{"id":7147,"date":"2013-02-02T13:25:55","date_gmt":"2013-02-02T13:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/?p=7147"},"modified":"2013-02-03T21:30:07","modified_gmt":"2013-02-03T21:30:07","slug":"laughing-in-the-face-of-tragedy-25-years-of-comic-relief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/?p=7147","title":{"rendered":"Laughing in the face of tragedy – 25 years of Comic Relief"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 PHOTO<\/span> Comic Relief<\/em><\/span><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

The photographs are only just recognisable. All along the corridor in the offices of Comic Relief are portraits charting the 25 year history of the charity. Those from the earliest years show a wrinkle-free Griff Rhys Jones, Stephen Fry like some callow undergraduate, Jonathan Ross still looking wholesome and Lenny Henry before he got fat and then thin again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the BBC first agreed to do a programme for the first Red Nose Day,\u201d says its founder the screenwriter, Richard Curtis, \u201cI rang Frank Muir and asked him to present all seven hours. Quite understandably he said \u2018No\u2019 so I fell back on three people I knew \u2013 Lenny, Jonathan and Griff.\u201d Curtis in those days was a scriptwriter on the tv sketch show Not the Nine O’clock News.<\/em><\/p>\n

Since then Curtis has gone on to write tv comedies like Blackadder, Mr Bean<\/em> and The Vicar of Dibley <\/em>as well as movies like Notting Hill <\/em>and Love Actually<\/em>. Comic Relief, whose headquarters nestle between those of MI6 and Special Branch on London\u2019s Albert Embankment, has become a national institution of a different kind. Over the past quarter of a century it has raised over \u00a3800 million which have been spent in over 15,000 projects in 70 countries.<\/p>\n

It has come a long way since 1985 when Curtis \u2013 shocked by the famine in Ethiopia in which a million people died and inspired by the fundraising efforts of the pop stars of Live Aid \u2013 set out for Africa to see if there was anything similar he and his fellow comics could do to help.<\/p>\n

His proposal was treated with great scepticism. \u201cI remember thinking it was an absolutely dreadful idea,\u201d says Paddy Coulter, who as head of media at Oxfam, was asked to organise the trip. \u201cIt seemed to be an abomination to be sending anything out other than food.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople had got used to the idea that pop stars could raise money for Africa \u2013 after initially asking \u2018what do pop stars know about poverty\u2019,\u201d says Curtis. \u201cBut comics had a further hurdle: \u2018What could silly people have to say about something so serious? Are you sure it\u2019s suitable to be making jokes in the face of the tragedy of the causes\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curtis found the answer in the grim triage system of a refugee camp in Ethiopia. \u201cThere were three huge tents \u2013 one was people certain to die, one where they might survive, and with a good chance of survival,\u201d he recalls. In the second tent they were weighing a child in a pair of pants suspended from a set of scales. \u201cShe was so thin that both her legs went through one leg-hole and she landed on the floor in a heap \u2013 and all the other kids laughed.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Curtis it was a moment of epiphany. \u201cI thought if they don\u2019t find it disrespectful to laugh in a situation like that then I\u2019m certainly not going to find it disrespectful to use laughter to raise money to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n

That laughter in the face of tragedy was the moment that Comic Relief was born. But a more interesting question is why it has continued. Why has comedy had staying power where pop aid hasn\u2019t? Does laughter just put people in a good mood so they are then relaxed about giving money \u2013 or does it do something more profound in touching some deeper sense of common humanity?<\/p>\n

Curtis dodges the philosophy and opts for psychology: \u201cPart of it may be the opposite of human sympathy. If you think a person who\u2019s asking you for money is over-earnest, deeply political and po-faced, you will probably disengage,\u201d he suggests. \u201cBut by surrounding this stuff with comedy you are saying: \u2018Look, the people who are asking you for money are no different from you. They find the same stuff funny. They are irreverent, disrespectful and foolish like you\u2019. So you are willing to have a look at what they are saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

And though what they are saying can be silly it can also be insightful. \u201cComedians work in a world of words; they are people of ideas,\u201d says Comic Relief\u2019s chief executive Kevin Cahill, who once worked at the National Theatre. \u201cThey observe the world and think about things. They make unusual links.\u00a0 I generally find them sharp and interested in getting under the skin of an issue.\u201d He recalls Billy Connolly\u2019s riposte to the idea of compassion fatigue: \u201cI\u2019ve got love fatigue. I\u2019ve run out of love. I only have so much and I\u2019ve used it all up\u201d.<\/p>\n

All this has not been without its critics. Comic Relief has been called a smug pratfest and more. Dissenters say it is just a vehicle for washed-up celebrities trying to revive flagging careers. Or that it perpetuates the idea that Africa is populated only by starving black babies.<\/p>\n

