2025 marks the fortieth anniversary of Comic Relief, the charity founded by Richard Curtis and Lenny Henry in the aftermath of Band Aid and Live Aid, to raise further funds for the victims of famine in Ethiopia. And today is Red Nose Day, the charity's now annual fundraising event in aid of various good causes throughout Africa and the UK. There was a time when this was unmissable television, with the greatest names in alternative comedy taking over BBC One for an evening of innovative, subversive and hilarious sketches and stand-up. Nowadays there's barely a comedian to be seen, with regular big name presenters introducing skits featuring reality stars and VTs about TV personalities taking on endurance events. And yet they seem to be raising more money than ever, with over £1.6 billion donated over the years, so it's hard to argue really.

But it took a few years for the telethon format to be established, with the charity's early revenue streams coming from one-off live shows, books, singles, albums and videos. The very first Comic Relief event was held at the Shaftesbury Theatre in April 1986 - a star-studded stage show over three nights, recorded for later broadcast and home release. And the video of said event is what we're looking at today. I came across it recently and was shocked at just how many Dwarfy names were involved. The unmistakable voice of Chris Barrie is heard in a couple of Spitting Image skits, Howard Goodall is involved as part of Rowan Atkinson's live troupe, Mike Agnew was the production manager, the editor was Ed Woodenthe producer was Ed Bye, and Paul Jackson is credited as both a director and for co-ordinating the VHS release. Add in Lenny Henry, French & Saunders, Billy Connolly, Stephen Fry, the aforementioned Rowan Atkinson and the entire Young Ones cast to the mix, and this is truly a gathering of all the biggest legends of 1980s comedy, on both sides of the camera.

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DwarfCast 173 - Bottom Parade - Commentary featured image
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Righty dokey matey bloke flap old salty seadog amigo skip-jack jockstrap piano tuners, we're back with another in our occasional series of Dwarf-adjacent commentaries, this time covering Bottom Series 2, Episode 4, Parade. Not only is the series produced and directed by Ed Bye, this particular episode guest stars both Robert Llewellyn and Lee Cornes, which is as good an excuse as any to rabbit on over this episode and tackle your Bottom-shaped waffles. We cover pretty much all the affiliated spin-offs - the live shows, the Fluff video, Guest House Paradiso - as well as discussing what happens when TV schedules are affected by real life events, how Rik and Ade could have fitted in to Red Dwarf and trying to figure out if there's any modern equivalents to this madness.

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BFI Screening Report & Red Dwarf Prequel news! featured image

Brace yourself for a bit of shock. G&T regular evilmorwen went along to the BFI screening of Backwards, complete with commentary and Q&A from Rob Grant, Ed Bye and Paul Jackson. They were kind enough to provide a full report, containing news that blew our minds. Rob Grant has been busy. Read on...

As previously reported, the BFI Southbank saw, on Sunday, as part of a time travel strand, a screening of the episode Backwards, along with the first episode of ITV2’s time travel comedy Timewasters. Your correspondent had not previously seen Timewasters - a sitcom which posits the question “What if Goodnight Sweetheart except Nicholas Lyndhurst was a jazz quartet, and they’d gone back to the 1920s?” The answer is: quite good, and your correspondent will be watching more of it on Prime later.

But I wasn’t there for that, and neither are you. We’re here for Red Dwarf.

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Just a quick one to bring you a bit of news that for the majority of the last two decades we’d leave to TOS and/or @RedDwarfHQ to cover, but now that Red Dwarf‘s sole official news outlet is apparently Doug’s Twitter feed, here’s something he’s unlikely to report on. The British Film Institute are having a season on time travel, and they’ve got the old Quarantine Commentaries team of Rob Grant, Paul Jackson and Ed Bye back together for a screening of Backwards followed by a Q&A. Robert Llewellyn is joining the gang too, and it’s a double bill with an episode of Timewasters. The event takes place on Sunday 5th November (so remember remember that date), and tickets go on sale in… ooh, just under an hour and a half.

Just a quick one to inform you that everyone’s favourite trio of loquacious lockdown live-streamers are back at it tonight. Rob Grant, Paul Jackson and Ed Bye are taking part in a live Red Dwarf themed Q&A and quiz on YouTube at 7pm GMT tonight. Hosted by Kevin Durham, the event is in aid of Richard’s House Children’s Hospice, and donations are being accepted here.

Here’s the link to the YouTube stream, or you can watch it right here, assuming this embed works:

DwarfCast 146 - The Young Ones: Interesting - Commentary featured image
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Once in every lifetime,
Comes a 'Cast like this,
Oh, we need you and you need us,
Oh my darlings can't you watch The Young Ones along with us after the pips and then stick around afterwards for a suitably themed Waffle Men?

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G&TV logoA little over a week ago, Rob Grant decided he wanted to do something to cheer up all the Red Dwarf fans who had suddenly found themselves confined to their own personal Bay 47. The idea was to recapture the magic that formed the conclusion to the most recent Dimension Jump, whereby he was joined by Paul Jackson and Ed Bye to do a live commentary on The End. It made sense, therefore, that the reunited trio would do Future Echoes next, and so they took to Zoom last Sunday afternoon, and broadcast their thoughts to around a hundred webinar viewers. As well as sharing their tips for lockdown survival, we were treated to in-depth details about how the complicated show was put together with analogue technology, the story of how Tracey Ullman was partly responsible for the word "smeg" being used in the show, and even surprise cameo appearances from two former Red Dwarf guest stars. And now the whole thing is available on YouTube for everyone to enjoy.

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When TOS updates on any day other than Friday, it’s either extremely good news or extremely bad news. Thankfully, today was the former, with the announcement that the triple act of Rob Grant, Paul Jackson and Ed Bye are broadcasting a live commentary on Future Echoes followed by a Q&A, this Sunday 29th March at 2pm BST. It will take place via Zoom, but places on the call are extremely limited, so fill in the form on the TOS page right this second if you don’t want to miss out.

Anyone who saw the trio give The End this treatment at the last Dimension Jump will be very excited to see them reprise the act, and hope that at least another 34 episodes will follow if this is a success. At a time when content creators from across the world of entertainment are pulling out the stops with innovative ways to provide a glimmer of distraction from the shitty situation we find ourselves in, this is a much welcome venture right now.