[Nemesis Nick]

Today is Friday 17 March 2023 - Red Nose Day 2023. From 1989 to 2021, Red Nose Day was a two-yearly fundraising event, in odd-numbered years only, for Comic Relief. For some reason, Comic Relief decided to make Red Nose Day an annual event since 2022. Quite frankly though, as far as I'm concerned, today looks set to be just another plain, ordinary Friday, no different to any other Friday. For starters, I'm not going to do anything silly with my hair or face, which is what people have been encouraged to do on Red Nose Day in past years. I haven't bought myself any of this year's Red Nose Day T-shirts, as I wasn't that keen on this year's designs. Although I have a collection of Red Nose Day T-shirts from past years, I'm not even wearing one of my past Red Nose Day T-shirts today. For those of you who are fundraising for Red Nose Day 2023 today, happy fundraising.

This year's Red Nose Day TV coverage is fairly similar to the last two years. The main show will be on BBC One this evening from 19:00 to 22:00. After the news, Comic Relief: The Best of the Best Bits is on BBC One from 22:40 to 23:50, featuring highlights from 35 years of Red Nose Day. The rest of the evening's schedule, on BBC One, appears to be unconnected with Comic Relief. In addition, BBC Two is showing When Comic Relief Did Big Brother from 22:00 to 22:35, presumably intended as a filler against the news. All in all, an interesting looking line-up this evening. For some mysterious reason, the BBC have decided not to have a long Red Nose Day show from 22:40 until well after midnight (about 3 to 4 hours altogether) on BBC One again this year, unlike pre-2021.

The question is, will any of tonight's line-up be worth watching? Each odd-numbered year from 2003 to 2015 I watched it off-air until late (usually midnight) and the rest on video next day. Looking back, I don't know how I tolerated sitting through them, because each time I thought the shows were predominantly a load of utter stupidity and tommyrot. Many of the sketches over the years have been terrible (e.g. Simon Cowell's wedding in 2013, Mr. Bean at the funeral in 2015). Unlike Children in Need TV shows in November, the Red Nose Day TV shows over the years featured very few pop songs (however in 2009 there was a Top of the Pops Red Nose Day special on BBC Two whilst the 10 o'clock News was on BBC One). I didn't bother watching any part of the Red Nose Day TV Shows in 2017 and 2019 as I thought the entertainment would be just as bad, if not worse.