After weeks of hype, the Love, Actually Comic Relief short sequel, Red Nose Day, Actually, finally aired tonight. It might not compare to Stephen’s version of events, but was exactly what you’d expect, really – the most memorable elements of each plotline recreated and recycled, with lots of jokes about the charity added in. So what did Red Nose Day, Actually actually teach us? 
 
 Andrew Lincoln’s character was always a creep 
 
 It was weird to show up outside Keira Knightley’s house in 2003, and it’s even weirder now, when you haven’t seen each other in almost a decade. Please stop. 
 
 It’s also really weird to bring your supermodel wife purely to show her off like a trophy. She doesn’t even know these people. She must be really confused. Let her go home, “Mark”. 
 
 Kate Moss is forever a great sport 
 
 Judging by the staggering number of appearances she makes at these things, Kate Moss has never said no to a charity appearance, even when she’s asked to do the most ridiculous and frankly insulting things, like pretend she would ever voluntarily have sex with “Mark”. 
 
 Self-service machines are a gift and a curse 
 
 In reality, Rowan Atkinson’s gift-wrapping enthusiast would have lasted about one hour in Sainsbury’s before being replaced by a machine. 
 
 Colin Firth’s character is an utter embarrassment, pull yourself together man 
 
 You’re a writer, Colin. You make a living out of paying attention to language and words. You’ve been married to your Portuguese-speaking wife for almost fourteen years. You learned enough to make a terrible proposal all those years ago. Are you seriously telling me you haven’t learned enough to sustain a single conversation with your family? Do you hate them? Kind of seems that way, Colin. 
 
 Even gay subtext is enough to get you killed 
 
 As Eleanor Margolis reminds us, a deleted storyline from the original Love, Actually was one in which “the resplendent Frances de la Tour plays the terminally ill partner of a “stern headmistress” with a marshmallow interior (Anne Reid).” Of course, even in deleted scenes, gay love stories can only end in death, especially in 2003. The same applies to 2017’s Red Nose Day actually. Many fans speculated that Bill Nighy’s character was in romantic love with his manager, Joe – so, reliably, Joe has met a tragic end by the time the sequel rolls around. 
 
 Hugh Grant is a fantasy Prime Minister for 2017 
 
 Telling a predatory POTUS to fuck off despite the pressure to preserve good relations with the USA? Inspirational. No wonder he’s held on to office this long, despite only demonstrating skills of “swearing”, “possibly harassing junior staff members” and “somewhat rousing narration”. 
 
 If you get together in Christmas 2003, you will stay together forever. It’s just science. 
 
 Even if you’ve spent nearly fourteen years clinging onto public office. Even if you were a literal child when you met. Even if you hate your wife so much you refuse to learn her first language. 
 
 Now listen to the SRSLY Love, Actually special: ||||| We’ve been waiting thirteen years, but finally we got our sequel to Love Actually. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 It might have been short, but it was a funny, poignant tribute to the much-loved Richard Curtis romcom. Here’s what has happened to some our favourite characters in Red Nose Day Actually… 
 
 Juliet, Peter and Mark (Keria Knightley, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Andrew Lincoln) 
 
 Yep, those cue cards were back. As the doorbell rang again at Juliet and Peter’s house, Mark was standing on the doorstep trying to insist he was a carol singer. “He’s not going to believe that, it’s March,” said Juliet as Mark played Silent Night (did he not get this March memo at all?) on a totally retro iPod dock and asked what she thought of his facial fuzz. 
 
 We found out that Juliet and Peter were still very happily married (awh) and that Mark hasn’t done too badly himself. After saying he was going to marry a model, it turns out he did in the shape of Kate Moss. Mossy put in a nice cameo herself as she sidled up with her own cue cards and confirmed that no, she doesn’t really like her husband’s beard either. 
 
 The Prime Minister and Natalie (Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon) 
 
 It turns out that the PM had been re-elected into Downing Street. After five years out of office, he was voted back in. Jo Whiley dedicated Drake’s Hotline Bling to him, prompting an altogether more sultry dance performance from the country’s leader. 
 
 There was a lot of shimmying as he recreated the moves from the video – well, until he fell down the stairs and hurt his arm. He is now married to Natalie and is still giving heart-warming and impassioned speeches during press conferences to the nation. What happened to Billy Bob Thornton’s US President remains a mystery. 
 
