Red Nose Day escapes rap
TV watchdog Ofcom has decided not to investigate the Red Nose Day telethon, despite it sparking more than 300 complaints, branding the comedy sketches “consistent” with the BBC show’s live format.
The Comic Relief show was criticised on social media for pre-watershed profanity and sound problems.
Several moments, 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***ing hell” live on air, created con- troversy. But Ofcom said, after assessing complaints numbering 338, it has decided not to investigate the March broadcast.
“We carefully considered a number of complaints about some scenes in Comic Relief,” a spokeswoman said.
“We recognise that some of the comedy sketches were not to everyone’s taste, but found they were inexplicit and consistent with the live, unpredictable format of this established charity programme.
“We also found that images of a child suffering from malaria, while potentially distressing, were suitably limited and likely to have been within most viewers’ expectations of a fundraising programme.”
Highlights of the telethon, on BBC1 and BBC2, included the Love Actually sequel, starring Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley and Colin Firth.
But viewers complained on Twitter about the use of swearwords before the wa- tershed, including during a Mrs Brown’s Boys skit with former JLS star Aston Merrygold.
One viewer said: “The worst Red Nose Day I’ve ever watched. Not one funny sketch and two different ‘comedians’ swearing before watershed. Disgusting.”
The complaints come in the same year that Comic Relief launched a Swear Jar app, allowing people to donate money to Comic Relief every time they use bad language.