The line-up for Children In Need 2014 veered from glamorous to surreal, with a side-serving of faintly terrifying (but more about the S Club 7 reunion later).
We were promised the debut live performance of One Direction's new single, a
sneak peek at the Dr Who Christmas special and an EastEnders one-off in
which beloved characters would 'come back from the dead'.
The last sounded like a Halloween gimmick found mouldering at the back of the BBC
fridge – on the other hand, who could deny the novelty of watching Pat
Butcher assume incorporeal form and dispense complimentary goose-bumps with
every pint?
Of course, the most important faces in front of the cameras were those of the
presenters – with charity telethons, it's vital the anchors pivot from
chummy to tearful without tripping up or giving the viewer motion sickness.
Fronting proceedings were Sir Terry Wogan – his avuncularity stream-rolled all
before it – and Tess Daly, delivering the unintentionally hilarious zinger
of the evening as she introduced a muppet named 'Elbow', instead of the
billed Elmo.
With Fearne Cotton and Saturdays singer Rochelle Humes also popping up as hosts, Children In Need sustained agreeable levels of jollity: the grins were rarely of the rictus-inducing, painted-on variety, though there was a moment of light entertainment high drama as Wogan lost his footing reading the official Twitter address.
"We didn't have these options back in 1980," he shrugged, wiggling those mad-uncle eyebrows.
The first major set-piece was the Dr Who preview in which the Time Lord crossed paths with another eccentric dresser fond of circumnavigating the world in a gravity-defying contraption. Yes, the Doctor finally met Father Christmas. Jabbing his finger at Santa he seemed cosmically peeved for some reason: maybe the Daleks had raided the Tardis' reserves of Brussels sprouts again.
One Direction, meanwhile, were bravely going where no boy-band had ventured previously: to the set of EastEnders. Tousled and moody in their dark knitwear they crooned a Bon Jovi-ish power-ballad from a bridge overlooking Albert Square. Soon afterwards, with only the bizarre vista of Susan Boyle singing Pink Floyd to detain us, we were into an EastEnders special in which a frazzled Ian Beale fraternised with the reanimated spirit of Pat Butcher and sundry other spooks.
Was he hallucinating? Were you hallucinating? What had any of this to do with needy children? In fact, a whiff of poor taste attended the sequence: a shot of Beale clanging his head off a washing machine door followed a moving video about a teenager recovering from near-fatal brain injury.
On the subject of unlikely resurrections, pop aficionados of a certain vintage will have looked forward to S Club 7's first performance since 2003 (for those too fresh faced to recall, S Club 7 were a dastardly experiment in which a Spice Girls B-side was cross-pollinated with a Hollyoaks calendar). They were absolutely fine: crinkly around the edges yet still radiating that irrepressible stage school chirpiness.
As per BBC regulations, all charity broadcasts must contain at least one Strictly Come Dancing segment and Children In Need obliged early on. Giving Wogan a run for his money in the national treasure rankings, Bruce Forsyth introduced a quartet of pre-teen hoofers who waggled diligently and without the annoying preciousness sometimes a feature of young performers.
It was a heart-warming turn – and a powerful reminder that utter unknowns can be as charming as a grab-bag of luminescent celebs.
With Fearne Cotton and Saturdays singer Rochelle Humes also popping up as hosts, Children In Need sustained agreeable levels of jollity: the grins were rarely of the rictus-inducing, painted-on variety, though there was a moment of light entertainment high drama as Wogan lost his footing reading the official Twitter address.
"We didn't have these options back in 1980," he shrugged, wiggling those mad-uncle eyebrows.
The first major set-piece was the Dr Who preview in which the Time Lord crossed paths with another eccentric dresser fond of circumnavigating the world in a gravity-defying contraption. Yes, the Doctor finally met Father Christmas. Jabbing his finger at Santa he seemed cosmically peeved for some reason: maybe the Daleks had raided the Tardis' reserves of Brussels sprouts again.
One Direction, meanwhile, were bravely going where no boy-band had ventured previously: to the set of EastEnders. Tousled and moody in their dark knitwear they crooned a Bon Jovi-ish power-ballad from a bridge overlooking Albert Square. Soon afterwards, with only the bizarre vista of Susan Boyle singing Pink Floyd to detain us, we were into an EastEnders special in which a frazzled Ian Beale fraternised with the reanimated spirit of Pat Butcher and sundry other spooks.
Was he hallucinating? Were you hallucinating? What had any of this to do with needy children? In fact, a whiff of poor taste attended the sequence: a shot of Beale clanging his head off a washing machine door followed a moving video about a teenager recovering from near-fatal brain injury.
On the subject of unlikely resurrections, pop aficionados of a certain vintage will have looked forward to S Club 7's first performance since 2003 (for those too fresh faced to recall, S Club 7 were a dastardly experiment in which a Spice Girls B-side was cross-pollinated with a Hollyoaks calendar). They were absolutely fine: crinkly around the edges yet still radiating that irrepressible stage school chirpiness.
As per BBC regulations, all charity broadcasts must contain at least one Strictly Come Dancing segment and Children In Need obliged early on. Giving Wogan a run for his money in the national treasure rankings, Bruce Forsyth introduced a quartet of pre-teen hoofers who waggled diligently and without the annoying preciousness sometimes a feature of young performers.
It was a heart-warming turn – and a powerful reminder that utter unknowns can be as charming as a grab-bag of luminescent celebs.
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