Red Nose Day 2025’s best moments from TV mash-ups to Davina McCall’s moving speech

The BBC fundraiser marked the milestone by throwing it back to the 80s, opening with a musical performance from Roachford, T’Pau and Limahl from Kajagoogoo on a stage that was pure 1985.

There was a look back into the Red Nose Day archives, with favourite sketches like Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders’ take on Mamma Mia and James Corden’s pep talk for the England footballers getting another airing. There was also a TV show mash-up, an Oasis spoof and a message from Red Nose Day legend Lenny Henry.

We round up some of the highlights of this year’s show, which raised over £32 million.

Strictly hosts Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly had a tongue in cheek giggle about inclusivity in a sketch that saw the BBC ballroom show hiring “amateurs” as pros. Filmed in mockumentary-style, the skit saw Winkleman explaining that the current pros were “not representative enough of the British public”, with Daly agreeing that they were all “highly athletic”, “super glamorous” and “extremely good at dancing”.

So in a bid to make things more inclusive, they had to add a couple of amateurs to the mix.

Enter comics Russell Kane and Rachel Parris as Johnny and Melissa, who pranced in full of fighting talk to Eye Of The Tiger, before shocking the pros with their ropey dancefloor skills.

There were more laughs when they met judges Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood, Anton Du Beke and Motsi Mabuse, as Melissa introduced herself as the “head pro”. And, in a nod to judge Du Beke’s career path, she teased: “Give me a season or so and I’ll probably do an Anton and level up as judge!”

In what some viewers said was the “highlight” of the show, popular BBC series Not Going Out and Beyond Paradise came together in a brilliant mash-up.

Actor Sally Bretton was the one tying it all together, as in sitcom Not Going Out she is the wife of Lee Mack, and in crime drama Beyond Paradise she’s the girlfriend of Humphrey (Kris Marshall).

All of the characters were in the sketch, along with some others from the programmes. They all rubbed along together as some mysterious things started happening in Cornwall.

The crossover ended up being a madcap and slightly baffling sequence of mistaken identities and general confusion – but viewers loved it. “Not Going Beyond Paradise has so far been the best part of the night,” one person said on X, as another said it was “the highlight”.

Comedian Chabuddy G from sitcom People Just Do Nothing had his work cut out for him when he ‘joined’ the Gladiators.

Hosts Bradley and Barney Walsh thought he was a new contender, but Chabuddy was convinced he was actually the new Gladiator and that his show name could be Girth, Wind and Fire.

Having slipped into his Spandex and a leopard print robe, he sneaked backstage to hang out with the others as if he was one of them and offered Bionic a high five. But when the Gladiator snubbed him with a withering glance, he bragged: “I’ll probably take your bloody arm off knowing my strength.”

However, his smirk disappeared when he ended up on the Duel platform with Bionic. Insisting he needed to pause for a toilet break, he looked up at the Gladiator towering over him and asked the hosts: “I’m not going to have to fight him am I?”

“Bradders you absolute snake mate!” he sniped.

In a shock twist Chabuddy did end up knocking Bionic off the platform, but the show bosses discovered foul play and he was slapped with a Gladiators ban.

Red Nose Day stalwart Lenny Henry made everyone’s night when he appeared in a pre-recorded video to reflect on the years of Comic Relief.

The comedian co-founded the charity and hosted the programme for decades, but fronted his final show last year. Announcing he was stepping down, he told the BBC: “I think it needs new blood, and I’m definitely old blood.”

“I can’t believe Comic Relief is turning the big 40,” he said in the video. “In some ways it feels like 1985 was like, yesterday.”

Read more: Comic Relief

“A lot has changed,” he went on. “A lot of it for the better – me, you, us, we’ve been on quite the journey.”

He told viewers: “I said something in 1993 that I am going to say again because it’s as true today as it ever was. The point is, forget geography, these are your neighbours and this is your doorstep.”

Host Davina McCall broke down in tears as she talked about her brain tumour.

The TV presenter underwent surgery last year after a colloid cyst, a benign tumour, was discovered during a health check.

Addressing viewers, she said: “I had a pretty mad year this year. Doctors found a benign brain tumour by chance and after a lot of deliberating I had it removed and it’s been quite possibly the hardest thing I have ever been through.”

Tearful, the star said the entire experience “made me really think deeply about what life is all about and about what really really matters when things get tough”.

McCall said she needed the “brilliance and the skill” of experts, as well as love and support. “There are so many people who are scared, they are in trouble, they are in danger, so many… and they don’t have the friends or the money or the support that I did,” she said. “I know I was so lucky.”

The star stressed the importance of the fundraiser and how it could turn so many people’s lives around, thanking the “wonderful strangers” who stepped up and supported others.

“I love you guys, we love you,” she said. “You show up for people when they are really up against it.”

Oasis’ feud and reunion tour got the parody treatment in a sketch starring James Buckley as Liam Gallagher and his Inbetweeners co-star Joe Thomas as his brother Noel.

The spoof charted the band’s rise, 2009 row (which was put down to someone treading on a tambourine and saw both stars unleash a volley of expletives) and the 2024 announcement of their comeback tour.

Poking fun at the long waits for tickets, it saw one poor Oasis fan looking dismayed when his computer told him he was about 10 million in the queue. When we revisited him he was number five, but just a skeleton remained in his chair.

There was also a nod to the ticket drama, where prices rose because of dynamic pricing. Piers Morgan had a role as a “Ticket Master”, who told the Gallaghers: “Let me reassure you personally, everyone will be treated completely fairly.”

At the end of the night, the hosts announced that so far over £32 million had been raised.