Tonight’s Children in Need might be hard to sit through. Usually, that’s the whole point – as a television programme, it exists purely to destabilise you with such an unrelenting volley of conflicting emotions that you end up flinging money at it in a kind of sobbing fugue state – but, this year, the discomfort will be much less intentional. Because, this year and for the very first time, Terry Wogan won’t be hosting it.
Thanks to poor health – a procedure on his back means that he won’t be able to remain on his feet for the full six-and-a-half-hour broadcast – Wogan has dropped out of the show at the last minute. And that’s a terrible shame, because Wogan has come to represent the very bedrock of Children in Need.
The show veers violently across several lanes of extreme mood, from sadness at the films of sick children to squirm-inducing segments where professional newsreaders attempt to do anything other than read the news, so the show itself requires a steady hand at the helm.
This is a trickier feat to pull off than you might think. You need to be earnest, but you can’t be too earnest. In the past, Wogan’s co-hosts have been guilty of over-egging this aspect slightly, which is unnecessary. If you have just been reduced to a catastrophe of tears and snot by footage of parents coming to terms with the death of their child, for example, you don’t need to then watch a light entertainment broadcaster spend three minutes hamfistedly try to verbalise how sad it is that sad things make them sad. Yes, we get it, you’re capable of compassion. But shut up. This isn’t about you.
Then again, you can’t go too far the other way and become too detached. You need to know that a whole night of live television is likely to go wrong in dozens of different ways, and you need to be able to roll with it. You need to be able to draw attention to how flimsy the set-up is, but not in a way that undermines the message of the evening. You need to be warm. You need to have heart. You need, in short, to be everyone’s parent for the evening. That’s an insane juggling act, and Wogan’s greatest gift is that he makes it look incredibly easy.
Fortunately, though, the BBC has dug out the next best person for the job. It’s been announced that Dermot O’Leary is being airlifted in to replace Wogan, which seems like an eminently sensible choice. Like Wogan, O’Leary is perennially unruffled. He is not one for gushing emotions. If you saw his 24-hour dance-off for Comic Relief last year, you’ll know that he’s a trouper. And anyone who has seen what a grotesque am-dram pile-up this year’s X Factor has become in his absence should understand how easy he makes it look.
If O’Leary is really intent on winning everyone over, he should give serious thought to popping backstage before Children in Need begins and locking up all the stray newsreaders in a cupboard. If he doesn’t, he’ll still hold the thing together. Rest up Terry, but relax. We’re in safe hands tonight.
Children in Need is on BBC1 from 7.30pm tonight.
