and over
Oh, I’d like to mention that I saw Slumdog Millionaire on Sunday. SH was right, over hyped to epic proportions. A posh TV movie with some nasty bits, awful acting and no Chuck Norris.
February 17, 2009 at 11:31 am
You can’t prove it. The only ‘evidence’ you’ve come up with is this shady TV insider contact of yours. It’s lies is what it is.
Slumdog Millionaire was rubbish, eh? Well I’ll be damned!*
*Not damned.
February 17, 2009 at 11:35 am
Being Scotch and that, I can’t bring myself to watch programmes full of people, all considerably richer than I could ever dream of being, telling me to “dig deep” and “give us yer feckin money”.
I reckon no-one should be allowed on these programmes, weeping at orphans and what not, unless we have documented evidence of them having ponied up a decent wedge of their own cash for charidee.
That fuckwit Ross could fund an entire continent full of orphans from his spare change, so I’m fucked if I’m handing over a ha’penny. Fuckers.
Having said that, in a strange internet confluence, the Mr H Charidee Appeal 2009 launched about an hour before this post – http://snipurl.com/c1g2u
February 17, 2009 at 11:37 am
Mornin’
Not that i am a curmudgeonly old bugger, you’ll understand, but what i hate about these events is that fact that you cannot stay in, on account of all the telly being rubbish, but you cannot go out either, on account of all the pubs being chock filled with Kerazy whacky dolts that are doing maaaad stuff to raise money, like sit in baths of custard while eating beans and so on. I have already given the money once, maybe even twice, but I cannot be doing it all night, and I really don’t want to witness someone walking round the pub with his grannie’s dirty knickers on his head in the name of charridee.
These people use it as an acceptable excuse to display their oddity and fetishes in public.
This goes double for celebrities, who think that we are interested enough that they get entire TV programmes devoted to it.
Are they re-doing the Apprentice one this year?
February 17, 2009 at 11:45 am
Comic Relief should at least, under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, be comic.
February 17, 2009 at 11:45 am
Of course they’re doing The Apprentice, Mel. Doing it with that man-of-the-moment comedy powerhouse, Jonathan Ross.
February 17, 2009 at 11:47 am
Well, i might watch that one, but this dancing thing can get lost, especially now i can get ’13th Street: The Crime and Thriller Channel’ which shows non-stop CSI and LAw and Order
February 17, 2009 at 11:47 am
NC, it’s not a ‘shady’ TV insider, it’s a mates brother. He was with him, he saw Peter a smashin’ and a weedin’
February 17, 2009 at 11:50 am
This year I’m going to phone up Jonathan Ross’s house and leave a message telling him how much I enjoy his television shows, what a splendid lot his family are, and if he could give me a bell when his daughters are legally available for soft porn action. How he will laugh and applaud my oh so cutting edge humour. We could end up bestest friends forever and I’ll get to do toe-curdling interviews about how we’re bestest friends forever on his not at all incestuous televisual programme. It will be so great. BFF.
February 17, 2009 at 11:51 am
I’m getting the impression some of you (Mel, Four Star, Mr. H) are not going to be wearing your red noses!
February 17, 2009 at 11:52 am
i’d rather watch the wedding channel than anything comic relief.
when i arrived in britain-land in 2001 i had no idea what comic relief was. sounded to me like clown-porn (insert laff here) but i instinctively knew to avoid it.
am smart.
also am bored.
February 17, 2009 at 11:52 am
I’m Scotch so have a permanent red nose.
February 17, 2009 at 11:54 am
I never partake in any kind of fancy dress.
I am misfit enough as it is, why go to the expense and trouble?
February 17, 2009 at 11:56 am
2001 Breeks, you were lucky not to be here in 2000. The BBC tried to have “Perfect Day” sung nationwide live on TV. To those who are able to think for themselves, this was the most cringing idea that man has ever had in the history of the known Universe and beyond. Luckily we do not speak about it anymore.
February 17, 2009 at 11:57 am
Breeks – i probably shouldn’t mention this, but Roszs found internet boggle. Apparently you can google for it. I haven’t dared, as I am certain a dole queue would follow very soon afterwards. Hope that helps with the boredom
February 17, 2009 at 11:58 am
Piqued – I still don’t believe a word of it. This brother of your mate is a liar.
February 17, 2009 at 11:59 am
i do not know how to play boggle.
wasn’t it a clear perspex box with dice in it.
