This article is about the British charity. For the current American charity, see Comic Relief, Inc. For the generic character designation, see Comic relief. For the former American charity, see Comic Relief USA. For other uses, see Comic Relief (disambiguation).
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Comic Relief
Genre
Charity telethon
Created by
Richard Curtis Lenny Henry
Presented by
Lenny Henry Emma Willis Paddy McGuinness Zoe Ball David Tennant Alesha Dixon Romesh Ranganathan Clara Amfo Rob Beckett Joe Sugg (See full list)
Country of origin
United Kingdom
Original language
English
Production
Production locations
BBC Television Centre (1988–2013) The London Palladium (2015) The O2 (2017) BBC Elstree Centre (2019–21)[1] Dock10 (2022–)[2]
Camera setup
Multi-camera
Running time
Various
Production company
BBC Studios Entertainment Productions
Original release
Network
BBC One BBC Two
Release
5 February 1988 (1988-02-05) – present
Related
Children in Need (1980–) Sport Relief (2002–2020)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)
Comic Relief is a British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Sir Lenny Henry in response to the famine in Ethiopia.[3] The concept of Comic Relief was to get British comedians to make the public laugh, while raising money to help people around the world and in the United Kingdom.[3][4] A new CEO, Samir Patel, was announced in January 2021.[5]
The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, an annual (previously biennial) telethon held in March. The first live fundraising evening, held on 4 April 1986, featured comedians and pop stars, including Rowan Atkinson, Billy Connolly, Stephen Fry, Kate Bush and co-founder Lenny Henry.[6]
A prominent annual event on British television, Comic Relief is one of two high-profile telethon events held in the UK, the other being Children in Need, held annually in November. At the end of the Red Nose Day telethon on 14 March 2015, it was announced that in the 30-year history of Comic Relief, the Red Nose Day and Sport Relief appeals had raised in excess of £1.4 billion.[7]
^"BBC Studioworks to provide full studio and post production services to Comic Relief Appeal Night". BBC Studioworks. 15 March 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
^"BBC's Children in Need and Comic Relief's Red Nose Day set to broadcast live from dock10 studios". Dock10. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
^ ab"Our History". Comic Relief. Archived from the original on 14 March 2013. Retrieved 18 March 2013.
^"Mission | Comic Relief". www.comicrelief.com.
^Laurence, R. "New CEO". Comic Relief. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 22 February 2021.
^Roberts, Jem (2018). Soupy Twists!: The Full Official Story of the Sophisticated Silliness of Fry and Laurie. Unbound Publishing.
^Cite error: The named reference billion was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
ComicRelief is a British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Sir Lenny Henry in response to the famine in...
Look up comicrelief in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Comicrelief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise...
ComicRelief USA was a non-profit charity organization whose mission is to raise funds to help those in need—particularly America's homeless. It has raised...
specials and spin-off shows: a celebrity charity series in aid of Sport Relief/ComicRelief or Stand Up to Cancer; Junior Bake Off for young children (broadcast...
Lennox/French and Saunders/Catherine Tate/Ant and Dec ComicRelief, 2009". BBC. Retrieved 21 March 2016. "ComicRelief, 2015, Little Britain Sketch". BBC. Retrieved...
and Miranda Hart's Daily Dose of Such Fun! (2017), in partnership with ComicRelief. In 2017, Hart presented the Royal Variety Performance in the presence...
Free's Tour De Dance | ComicRelief". www.comicrelief.com. Retrieved 9 March 2023. "Red Nose Day 2023: Arielle Free finishes ComicRelief cycling challenge"...
deserves better from ComicRelief". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 May 2021. Shepherd, Jack (4 December 2017). "Ed Sheeran's ComicRelief film labelled 'poverty...
broadcast of this episode was delayed by a week because of the 2009 ComicRelief telethon. The first few XLs were not screened the day after the short...
June 2016. "| ComicRelief". ComicRelief. Archived from the original on 20 May 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2016. "| ComicRelief". ComicRelief. Archived from...
She repeated the show in 2005 for the much shorter celebrity version ComicRelief Does Fame Academy. Also in 2005, Winkleman co-hosted The House of Tiny...
Red Nose Day 2013 is a fundraising event organised by ComicRelief. A number of run-up events took place and the main event consisted of a live telethon...
date – "Meet the Luthers" Neil Cross 18 March 2016 (2016-03-18) A Sport Relief spoof that supposedly takes a look at DCI John Luther's life outside of...
Men Behaving Badly is a British sitcom that was created and written by Simon Nye. It was first broadcast on ITV from 1992, moving to BBC One from 1994...
for ComicRelief between 1997 and 2015 and a seventh in April 2020, in which French appeared on The Big Night In as part of a joint ComicRelief and Children...
published, which features facts collected during the year 2017. In aid of ComicRelief for 2021, a one-off marathon special was streamed live for over 20 hours...
ComicRelief Does The Apprentice (also known as The Celebrity Apprentice for ComicRelief) is a special celebrity version of British reality television...
Bush's "Wuthering Heights" dance routine for Series 3 of Let's Dance for ComicRelief, and reached the grand final. In March 2017 it was revealed that Fielding...
special 1991 63rd Academy Awards ComicRelief IV Benefit show 1992 64th Academy Awards Television special ComicRelief V Benefit show The Larry Sanders...
shows. In 1989, she won the American Comedy Award for "Best Female Stand-Up Comic". In 1990, she wrote and starred in an HBO special called Cats, Cops and...
think, then they will be more successful." In 1999 she appeared in the ComicRelief Doctor Who parody The Curse of Fatal Death as the final incarnation of...
Red Nose Day 2011 was a fundraising event organised by ComicRelief. There was a live telethon broadcast on BBC One and BBC Two from the evening of 18...
with French and Saunders and Judi Dench in a parody of the series for ComicRelief. Episode 5 of series 1 featured a painted ceramic jug made by Picasso...
ComicRelief Does Fame Academy is a spin-off of the original Fame Academy show where celebrities students sing as students of the Academy. The programme...
comedy dramas tend to have more humour integrated into the story than the comicrelief common in drama series but usually contain a lower joke rate than sitcoms...
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