Comic Relief 2019: All The Funniest Sketches And Moments From Last Night's Telethon

From Jennifer Saunders' new Mamma Mia send-up to Ed Balls (sort of) joining Little Mix.

After weeks of fundraising efforts which saw celebs climbing Kilimanjaro and taking part in danceathons, Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day telethon returned on Friday night. 

Plenty of A-list stars and top comedians lent their time for the cause, taking part in sketches, presenting segments of the live show and manning the phones to take calls from people donating to the charity. 

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These are just a few of our favourite bits
BBC

And the evening of laughter (punctuated with films about the work Comic Relief does) did not disappoint. 

See all the best bits below...

Mamma Mia Here We Go (Yet Again)

Thanks to just the right amount of ribbing and joking, Jennifer Saunders managed to leave viewers having a proper laugh along with the ridiculousness of Mamma Mia 2 (to use its unofficial title), rather than at it.

The all-star cast from Jennifer’s send-up of first movie were back – with Alan Carr playing Colin Firth’s Harry, Philip Glenister playing Pierce Brosnan’s Sam, with Miranda Hart and Sue Perkins as the producer and director – while an A-list set of newbies took on the younger roles.

Can we officially ask for Alan and Phillip to do more comedy sketches together, please?

Oh and yes, Cher was in there too. Well. Sort of.

Romesh Ranganathan joined Mis-Teeq

Well, he joined Alesha Dixon, which is good enough for us. The newly-formed took on presenting duties for part of the evening and didn’t waste any time in showing off their skills.

Romesh was pretty good too and gave Alesha a run for money, but she is definitely not one to be outdone which you can see pretty clearly below:

And Ed Balls is basically the fifth member of Little Mix now

What he’s lacking in musicality, he made up for with pointing and grand hand gestures.

Ed, you’re through to the next round. We will be getting a singing coach for you though, OK? 

Lily James and Alicia Vikander got hitched

When the two actresses were announced as special guest in the Four Weddings and a Funeral reunion sketch, fans on Twitter wondered if they’d be the happy couple at the centre of it all.

And readers, we are pleased to announce they were the happy couple.

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BBC

We won’t spoil it all for you, but their characters’ wedding means two of the original Four Weddings gang are now officially related.

Rowan Atkinson also reprised his much-celebrated role (though his ceremony skills still need a little work) and Hugh Grant paid tribute to one of the best lines from the original too.

Was it a little long? Maybe. But it’s always hard to live up to this much hype.

You’ll need to head over to BBC iPlayer to watch this one, which you can do by clicking here.

The alternative ending for Bodyguard was seriously inspired

David Budd (Richard Madden) had a brand new assignment, looking after the prime minister herself (played expertly by a woman who can only be described as TV royalty).

But it was the closing moments that left us gasping, as a certain home secretary made an unexpected return…

Alan Partridge’s fund-raising efforts 

The return of Steve Coogan’s much-loved alter-ego has been one of the TV highlights of the year so far, so we were delighted to see him pop up in Friday’s charity special by taking to the streets to raise some money for Red Nose Day. 

A total of £63,548,668 was donated to the cause by the end of Friday’s star-studded TV fundraiser – meaning more than £1.3 billion has been raised by Comic Relief since it began in 1985.