February 17, 2009 at 12:02 pm
NC, you really need to get with the programmes you do
February 17, 2009 at 12:03 pm
yes, and the dice had letters and you had to shake it and then make words from the letters in the grid. The letters had to be consecutive in the grid, but you could go horizontal, vertical and diagonal. You score on the number of woords, and the number of letters in the word, but do not score if someone has the same word as you. Not sure how that works on the internet, i guess you must still play against other people.
February 17, 2009 at 12:15 pm
From Andrew Collins comments section.
‘they’ thought it’d be a good idea to have a mass, country-wide sing-along to Lou Reed’s Perfect Day – a song about heroin, unless I’m very much mistaken – after that BBC Music Day thingy in the late nineties.
Members of Townswomen’s Guilds, Darby and Joan Clubs, Methodist Youth Groupps and YFC’s up and down the country singing about smack is something that will live with me forever.
Music Day never really caught on.
February 17, 2009 at 12:16 pm
“tits eaten by maggots”
Congratulations to today’s google search of the day! A prize of absolutely nothing is winging its way to the necrophiliac freak who typed the above into a search engine, hoping to find some decomposing norks, and found Piqued telling lies about Peter Duncan.
February 17, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Internet boggle is at http://www.wordsplay.net/ – me like
February 17, 2009 at 12:19 pm
nonononononononono Mr H, in these uncertain economic times, please do not make it so easy for me to cement my own fate in the job market.
Unless you have a job for me, that means i can bum around on the internets all day from my home in Holland…
February 17, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Mel – I like to think of myself as the crack overlord of internet boggle. The more people I get addicted, the less obvious my own addiction appears.
Or, blag yourself a job where no-one knows what it is you actually do, then pretend to be researching Strategic Partnerships for reducing crime in Birmingham*.
*trans; idly surf the internet for several days.
February 17, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Well, strictly speaking, my job *does* involve a helluva lotta internet “research”, but i still don’t think i can get away with that one.
February 17, 2009 at 12:31 pm
IDNLT – that sounds horrible. group singalongs. people ‘caring’.
shite.
February 17, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Breeks – were you not described as a ‘carer’ on Masterchef?
*runs away*
February 17, 2009 at 12:33 pm
mel – yes. i was. i hated it. i don’t care at all.
February 17, 2009 at 12:39 pm
These “events” are a psychologists dream. Mass communication systems, encouraging people to behave conform to a belief system..etc.
February 17, 2009 at 12:42 pm
like boy scouts?
February 17, 2009 at 12:43 pm
A mighty boosh comic releif? I can’t think of anything worse. And I’m one of those young guns, remember.
February 17, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Who would you have in it then?
February 17, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Bernard Manning.
February 17, 2009 at 12:45 pm
According to the Daily Mush today, the Masterchef chappie’s (the weeble) sex life is pretty good since he started Masterchef, and hitler had very bad table manners.
February 17, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Seriously, nd old fashioned variety show hosted by comedians that reach a younger audience would be like dressing Robert Plant in bright yellow skinny jeans and pretending it’s the same as the klaxons.
February 17, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Could be worse Ugeine, they could say he was like Razorlight…
February 17, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Razorlight Must Die.
February 17, 2009 at 12:51 pm
@ugeine: Wouldn’t it be more like dressing the Klaxons in tight denim bell bottoms and pretending its the same as The Zep?
February 17, 2009 at 12:52 pm
DINLT: No, I will not be wearing a red nose. I would rather dig out my own spleen with a rusty pair of sugar tongs.
February 17, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Yeah, that works too, fourstar.
February 17, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Breeks, are you OK today? I get the distinct impression that you are not happy going about your business on this fine and (Probably) snowy day.
Can i get you a nice cup of tea?
February 17, 2009 at 12:57 pm
@ugine: Great! I am Robert Plant, by the way.
February 17, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Snows like sooooo last week. It’s all earthquakes now.
February 17, 2009 at 1:07 pm
mel – all good.
i hate razorlight and clowns and so the topics of conversation aren’t really floating my boat.
can we talk about kangaroos and sunshine for a bit?
February 17, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Aaah, sunshine and kangaroos. Lovely. I saw my first wild ones in Giraween in Qld this Christmas. They are not that bright are they?
February 17, 2009 at 1:11 pm
a roo? in giraween? in queensland?
there’s a girawheen in perth. it’s a hole.
roo’s are ok. they eat and sleep and bounce and not much else, so i guess their cognitive powers are limited somewhat as a result.
