Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais reviving The Office's David Brent, Miranda Hart giving Call The Midwife a baby comedy makeover, Jessie J shaving her head and Peter Kay in physical challenge and pop promo mode promise to be among the highlights as Comic Relief bigs up its 25th birthday. So if clamping a red nose on your hooter doesn't tickle your fancy, just settle back and raise a glass and a chortle as a raft of hosts, including Rob Brydon, Jack Whitehall and Russell Brand, tackle such dubious tasks as introducing Simon Cowell's wedding video. Someone's having a laugh with that one, surely.

I managed to get an exclusive sneak preview of what Jessie J might look like once she's had her head shaved tonight. It's not great, to be honest.

What I did is, I put Jessie's photo into the hugely amusing Bald Booth app on my iPhone, which magically shows you what anyone will look like as a slaphead. And a few seconds later - hey presto! - there she was, smooth as a pickled egg.

Well, almost. The snag is, this ingenious app doesn't actually erase the hair on either side of a person's head, just on top, so Jessie ends up looking more like my Uncle Norman.

I can't imagine that's the look she'll be hoping for tonight. Having said that, you don't catch my Uncle Norman complaining.

As for the other highlights of tonight's marathon, they include Ricky Gervais returning as David Brent, Jack Whitehall going head-to-head with Micky Flanagan in a special MasterChef, Simon Cowell getting married, sort of, and One Direction treating us to their offcial Comic Relief single, Pledge Fifty Quid And You're Allowed To Give Each Of Us A Good Slap. To donate, call 03457 910910.

That's Jessie J under the swirl of shaving foam, and the reason she's posing like the queen of the Oompa Loompas is that she'll be shaving her hair off as part of tonight's culmination to Red Nose Day. Yes, it's time for the stunts and dares and unlikely comedy mash-ups to reach their bubbling live climax.

As ever, we can expect unmissable moments delivered by an almost obscenely starry line-up. Presenters include Michael McIntyre, Rob Brydon, John Bishop, Davina McCall, Jonathan Ross and (careful, now...) Russell Brand. Ricky Gervais will bring David Brent out of retirement. There are mini-eps of Call the Midwife and Fresh Meat, a cook-off between Jack Whitehall and Micky Flanagan, and of course a new novelty pop promo from Peter Kay.

The trick for viewers is to flash the cash early. Text the donation line or get out the credit card at an early stage, then relax as the night rolls by. You'll never make it through all those heartbreaking appeal films if you don't know your money's on its way.

Ricky Gervais: Revisiting The Office

The man behind David Brent writes exclusively about why he's bringing Brent back...

Derek - Series 1 finale review

Derek isn't for me - quite apart from the fact it leans heavily on basic tricks learned from The Office, but hasn't the skill to use them well or progress them, which shows how poorly Ricky Gervais has evolved since 2003.

For the finale, Ricky Gervais takes the soppy undercurrents of this series and makes them a gushing torrent. A care home resident dies, which provides an excuse for the characters to deliver homilies and reflections on their lives to an imaginary interviewer. "When I does nice things, I feels nice. And when I does bad things, I feels bad," Derek explains helpfully. Even lairy drunk Kevin gives a lecture on the importance of not taking shortcuts in life, as the best shortcut is kindness.

There's barely a joke in the whole thing, but infuriatingly there are also hints of how well Gervais can write when he's not taking shortcuts himself. Worst shortcut of all: swamping scene after scene with Coldplay - again.

So sentimental is the final episode of Ricky Gervais's care home-set comedy that it's easy to think the whole thing is spoofing itself. The death of elderly resident Lizzie turns the team at Broad Hill introspective and we get their soundbite views on God and the meaning of life. Occasional moments of humour (mostly from Karl Pilkington's put-upon Dougie) are outweighed by cloying cod philosophising. To top it all, a maudlin reunion between Derek and his dad, an alcoholic, is sound-tracked by crashing chords from Coldplay. Channel 4, meanwhile, announced this week that there will be a second series.

Ricky Gervais has courted controversy with his series about a retirement-home worker with learning difficulties. In tonight's episode Broadhill retirement home wants to host a cabaret show and Derek (Gervais) forms an entertainment committee to discuss plans for the evening. Meanwhile, a would-be rapper is on community service at the home. This is followed at 10.35pm by The Making of Derek, in which Gervais and his cast mates Karl Pilkington, Kerry Godliman and David Earl, explain why they made the series. At one point, Gervais becomes quite metaphysical about the whole thing: "The Office touched on existentialism but it touched on the existentialism of being 30. Derek touches on the existentialism of being 90."