Curtis is dismissive: \u201cMy experience tell me it\u2019s nonsense. One Direction, who have done the Comic Relief single this year, are the biggest boyband in the world; they don\u2019t need more publicity. James Corden doesn\u2019t need the extra work. They are just acting out of common human decency.\u201d And a sense of financial realism. \u201cIf I\u2019d given away every penny I\u2019d earned it obviously wouldn\u2019t add up to what I can help bring in on one night of Comic Relief.\u201d<\/p>\n

He prefers to let the comics themselves address such criticisms, as Ricky Gervais did with the sketch in 2007 when he codded up an African slum in a BBC studio or in 2011 when he and Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington satirised the taxi-driver mentality of critics who seek to dress up their meanness over aid with ill-informed pseudo-rationalisations.<\/p>\n

The risk is, of course \u2013 as satirical comic creations have revealed since the days of Alf Garnett, and later Harry Enfield\u2019s obnoxious Cockney plasterer Loadsamoney \u2013 that there are those who fail to detect the irony. But Curtis is sanguine about that: \u201cIf you ask a comedian like Ricky what they want to do, and what they want to do is slightly dangerous, you have to go with it. We have said No to a couple of things. I can\u2019t say what they are, but we have. But I think we\u2019d lose our constituency among the comedians if we routinely said \u2018No, we\u2019d rather you did something tame and gentle\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Development purists have a different line of attack. Comic Relief has been criticised for presenting material which perpetuates patronising stereotypes about starving Africans and promoting a dependency relationship between rich and poor.\u00a0 Curtis sees a need for parallel approaches. Understanding about development is a journey, he believes. But if that ends with a complex understanding of the interactions of good governance, unjust trade structures and economic growth it begins in a much simpler place \u2013 which may be an 11-year-old girl reading a tweet from a 19-year-old \u00a0One Direction singer on his first shocked visit to an African slum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who decide how the Comic Relief money is spent are terribly sophisticated and are aware of what the groups we support need to do to make sure that permanent change happens,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it\u2019s also important that we have stuff on the TV that enables people to make the first step on the ladder and see that a malaria net costs \u00a35 and that it can save someone\u2019s life. It\u2019s important that amidst all the complicated issues that there is still the person-to-person thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Comic Relief\u2019s distinctive characteristics is that it requests individuals to participate rather than just give money. Just a third of the money raised comes from donations at the Red Nose Day telethon. Another third comes from the sale of red noses and other merchandise. But the remainder is from activities supporters undertake in the five weeks of the run-up to Red Nose Day, which takes place every other year, alternating with Sport Relief. \u201cDo something funny for money\u201d is its motto.<\/p>\n

That, Curtis believes, is what gives Comic Relief its distinctive character. \u201cIf you involve people in an activity they become more engaged with the issue,\u201d he says. \u201cThe idea of \u2018putting the fun into fundraising\u2019 is not a concept that people in other countries understand. But the English sense of humour \u2013 with that business of always laughing in adversity \u2013 means we don\u2019t see any contradiction between those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that sense Comic Relief is a testament to the eccentricity of the British. Office staff dye their hair red to go to work. Students collect in the streets in their pyjamas. Kids at school shave off the Head\u2019s beard \u2013 21,000 schools participated in the last Red Nose Day. With all this licensed misrule Comic Relief has unlocked a different way of doing things.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019ve got the generational thing,\u201d Curtis concludes. Today when he asks young stars to contribute he finds he is pushing at an open door. \u201cThey all remembered doing Red Nose Day at school and loved the day of anarchy it brought.\u201d And each year new comedians bring new perspectives and new audiences to the event. \u201cI started out the father of the event and now I feel like the grandfather\u201d.<\/p>\n

Twenty five years on he feels, he says without grandiloquence, that Comic Relief might just turn out to have been on the right side of history. \u201cThe good news from Africa is not just the changes that Comic Relief has been directly party to. There\u2019s a sense of extraordinary progress in a lot of areas in the continent. I do think there\u2019s a real feeling that we might have been part of a generation that has played a part in getting rid of massive injustices in African economies, and in education and in the defeat of disease, to the point where Africa can thrive on its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just sent Bill Nighy to a place where we were told people are seeing bad conditions like we haven\u2019t seen for a decade. And, oddly, I thought that\u2019s rather wonderful; once you\u2019d go pretty much anywhere in Africa and find situations like that. But now it\u2019s a matter of comment when you do. Perhaps in another 25 years there might not still be a need for Comic Relief. Wouldn\u2019t it be extraordinary if that were the case?\u201d<\/p>\n

an edited version of this appeared in The Independent on Sunday<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 PHOTO Comic Relief The photographs are only just recognisable. All along the corridor in the offices of Comic Relief are portraits charting the 25 year history of the charity. Those from the earliest years show a wrinkle-free Griff Rhys Jones, Stephen Fry like some callow undergraduate, Jonathan Ross still looking wholesome and Lenny Henry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,35,39,551,38],"tags":[291],"class_list":["post-7147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-aid-development","category-culture","category-media-society","category-society","tag-comic-relief"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7147"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7157,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7147\/revisions\/7157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}