February 17, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Oh god, make it stop:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1147195/Comedian-Jo-Brand-pulls-Britney-prepares-dance-Comic-Relief.html
February 17, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Yes, Giraween. Near Stanthorpe (almost NSW).I might be spelling it incorrectly – I cannot get the hang of your Aussie place names.
And some lovely vineyards, populated with men with massive beards. We bought some wine from one of them, a really tiny one that makes about 20 barrels a year or something. The bloke that ran the place was chuffed to bits that his wine was going overseas.
We had a very happy holiday in your beautiful country this year. And we saw ‘The World’s Largest Pineapple’
February 17, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Fourstar – i think it is like insect bites, the more you scratch it, the more it will scar you!
February 17, 2009 at 1:19 pm
ah. i know stanthorpe. spent many a weekend there amongst the peach plantation.
i believe it’s known as ‘the big pineapple’.
we like big stuff in oz. you missed out on the big sheep, big ned kelly, big prawn, big cockatoo, big banana and several more.
culture.
February 17, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I’ve heard Joanna Lumley likes a big cockatoo.
*waits*
February 17, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I think i saw signs for the Biggest Prawn. I also saw a big red rock, but i think that is an experience that many Australians have never had…
We also visited the World’s Most Rubbish Tourist Attraction – A Ginger Factory, where all you could do was ride around on a rubbish train, and not find out all that much about ginger at all. The ice cream was delicious though.
February 17, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I have been to the Big Pineapple too!
February 17, 2009 at 1:25 pm
For the aussiephiles, Bill Bryson’s book Downunder is brilliant.
February 17, 2009 at 1:28 pm
i read ‘downunder’ on the plane from oz to britain when i left in 2001 … prob not best choice.
February 17, 2009 at 1:28 pm
@DINLT: Yes, his description of cricket is wonderful; I get the snorts just thinking about it.
February 17, 2009 at 1:56 pm
You do realise that Oztraliea doesn’t actually exist? It’s an alien prison ship where they reprogramme Aboriginals before sending them out to investigate real countries.
February 17, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Speaking of Ozland
Just used Neighbours to ocupy my eyes while i had lunch and there seems to be some eery shit going down.
All the characters kept talking to some strange woman, refering to her as Libby Kennedy. She clearly was not Libby yet no one seemed aware of the mix up at all.
HAS THE WORLD GONE MAD?
February 28, 2009 at 8:57 pm
wow!!. actually winding yourselves up to the point of slating charity fundraising,lol.
i agree to a degree!, but this is for FUNdraising which of course will be affected by the credit crunch and the Beeb have found a way of getting our attention for more than the one night!. you need to chill people, you will live a bit longer and be happier too, frantically typing your hatred will only wind you up further, then what?? get up and kick the dog or somethhing else that don’t hit back????. then again i doubt most of you won’t take the time to read this as it doesn’t share your point of view and is therfore automatically dismissed as wrong, lol.
March 1, 2009 at 9:47 am
I took the time to read that. It read like the drunk ramblings of a horse. Cheers for that.
March 1, 2009 at 10:27 am
if you don’t like something——go on the internet and complain!!!
March 1, 2009 at 10:49 am
If you don’t like complaints on the internet – go on the complaints and complain!
March 1, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I’ve just farted and it STINKS! Anyway … what’s this wally on about?
March 1, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Vent….think on
March 2, 2009 at 12:51 am
‘actually winding yourselves up to the point of slating charity fundraising’
Tut, tut, tut…
G Whizz, my good friend, please find solace in my new blog-
myopiniononstuff.wordpress.com
You’ll be with decent, likeminded folk there, I promise you. Sleep well, young prince.
April 10, 2009 at 8:09 pm
candygram for Napolean
April 12, 2009 at 1:33 am
“wow!!. actually winding yourselves up to the point of slating charity fundraising,lol.
i agree to a degree!, but this is for FUNdraising which of course will be affected by the credit crunch and the Beeb have found a way of getting our attention for more than the one night!. you need to chill people, you will live a bit longer and be happier too, frantically typing your hatred will only wind you up further, then what?? get up and kick the dog or somethhing else that don’t hit back????. then again i doubt most of you won’t take the time to read this as it doesn’t share your point of view and is therfore automatically dismissed as wrong, lol.”
It will be effected by the credit crunch, you’re right, soothsayer. The credit crunch effected Comic Relief to the tune of £56,000,000. The most money the bi-annual telethon’s ever made.
Can you give me some lottery numbers, Nostradamus?
April 12, 2009 at 1:47 am
Sorry, forgot to add:
LOL
Dear God …
April 12, 2009 at 12:02 pm
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, Napoleon.