 Billy Mack, DJ Mikey and Joe (Bill Nighy, Marcus Brigstocke and Gregor Fisher) 
 
 Thirteen years on and Mikey is still working at Radio Watford. And Billy Mack is still plugging cheap cash-in charity singles – this time a cover of ZZ Top’s Give Me All Your Lovin’, with the word Lovin’ changed to Money. He’s only doing this because his autobiography (which he hasn’t actually read) called Macknificent is coming out and he needs the publicity. 
 
 However there was some sad news. His manager Joe who had “a big heart” died from a big heart attack, leaving a big hole in Billy’s life. 
 
 Rufus (Rowan Atkinson) 
 
 Rufus hasn’t fared too well selling posh jewellery. Instead of still working in the luxury sector, he is now behind the counter at Sainsbury’s flogging red noses to children for £1. He is still taking his job very seriously and spending a long time gift-wrapping his noses. 
 
 Tissue paper goes into the presentation box along with the nose which is then placed in “so much more than just a bag” alongside jelly beans, a bit of glitter and yoghurt-coated raisins as a queue forms across the carpark. 
 
 Jamie and Aurelia (Colin Firth and Lucia Moniz) 
 
 After proposing in the restaurant, Aurelia is now “inhabit with me in England,” as Jamie suggested all those years ago. The pair are now happily-married with three children, Jamie is still wearing turtle neck jumpers and his Portugese has come on leaps and bounds. 
 
 It’s still not perfect, though. When Aurelia tells him the news that she’s pregnant for the fourth time, he replies that he wants rice with it because he’s getting a bit tired of stir fry. Oh, Jamie! 
 
 Daniel, Sam and Joanna (Liam Neeson, Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Olivia Olson) 
 
 Daniel is still spending his days sitting on park benches looking melancholic, but his son Sam is now 26 years old and spending time in New York. He flew back to surprise him with news of his love life. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 He is now dating Joanna – the girl he wanted for Christmas when he was 12 years old. They met up in New York and now she’s in London to ask Daniel if she can marry Sam. He said he was thinking about it, but we never got a proper answer. We’re taking it as a yes. ||||| Comic Relief's hotly-anticipated mini reboot of romantic-comedy, Love Actually, finally made its way to our TV screens and fans were quick to praise the follow-up for keeping the charm and heart of the original. 
 
 Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson and Colin Firth were among the stars who reprised their much-loved roles for the short film dubbed, Red Nose Day Actually. 
 
 The 2003 film's creator and director Richard Curtis, who is also the co-founder of Comic Relief and has co-produced the event for the BBC since 1988, created the ten-minute short, which revisited some of the famous storylines 14 years on from the original film - including a final resolution to the film's famous love triangle between the characters played by Andrew Lincoln, Knightley, and Ejiofor. 
 
 Fans took to social media in their droves to comment on Hugh Grant's new dance moves and a surprise cameo from none other than Kate Moss. 
 
 😂😂😂 Hugh Grant dancing hasn't improved in 13 years #loveactually #RedNoseDay — Natascha (@Natascha_Kilts) March 24, 2017 
 
 Hugh Grant dancing to Drake is amazing #RedNoseDay #loveactually — Mini Fish (@LizzFisher) March 24, 2017 
 
 This is the best thing that's happened in ages #LoveActually #ComicRelief — amelia (@ameliacolthart) March 24, 2017 
 
 Curtis previously said the TV special would be a "nostalgic moment" for the old cast, and joked that he is most interested to see who has aged the most gracefully. 
 
 "I guess that's the big question...or is it so obviously Liam?" he said. 
 
 "Over the years I've enjoyed doing Red Nose Day specials of TV things I've worked on - Blackadder, The Vicar Of Dibley and Mr Bean - it seemed like a fun idea this year to do a special sketch based one of my films." 
 
 "I would never have dreamt of writing a sequel to Love Actually, but I thought it might be fun to do 10 minutes to see what everyone is now up to. 
 
 "We hope to make something that'll be fun - very much in the spirit of the original film and of Red Nose Day - and which we hope will help bring lots of viewers and cash to the Red Nose Day shows," he added. 
 
