Comic Relief raises £75m

Television viewers raised £75 m in the 25th Comic Relief telethon which featured the resurrection of old TV characters, celebrity haircuts and dozens of comedy sketches.

The last Red Nose Day, which took place two years ago, raised £74.3m, marginally less than this year's total so far of £75,107,851.

Singer Jesse J raised £500,000 by having her hair cut and Ricky Gervais reprised his role as The Office's David Brent.

Slough MP Fiona Mactaggart pledged £14,268 to Comic Relief after writing on Twitter: "I will give £1.00 to Comic relief for every retweet of this message before 9pm." She admitted being "Twitter naive" before sending the message but told followers she could afford it.

Sainsbury's donated more than £10m through sales of Red Nose Day merchandise, TK Maxx raised £3.7m through sales of the Red Nose Day T-shirts and homeware, and British Airways donated more than £2m.

The government also promised to back the public's support with a donation of £16m to the overall total, specifically for Comic Relief's work to improve the lives of women and girls in Africa.

BT's 10,000 volunteers handled 458,000 calls to the donation line during the live TV show, peaking at 200 calls per second.

Comic Relief co-founder Richard Curtis said: "Once again the extraordinary generosity of the British public has put Comic Relief in a position to be able to serve thousands upon thousands of people with very hard lives in Africa and the UK.

"It's almost impossible to thank enough all those who took part in the event, all the members of the public who fundraised and all those who gave so generously on the night."