Comic Relief co-founder Richard Curtis has defended the use of “frivolous comedy” in the BBC’s Red Nose Day telethon.
The show, which included the Love Actually sequel and pop singer Ed Sheeran’s trip to Liberia, was criticised by viewers for its lewd humour.
Asked about viewers being “upset at the mix of frivolous comedy with disasters”, Curtis, 60, told Radio 4 show Midweek: “I don’t see any contradiction.
Richard Curtis (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
“I’m aware that people are sensitive but when I first started Red Nose Day it was because I went to Ethiopia during the famine, in 1985, and was startled to find, even in places where people were right near death, that their sense of humour was still there.
“I remember a boy was put in a flying, blue plastic thing …in which they were weighing kids and him falling through … and everyone in the room laughed.
“They didn’t know they were in a tragedy. They were fighting for the right to laugh and to normality.”
Liam Neeson and Thomas Brodie-Sangster reunited for Comic Relief (Sarah M Lee/Comic Relief/PA)
He added: “I don’t think there’s any contradiction in the expression of joy and expression of compassion.”
Regulator Ofcom is considering launching an investigation into the show after more than 150 complaints, mostly about content.
Several moments on the show – including when Vic Reeves flashed a fake penis at Susanna Reid before the 9pm watershed and when host Russell Brand responded to a technical glitch by saying “f****** hell” live on air – sparked controversy.
Red Nose Day 2017 (Jonathan Ford/Comic Relief/BBC/PS)
The show was criticised for pre-watershed profanity and sound problems.
Asked about the Red Nose Day telethon hosted by NBC in the US, Curtis said: “They use the word shag a bit less. …We’ve had some fun stuff there. It’s a little bit stricter.”
The amount raised so far for this year’s Red Nose Day has reached more than £73 million and Curtis added: “I hope we’ll be getting close to £90 million.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here