 Emma Freud, director of Red Nose Day, delighted fans with some behind-the-scenes photos on Twitter on the run-up to the eagerly-awaited sequel. 
 
 Our pm is still married. And she's still lovely. #rednosedayactually pic.twitter.com/MGtUVDGiBE — emma freud (@emmafreud) March 5, 2017 
 
 However, the special was tinged with some sadness as the much-loved Alan Rickman was absent following his sudden death last year. 
 
 The only thing that makes me sad is that Alan Rickman didn't get to witness this or be a part of this 💔 #LoveActually #RedNoseDay — Kaja 😈🐾 (@blackrose1002) March 24, 2017 
 
 Emma Thompson, who played his wife who was cheated on in the original movie, recently said it would be "too sad and too soon" after Rickman's death for her to take part in the film's Comic Relief sequel. 
 
 Kris Marshall, who played the hopeless-in-love Colin Frissell , who moves to America to try his luck with the ladies in the 2003 movie, also revealed he wouldn't be starring in the movie's second outing. 
 
 Other highlights of the Comic Relief special included Take That’s Carpool Karaoke, some live rapping from Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, and appearances from Alan Partridge and Mrs Brown. ||||| When Love Actually premiered in 2003, the ensemble rom-com featured one very special supermodel cameo—Claudia Schiffer—as a potential love match for Liam Neeson. And when the long-awaited, sequel premiered on Friday, as part of Red Nose Day in the U.K., the 10-minute follow-up featured another surprise cameo from the catwalk. This time around, though, the supermodel in question only had eyes for Mark (Andrew Lincoln) and his beard. Sorry, Juliet (Keira Knightley). 
 
 Take a look at the first snippet below. 
 
 And if you’re a sucker for spoilers, you can also catch a few other excerpts posted by fans on Twitter. (The full special won’t air in the U.S. until May.) The first shows that Hugh Grant’s prime minister is well acquainted with Drake’s discography. 
 
 The second shows what happens when one is well acquainted with Drake’s discography. . . and not 10 Downing Street’s steps. (Even after all of these years, we know.) 
 
 The third shows that Thomas Brodie-Sangster’s Sam is not in jail for blowing past multiple airport security checkpoints to meet Olivia Olson’s character. 
 
 In a statement, Love Actually writer/director Richard Curtis explained of the follow-up’s format, “I would never have dreamt of writing a sequel to Love Actually, but I thought it might be fun to do 10 minutes to see what everyone is now up to. Who has aged best?—I guess that's the big question. . .or is it so obviously Liam [Neeson]?” 
 
 In a behind-the-scenes video released last week, Hugh Grant joked that he has been refusing annual invitations for Love Actually reunions for years. 
 
 “This nightmare with Richard happens every bloody year,” Grant deadpanned. (Love Actually writer/director Richard Curtis is the long-time romantic partner of Red Nose Day’s director Emma Freud—which might explain why Curtis & the Love Actually Co. were tempted to reunite in the past.) 
 
 “Some years I can fob him off with money,” Grant says. “‘I’m not doing that. Here’s a check.’” 
 
 Not everyone was as much of a Love Actually grinch, though. McCutcheon had a more rom-com appropriate response to the news that there would be a reunion: “My heart—there was a little skip, a little jump.” 
 
 Stateside fans can watch the complete Love Actually reunion when it airs on May 25 on NBC. 
 
 Do you have what it takes? 
 
 Test your knowledge of the Seven Kingdoms with Vanity Fair ’s Game of Unknowns. 
 
