EYE SPY: Not even Peter Kay could bring comic relief to Red Nose Day show

Comic Relief raised yet another record total on Friday, yet somehow managed in failing to raise a smile.

Unless you are nine years old, or thought Mr Bean was ever side-splittingly hilarious, the only possible thing you enjoyed on Friday night was the progamme being brought to an end.

Now I’m not criticising the causes, the five-minute snippets of exactly how the money is spent were the most informative and interesting part of the night, if not shockingly effective.

The comedy aspect was far and away more depressing.

Kicking off with the pathetic mock wedding of Simon Cowell, it went further down hill rapidly, and with another four hours of live TV to go, we were in for a long and gruelling night.

The biggest laugh Lenny Henry got was for his gold suit (hilarious, Len) and the usually-cheeky scouse approach from John Bishop was gone as he looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights as a presenter. Standing so close to the camera you could see his eyes move when he read the autocue, and trying to be heartfelt about it.

Even the potential saviour of the night, heavyweight gagman Peter Kay flopped with his mock couchchallenge (stick to the stand-up, Pete).

The only saving grace was Ricky Gervais’ dusting down his David Brent suit, but it was shortlived.

Surely there are less painless ways of raising £75 million?