...for a long-delayed Comic Relief sketch

Kylie Minogue is to star in Ghosts in a new sketch for Comic Relief.

Details of the skit have not yet been revealed, but it will air on BBC One during the Red Nose telethon on Friday March 17.

The singer had been due to appear in the sketch last year, but had to drop out after she contracted Covid.

The evening will also feature a sketch featuring ‘an unexpected contestant looking for love’ in a Love Island parody, charity bosses have revealed.   

Meanwhile, Joel Dommett has been announced as one of the hosts of the Red Nose Day TV telethon for the first time – after he too had to drop out of last year’s event after contracting coronavirus

He will be appearing alongside AJ Odudu, Zoe Ball, Paddy McGuinness, and David Tennant.

The charity’s iconic Red Nose itself has been given a makeover this year, by Jony Ive, the designer behind Apple’s iPhone and products.

Now made almost entirely from plant-based materials, rather than plastic, the nose starts as a tiny, flat crescent and springs into a honeycomb-paper sphere.

Comic Relief founders Richard Curtis and Sir Lenny Henry have teamed up with Diane Morgan to make a film promoting the new design:

Ive said: ‘We’ve grown up with Comic Relief and are proud to support their remarkable work. This new and seemingly simple Red Nose has been a fabulously complex little object to design and make and has involved our entire team. We hope it brings a little moment of joy to everyone who wears one.'

A number of celebrities have been pictured in the new noses to mark the launch of the charlity appeal, including Miranda Hart, Sindhu Vee and Amanda Holden. 

Vee said: ‘When I saw the new Red Nose for this year, I was very impressed. It’s very delicate, it’s very beautifully made, and it reminds me of Christmas  decorations we used to have in India where you opened them up and put them on your fake Christmas tree and then packed them up again and put them away for the following year. It’s beautiful. 

‘I wanted to get involved with Red Nose Day this year because as a comic it’s one of those things where you’re waiting, hoping to be asked. I just really wanted to do it. It’s for a good cause, it’s funny, and it’s funny to everyone you know. And I mean, who doesn’t like a Red Nose?’

• Red Noses and other merchandise is available from comicrelief.com

Published: 1 Feb 2023