 Make your predictions ||||| Human foibles, in major and minor keys, are the chords that Woody Allen has been pounding for roughly 45 years. So it should come as no surprise that in his new frothy and fitful romantic black comedy, "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger," everyone must take a spin around the dance floor with the disillusionments, deceptions and dissatisfactions of life.Allen has put his latest morality and mortality tale in the hands of his usual complement of fine actors, who play interlocking couples each fraught in their own way. It starts with the dizzy delight of Gemma Jones as Helena, the matriarch in the meddling middle of it all. By the time we meet her, she's attempted suicide after being divorced by her wayward husband, Alfie (Anthony Hopkins), who like his cinematic namesake hit midlife wondering "What's it all about?" and it wasn't about Helena.Now Helena is settled into a needy depression helped by copious amounts of alcohol that's put her daughter Sally (Naomi Watts) on edge and sent her son-in-law Roy (Josh Brolin) over it. But then they are barely treading their own troubled waters with Sally ready to trade career for a child and Roy desperate to resurrect his as a novelist with one long-ago success followed by a string of failures.Another strain teasing out the tension is that most human of all foibles and one of the filmmaker's favorites — a belief in true romance that he loves to systematically destroy. Thus the necessary complications for our couples come in fetching forms: Roy's is Dia (Frieda Pinto), a beautiful enigma he spies from his window; Alfie's is a brassy blond named Charmaine (a very funny Lucy Punch ); Sally's is her elegant art-gallery boss, Greg ( Antonio Banderas ). And Helena's is that stranger on the horizon.Giving the film its name and its tone is a clever psychic con named Cristal, played with a calculating empathy by Pauline Collins , whom you may remember from her Oscar-nominated turn as a 40ish woman on the verge in 1989's "Shirley Valentine." Here her timing is as spot-on as Cristal's predictions for Helena, which is to say she keeps everything merry and moving.The story is set in current-day London, Allen's movie home away from home in recent years. Leaving the safety of Manhattan at first proved invigorating in 2005's "Match Point" but less so for "Scoop" and "Cassandra's Dream," which followed. A brief sojourn through Spain for 2008's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" came with a fresh life. "Whatever Works," back in Manhattan in 2009, didn't. "Tall Dark Stranger" is somewhere in between.The film is Allen's third and best collaboration with director of photography Vilmos Zsigmond, a legend in his own right with such iconic classics as "The Deer Hunter" and an Oscar for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." In "Tall Dark Stranger," the slices of life cut between the tradition-bound Brit — housewife Helena in her dowdy flower-prints and dated hats — and the contemporary most pointedly in Alfie's blindingly white penthouse styled for his new Viagra-infused life. Yet for the most part Zsigmond creates a faded wallpaper softness to the look that gives the film an almost ethereal charm.That same softness extends to other parts of the production in ways not as satisfying. Where once Allen's players would have drawn blood, sometimes quite literally given the filmmaker's affection for killing off inconvenient characters ("Crimes and Misdemeanors" among them), here they pull their punches. The dialogue drifts into the petulance of bickering children rather than the biting brilliance that marks the best of his work.In using a lighter touch, he's made it harder to root for — or against — anyone in particular with the exception of Jones, a veteran British character actor probably best known in the U.S. as Bridget Jones' flighty mum who blows into each of her scenes like a blithe spirit. Brolin, always better with a sharp edge, suffers, and Hopkins nearly fades away.Thematically, Allen moves his unhappy troupe through life's ups and downs in ways that will feel familiar to anyone who's followed his work — perhaps the curse of such a long career. This kinder, gentler Allen is still clever, still amusing, and the film itself is a confection tempting enough to consider a taste. Yet there is that empty-calorie letdown after it's over. Maybe it's time to book another trip to Spain. ||||| The only thing memorable about Sex and the City 2 is the number two part, which describes it totally, if you get my drift. Everything else in this deadly, brainless exercise in pointless tedium is dedicated to the screeching audacity of delusional self-importance that convinces these people the whole world is waiting desperately to watch two hours and 25 minutes of platform heels, fake orgasms and preposterous clothes. It is to movies what fried dough is to nutrition. 
 
 It has been two years since their last chick flick and in the interim, Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda have turned from Cosmo girls who munch into cougar ladies who lunch. They still devote their lives to the credo that no crisis is ever so great that it can’t be solved by a new pair of Manolo Blahniks, but now there’s a difference. No longer waiting for orgasms, they’re waiting for menopause, and in all four cases, they’ve found it. No film has ever contained so many sloppy hairdos soaking wet from hot flashes. Tired of being called the heterosexual equivalent of Armistead Maupin’s gay West Coast lampoon Tales of the City in the San Francisco Chronicle, this installment opens with Carrie in a man’s tuxedo, playing the best man at a gay wedding almost as vulgar as the homophobic one-liners about the minister, played by-are you ready?-Liza Minnelli, who parodies herself by telling the congregation, “Marriage is serious … or so they tell me,” before blasting off with Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” 
 
