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Children in Need beats record total after raising £31m
Doctor Who, JLS and the EastEnders cast were among the highlights of this year’s BBC Children in Need, which beat last year’s record money-raising total.
Sir Terry Wogan presented the six-hour fund-raiser, with Fearne Cotton, Tess Daly, Zoe Ball and Nick Grimshaw.
Olympic ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean went head to head in a special Strictly Come Dancing edition as the annual appeal got under way.
The on-the-night total of over £31m raised surpassed last year’s £26m.
Fund-raising events have been taking place around the UK.
Greatest hits
Proceedings kicked off with a performance from the stars of West End musical Matilda.
Torvill and Dean were were given high praise by Strictly judges Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli and Darcey Bussell.
On winning, Torvill said: “I’m really thrilled but I have to say I want to share it with Chris. I’ll have it six months and he can have it six months.”
Comedian Harry Hill starred in a new version of A-ha’s Take On Me video, with a host of guest appearances including the Hairy Bikers.
Boyband JLS performed some of their greatest hits in EastEnders’ Albert Square and there was a world exclusive preview of the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who.
A nationwide choir of 1,500 schoolchildren performed Gary Barlow’s composition Sing.
Jenny Hill reports on the impact of one Children in Need supported project
The figure at the end of the telethon – which has been running annually since 1980 – far exceeded last year’s on-the-night total and donations are expected to continue in the coming days.
Sir Terry said it was a remarkable tribute to the generosity of the British people.
“It’s hard for me to speak of it, absolutely brilliant,” he said.
“It’s been a staggering total, it’s beyond our wildest dreams, over £31m for this country’s disadvantaged children. I want to thank you, thank you so much for your contributions, thank you.”
In the same week, the British public have donated £30m to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for aid after the devastating typhoon in the Philippines.
Rickshaw challenge
Fundraising efforts began in the build-up to the show.
The One Show’s Rickshaw Challenge kicked off in Northern Ireland on 8 November, with participants cycling day and night to reach London in time for Friday night’s edition of the magazine programme.
Host Alex Jones called it “one of the toughest things I’ve ever done” – but by Wednesday night the riders had already raised £514,832.
BBC Radio 4 is auctioning off several prizes, including the chance to read the shipping forecast and the opportunity to sit in on the Today programme’s editorial meeting.
BBC Radio 3 has recorded two charity singles with the BBC Philharmonic and the Halle Orchestra.
A female ensemble, conducted by Sian Edwards, has covered Little Mix’s single Wings combining it with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.
Their male counterparts have mixed One Direction’s What Makes You Beautiful with Verdi’s Anvil Chorus.
Meanwhile, celebrities including Michelle Dockery, Fiona Bruce, Denise Lewis and Kimberley Walsh joined the public in a “no make-up” fundraising day last week.
The money raised by Children in Need is used to help disadvantaged children and young people across the UK.
Over the years, it has distributed more than £690m to charity projects around the country.
Abba’s Agnetha made her first stage performance for 25 years at the event, performing her new single ‘I Should’ve Followed You Home’ with host Gary Barlow.
and another story from the Guardian regarding Agnethas’ long absence..
Abba’s Agnetha Fältskog returns – and unravels the mystery of her silence
Agnetha Fältskog has one of the all-time great pop voices: crystal clear, delicate and equally at home channelling the euphoric disco and sublime heartbreak that became Abba‘s stock-in trade throughout their extraordinary heyday. Hardly suprising, then, that news of her first new album release in nine years – and her first of original material since 1987 – has caused something of a media frenzy.
Like her fellow recently reactivated pop icon David Bowie, the fascination that Fältskog still commands is as much to do with narrative as nostalgia. The shy Swedish beauty with the knockout voice, married to one of her bandmates and forced to sing a series of gut-wrenchingly personal songs about their subsequent divorce in front of an audience of millions … before being driven to paranoia and seclusion when the group finally imploded. As the ultimate expression of pop as soap opera, only Fleetwood Mac comes close.
The problem with this image of Fältskog as one of the music industry’s archetypally tragic victims is that it isn’t really accurate. True, she has kept a low profile since the Abba days, but in a recent interview she expressed frustration at the perception that she is some kind of isolated Greta Garbo figure.
“I have been described as very mysterious, but I’m not,” she said, “I think I’m just very grounded. My life contains so many other things; I have my children, my grandchildren, my two dogs, and a big place in the country. I have my own life.”
Even her move away from regular recording happened much more gradually than many assume. She released three English-language solo albums in the 80s to moderate success, but never quite found the material to match the incredible songs written for her by Benny and Björn. In the UK, her sole top 40 hit of that decade was a ghastly reggae-tinged number called The Heat Is On. She fared better on the mainland with the bouncy synth-pop hit I Won’t Let You Go and seductive ballad Wrap Your Arms Around Me – widely considered by hardcore fans to be one of her most underrated recordings.
However, like many pop stars approaching middle age, she found her record sales rapidly diminishing, and her own interest in the promotional carousel waning. Footage of her being forced to dance alongside a 6ft kangaroo on a German children’s TV show in 1985 suggests her decision to retreat from the limelight was eminently sensible rather than perverse.
Another reason for her near-silence over the last 25 years is her terror of flying (owing to a traumatic experience while touring the US with Abba in 1979, which saw her plane make an emergency landing after flying into the middle of a tornado). She travelled almost exclusively overground during the 80s, and did no international promotion for her 2004 comeback album, My Colouring Book – a collection of standards that still managed to yield her biggest solo hit to date in the UK, a tender reworking of Cilla Black’s If I Thought You’d Ever Change Your Mind.
Her long absence from public view may be down to more mundane reasons than commonly reported, but as with Bowie and Kate Bush, it has still proven to be a far more effective promotional tool than a lifetime spent touring the international chatshow circuit. The compelling domestic drama that spawned Abba’s biggest hits, combined with their steadfast refusal to get back together, has resulted in the singer attaining an almost mystical quality, her few public appearances the subject of breathless rumour and anticipation.
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