[sjames]

Having watched last night's show, the whole thing just feels too safe and stale. Jason and Mel were fine and could have easily done the whole show on their own, the rest of the presenters were not needed. I'm not sure I really understand the praise for Lenny Rush as he seemed to be spending half the time checking the autocue for his next line, it didn't feel natural with the comic put-downs.

As others have mentioned it, CIN and Comic Relief in recent years have suffered from the lack of live stuff being done in the studio especially as well when quite a lot of the performances are also pre-recorded.

I still find it strange that ITV ditched Text Santa when they did, as I felt that brought fresh energy and life into the telethon and thought it might make CIN and Comic Relief up their game, but they've just plodded on exactly the same and becoming more predictable as each year goes by. The puppet sketch for example whilst fun for nostalgia, seems to have been done several times in various forms now since the original Peter Kay song it's no longer become a surprise. Having the choir pre-recorded defeats the point of being live around the country and choosing 'You Raise Me Up' is such a cliched boring song.

It's interesting that both CIN and Comic Relief no longer have 'official singles' - I wonder why that decision was made?