 Carrie, a neurotic Black Belt shopper who lives for designer labels, and an occasional columnist who writes about being fabulous and single, has been married two years to Mr. Big (Chris Noth), who once dumped her at the altar. (Sarah Jessica Parker looks better after her face mole was surgically removed, so why does her hair look like 20 pounds of mattress stuffing?) Uptight, Waspy-turned-Jewess Charlotte (Kristin Davis) brings her bald Jewish husband, her two babies and a nanny without a bra. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is back with nice-guy bartender Steve (David Eigenberg), but still too preoccupied as a lawyer to pay much attention to her home life (although rarely seen so much as filing a brief). Samantha (Kim Cattrall), still the group slut who has slept with every eligible man in Manhattan and half of Brooklyn without learning anything about real life in the Porthault sheets, brings a new face that looks like some of the sutures are still in it and her usual stinging one-liners. (“It’s a gay wedding-what’s one more bitch with an attitude?”) These are the jokes, and since the four women dress like drag queens, it’s not always easy to tell the difference. 
 
 Substituting for a plot, the four bimbos brew trouble in paradise. Allergic to the kitchen, Carrie calls herself “more Coco Chanel than coq au vin” and wants to go out on the town every night, while Big pleads for osso buco at home and watching old black-and-white classics in bed like It Happened One Night. (The only sane person in the entire film, if you ask me.) Smith (Jason Lewis), the old squeeze Samantha turned into a Hollywood star by smearing sushi on her V-word, comes to town for his new movie premiere and puts a temporary smile on her face, although it sags again when Miley Cyrus shows up on the red carpet wearing the same dress. (Penélope Cruz also makes a cameo appearance as the senior VP of the Bank of Madrid. Who could make this stuff up?) You keep asking yourself, “Where is this going?” And the only answer you come up with is “Every place it’s already been before.” In the 2008 chapter, Carrie had a nervous breakdown in a Vivienne Westwood wedding gown that looked like a cloud of lemon meringue pie on the front steps of the New York Public Library, and her soulmates whisked her off to Mexico for mariachis, margaritas and a dose of Montezuma’s Revenge for Charlotte, who pooped in her lingerie. This time, after Mr. Big suggests two days a week off from marriage, they all drag Carrie to Abu Dhabi (played by Morocco), where more than an hour is wasted on camel rides, karaoke numbers and insulting Middle East jokes like “Abu Dhabi Doo,” “Bedouin, Bath and Beyond” and “Lawrence of My Labia.” A mild touch of feminism makes a brief appearance when a group of women covered in black confess they’ve been inspired by a forbidden book by their idol … Suzanne Somers!! Samantha gets arrested for nudity and kissing in public; Carrie loses her passport in the casbah; and they almost miss their return flight, which elicits from Samantha a mournful shriek: “I can’t be in menopause and coach!” 
 
 Dragging its deplorable carcass into infinity, Sex and the City 2 is so bad you can’t even watch the trailer. Almost everyone who has ever appeared on the TV series reappears to mutter two or three lines that contribute nothing to the film they’re in. The women-too old now to pout, whine and babble about their wet dreams, affluent and successful for reasons that are never clear-are all vain, narcissistic, selfish, superficial and really rather stupid. The actors work hard to perform triage, but they’ve been playing these roles so long they’ve grown moss. The insipid screenplay and catatonic direction seem chloroformed. Both are by Michael Patrick King. He’s an expert at product placement and marketing (the end credits list hundreds of free plugs for everything from limousines to breakfast cereal), but I seriously doubt if he could direct Jeeps in the middle of the Mojave desert. 
 
