God knows, it’s hard to shock the British these days, but the headmaster of a Catholic school effortlessly assumed the role of the villain in an H E Bateman cartoon this week, bringing the chatter of the nation to a temporary, embarrassed hush. Jim Caffrey, of the Rosary Roman Catholic primary school in Saltley in the West Midlands, has banned his pupils from participating in Red Nose Day on the grounds that Comic Relief funds have been given to institutions such as the Marie Stopes Foundation, which provides abortion services. So the children at Rosary will not wear red noses on 12 March, and will hand their pocket money to the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development instead.
Caffrey stands lonely and defiant, an unrepentant Scrooge in this festival of fun.
Personally I am right behind him, and not merely because I would rather cut a finger off than give hard cash to Marie Stopes et al. I object to Red Nose Day for the simple and sufficient reason that it’s not funny. It’s the kind of humour that is forced, institutionalised, self-conscious, arm-twisting and manufactured. It’s less funny than a fire in an orphanage. People in red noses don’t look comical; they look embarrassed, like executives at office Christmas parties who have to wear paper hats against their better judgement.
The ghastly spectacle of John Cleese tarting himself on telly for a tired, unfunny Comic Relief ad for a supermarket made you wonder what precisely was being promoted. Certainly the celebs who selflessly give of their time for the televised funny marathon on Friday – from Zoe Ball to Chris Evans – can take comfort from the certainty that their reward will not only be in heaven; their standing will be wonderfully enhanced from this free demonstration that they are really good people. It doesn’t help when politicians try the funny business, either; I expect Gordon Brown felt he couldn’t refuse to participate in the Comic Relief special issue of the Radio Times, but the red nose on his face looks like an exercise of heart on sleeve.
Added to which, there’s the naked commercialism. When I contemplated Sainsbury’s (“The Red Nose Store”) packet of doughnuts for 99p, with its special, distinctive red nose box and the information that 5p of the price would be going straight to Comic Relief, it did occur to me to wonder how much profit was left to the company. Indeed, as a public relations exercise in seeing off Tesco’s, what could be more heart-warming and useful than the demonstration that this supermarket, GSOH, really cares?
But I am missing the point. The business of Comic Relief is the relief of suffering. And it has, remarkably, raised £138 million over the past 14 years – for widows of the genocide in Rwanda, for Aids orphans in Tanzania, for homeless youth in organisations such as London Connection. Surely, the goodness of the end justifies unfunny plastic noses and charmless self-promotion by white celebs photographed beside anonymous Africans? But do such images not inexorably reinforce the view of black people as poor and mendicant?
Red Nose Day is hardly the only kind of philanthropy. It would be perfectly possible for us to contribute to day centres for the homeless, to hurricane relief, to safe water provision – or to contraceptive clinics – all by ourselves, without the giving being institutionalised. We can be grown up enough to pay freely, without being jollied into it. Or how about simply donating all the profits of a couple of Lotteries – including the bit that normally goes to the Inland Revenue – to African charities? The punters wouldn’t mind.
For all the good it’s done, it’s time for this annual exercise in philanthropic funniness to stop. We have been delighted enough over the past 14 years by Comic Relief: next year, please can we do our giving straight-faced?
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