 When all this greed pays off with millions in box office receipts, the hacks responsible for Sex and the City 2 will say, “I told you so.” But that won’t make the movie any better. You can’t make caviar out of jujubes. 
 
 rreed@observer.com 
 
 Sex and the City 2 
 
 Running time 146 minutes 
 
 Written and directed by Michael Patrick King 
 
 Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Chris Noth 
 
 
 
 1 Eyeball out of 4 
 
 
 
 Follow Rex Reed via RSS. ||||| So, far from gaining the confidence to develop a more mature adult relationship, Sam is apparently so crippled by neurosis -- thanks to the trauma of his mother's death and his father's sublimation of his own grief into the wacky micromanagement of his son's love life -- that he's unable to form a connection with anyone but the girl he was obsessed with for two minutes in 2003. And what do you think the odds are that these two young people happened to bump into each other in a city, oceans away from where they met, where you can't even meet up with someone on purpose without a compass and a machete to hack your way through the hordes of undead subway riders? One of them must have tracked the other down, and I think we all know which one. (Hint: It's the one with the "I'm on a list" mustache.) It's entirely possible that he moved to America in order to find her. Again, a girl he barely knew even when they were kids. And she's either OK with that, and therefore equally as messed up, or bound to find out eventually exactly what she agreed to spend the rest of her life with. There's a lesson here, parents: Don't make your kids think about Meat Loaf's penis. It'll fuck them up for life. 
 
 ↓ Continue Reading Below Advertisement 
 
 Then there's Colin Firth's character, the lovelorn writer who retreats to the French countryside and ends up falling for the Portuguese maid he's hired even though they've never truly spoken, as she doesn't speak English and he doesn't speak Portuguese. People thought it was moving a little too fast when, by the end of the film, he's asked her to marry him in broken Portuguese. But guess what, bitches? They're still going strong! Not only did they get married, they have three beautiful children! Don't you see? By knowing the other person couldn't understand them, they could be truly honest, and that habit didn't go away after they started comprehending each other. Suck it, cynics! 
 
 BBC 
 
 Then this happened and my heart-boner audibly retreated right into my chest-sack: 
 
 BBC 
 
 *Play For Full Effect* 
 
 ↓ Continue Reading Below Advertisement 
 
 Not because he doesn't look terribly happy about it, or because four kids in 13 years seems like a bit much, but because she says it in Portuguese and his response is, "That's great, can we have rice with it this time? I'm tired of stir fry." I get it, it's supposed to be funny, but are you telling me he's had 13 years to learn her language and he's still no better than he was at the end of the first movie? She must know that, so why does she insist on speaking Portuguese to him when we know she was learning English, too? That seems kind of passive-aggressive, possibly resentful of his inconsideration. 
 
 Or, maybe they both gave it a go for a few months and then realized that their relationship was better when they couldn't understand each other. Panicked when the bloom started to come off the rose, they silently agreed to stop trying, hoping to keep the spark alive through mutual incomprehension. Because if you don't understand what your partner is saying, they can be saying whatever you want them to. And they've kept that going for 13 years. Because love actually is more complicated than a slightly overlong Christmas movie, and that's kind of terrifying. 
 
 But how great is Hugh Grant? Right? How great? 
 
 BBC 
 
 For more check out 5 Little-Known Sequels That Ruined Iconic Stories and 5 Sequels That Ruined The Original Movie's Point. 
 
 Subscribe to our YouTube channel and check out Why JK Rowling Is Ruining Harry Potter - Cracked Responds and watch other videos you won't see on the site! 
 
 Also follow us on Facebook, follow your heart. ||||| Get celebs updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email 
 
 Oh boy. I’ve seen some Red Nose Days in my time – but never ­anything like this. 
 
 Half-naked Greg Davies in a hot tub on the roof of the O2 arena “for absolutely no reason”. 
 
 Miranda Hart dressed as a tea lady, gate-crashing (ruining) everyone’s scenes. 
 
 Smack The Pony, still not being funny. 
 
 The much-hyped showpiece, of course, was the Love Actually reboot. 
 
 A mystery, to my mind. A poor man’s Four Weddings and a Funeral that ­delivered precisely nothing. 
 
 (Image: BBC) 
 
 But Comic Relief is Richard Curtis ’s baby. So what he says goes. And no one can dispute that its cause is good. 
 
 The highlight was Ed Sheeran rescuing a bunch of Liberian street kids from ­physical and sexual abuse when the crew were about to abandon them to a thug. 
 
 Heroic. But, alas, completely out of kilter with the rest of the night. 
 
 Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now 
 
 The serious point being, how on earth can viewers donate if they’ve already switched off? I can’t blame them because it was an utter shambles. 
 
 Some echoey, unsuitable building in the O2. Dreadful links. Technical gremlins all over the shop. But worst of all, a crowd that just wanted to be on telly. 
 
 Sir Lenny Henry had to actually go over to one particularly chattery section and plead: “Can you shut up over there, please? You have to be quiet. We’re trying to make television over here. Shut up.” 
 
 (Image: Youtube/NBC) 
 
 But I don’t blame the audience for m­aking their own entertainment. 
 
 The supposed talents of the “trendy” comics booked, like Joe Lycett and Luisa Omielan (somewhere a Blue Peter episode is missing its sticky-back plastic creative), were brutally exposed. 
 
 The entire first three hours felt like late-night fringe comedy, despite some notable bookings. 
 
 Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now 
 
 C4’s Toast. Vic and Bob wheeling out the never-missed Stotts to interview Susanna Reid. Micky Flanagan throwing a pizza to Pat Sharp. Two grown men laughing out mouths of water in each other’s faces at the word “willy”. 
 
 It wasn’t until 10.35pm that I realised why it felt so cheap. 
 
 BBC1 had saved the entire two-hour, post-news slot for Graham Norton and his massive sofa. Good thinking, I thought, until he tried to talk to guest number 35, who was in another time zone. 
 
 (Image: BBC) 
 
 Red Nose Day didn’t truly shoot itself in the foot, however, until after Richard Osman’s World Cup of Biscuits semi-final: “Are the Chocolate Digestives going through or the controversial Jaffa Cakes?” 
 
 A sombre Lenny Henry piped up: “I just wanted to take a moment to talk about the terrible famine in the news. 
 
 “More than half of the population of Yemen are hungry.” 
 
 So do dig deep. Any unwanted biscuits welcome. #TeamChocolateHobnobs. ||||| Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window) 
 
 If you like Bill O’Reilly, read this. Don’t like him, read it anyway. It’s interesting. 
 
 TBA: Oct. 6 he and Jon Stewart will co-juice up a live mock debate rumble, 90 minutes, in DC’s nice air-conditioned George Washington University auditorium. Filmed, available subsequently on DVD, it’ll stream worldwide on the Internet. 
 
 Cost: $5. Money to charity. Former “Fox and Friends” host E.D. Hill moderates. 
 
 Why? Why not. They’ve done one another’s programs. They like each other. And both can outtalk Obama. Even Clinton. 
 
 Another thing. A two-hour movie job of O’Reilly’s best seller “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever” grabs National Geographic Channel early next year. Ridley Scott, exec producer. Tom Hanks, narrator. Through great-great-great-grandfather John Hanks, Oscar winner Hanks is also a third cousin, four generations removed, from Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 EMMA Watson, Paul Rudd, Joan Cusack, Dylan McDermott grace the new film “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” based on a best seller — banned from some schools — about love, not love, more love, less love, lots of love, hope, fear, a little sex, a lot of bacchanalia, and some heavy love. 
 
 Emma’s character, named Sam, is charismatic but melancholy. Who cares what she is? Nobody can take their eyes off her. Her first major role since becoming a “Harry Potter” star at 11, she’s now a face of Lancome and attends Brown University. 
 
 Screenings organizer Andrew Saffir told me: “The film’s starting 7:30. Emma’s arriving 7:15.” Right. She showed promptly 7:50. 
 
 “Watching yourself in a movie is a struggle,” she said. “Not just now but even in early childhood days. Every second of the time I’m on-screen, I’ve had to step back and try to see myself. It’s intense. Looking at myself, I had to try and explain: Am I just being me, or am I really the character? 
 
 “I’m just back from filming in Iceland with Darren Aronofsky, who got an Oscar nomination for directing ‘Black Swan.’ He’s so caring of his actors. He was always making sure I’m OK. I’d never seen Iceland before. The place is like going into space.” 
 
 She looked pretty heavenly herself. Short bob. Half-cutout all white dress by new designer Brood. Large middle finger ring. 
 
 “I seem to have passed over the ‘Harry Potter’ crazy. Nobody shouts that out at me anymore. When they see me now, they just call out, ‘Hey . . . Emma . . .’ ” 
 
 Then — since it was late — somebody shouted out, “Hey . . . Emma . . . ” — and off she went. 
 
 ONE of the most beautiful things on earth is the logo of 1stdibs, where Gloria Vanderbilt, 88, displayed her artwork. Most beautiful thing Anderson Cooper showed for a fast hello. Most beautiful Four Seasons private pool room got redecorated just for a private dinner afterwards in her favorite red — lights, flowers, cloths, seats, candles — by event planner Jerry Sibal, who just did the Princess of Doha’s palace wedding. And may that last as long as Gloria. 
 
 ROCKER Madame Mayhem celebrating her Social Life cover at the Sanctuary Hotel . . . Jonathan Goldberg’s Cherub Improv cheering up the Kittay House elderly . . . Christy Cashman, in Parker Posey’s new film (which I don’t know what it is), modeled Callua Lillibelle for a fashion spread in Brooklyn. 
 
 IT’s mumbled that New Yorkers may form their own country, taking along other Blue States — Oregon, California, Hawaii, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the whole Northeast. 
 
 We have Cuomo, Hillary, stem-cell research, the best beaches, Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge and two-thirds of tax revenue. Also Intel, Microsoft and Harvard. Red States have Texas, Oklahoma, the slave territories, Bobby Jindal and Todd Akin, OpryLand and Dollywood. Also Alabama and Mississippi. And Perdue. We — 85 percent of entrepreneurs and venture capital. Plus Hollywood and Yosemite. Them — majority of single moms and obese Americans, most tornadoes, hurricanes, mosquitoes, 99 percent of Southern Baptists, and 100 percent of all televangelists. 
 
 We control the fresh fruit, fresh water, domestic wines, most low sulfur coal, and all redwoods, sequoias and condors. Red Staters consider life sacred except for the death penalty or gun laws, and 61 percent of those crazy bastards claim higher morals then we north of the Mason-Dixon. 
 
 We’ll be known as Citizens of the Enlightened States of America. 
 
 BROADWAY bus. Cute head of a little white dog in a carrier poked out. Passenger alongside asked: “What’s its name?” The owner: “None of your business.” The questioner burbled, “Ohhh, sorry . . . I didn’t mean to intrude . . . ” Owner: “Oh, no, it’s OK. That’s her name. I named her ‘None of Your Business’ because she always sticks her head out and gets into everything.” 
 
 Only in New York, kids, only in New York.
– Love Actually fans went nuts when it was announced that a 12-minute sequel would air during the UK's Red Nose Day as part of its Comic Relief special last Friday. The spot doesn't officially air in the US until May, but this being 2017 and all, video snippets and recaps abound. And, well, bad news for those aforementioned fans—many people say the Love Actually bit was not so great. Spoilers ahead: On Cracked, Amanda Mannen writes that the sequel "destroys" the original movie. You find out that Mark apparently hasn't seen his one-time best friend Peter at all in the 13 years since he declared his love for Peter's new bride in the film, then-little-boy Sam never did move on from Joanna and may in fact have creepily followed her to the United States, and Jamie and Aurelia still don't speak one another's languages. Bottom line? "Love actually is more complicated than a slightly overlong Christmas movie, and that's kind of terrifying." At the Mirror, Adam Postans describes the sequel bit as "a poor man’s Four Weddings and a Funeral that ­delivered precisely nothing." At the Guardian, Barbara Ellen suggests the sequel should have been named Guff Actually. "It was all lousy jokes and texted-in performances and looked as though it had been cobbled together by fourth formers as an end-of-term project," she writes. Another Guardian reviewer, Peter Bradshaw, calls the spot "bafflingly weak." He does note that, as to the inevitable question of who aged the best, it's clearly Martine McCutcheon, who played the prime minister's wife—"she genuinely doesn't look any different from 2003." The sequel has taught us that "if you get together in Christmas 2003, you will stay together forever. It’s just science," writes Anna Leszkiewicz at the New Statesman. "Even if you’ve spent nearly 14 years clinging onto public office. Even if you were a literal child when you met. Even if you hate your wife so much you refuse to learn her first language." But not everyone was disappointed. Radio Times calls the sketch "funny" and "poignant," the Telegraph calls it "winningly nostalgic and a triumphant return," and Vanity Fair and RTE round up tweets from satisfied viewers (who especially loved Hugh Grant dancing again).