Peter Kay: topping the charts with Tony Christie. Photograph: Andy Butterton/PA
• Imogen Tilden is arts editor
Thirty-four years after he recorded it, Tony Christie's (Is This The Way) to Amarillo is at the top of the charts. While Christie's official website proclaims him "one of the world's major recording stars", it might be closer to the truth to term the 61-year-old crooner the poor man's Engelbert Humperdinck.
The Yorkshireman enjoyed chart success in the early 70s with easy-listening tunes Las Vegas, I did what I did for Maria, and Don't go down to Reno, but hung up his sparkly suits to relocate to Spain when the record-buying public took its tongue out of its cheek, and, with the advent of punk, stuck it right out instead.
Christie owes his current revival (an album of greatest hits and a 30-date UK tour) to Peter Kay. Kay used 'Amarillo at the start of his stand-up gigs and in TV series Phoenix Nights. The tune thus achieved critical mass, and Comic Relief proved the ideal excuse to release the song, complete with a 'hilarious' star-studded video.
But, pop pickers, Christie's chart-topper is not this year's official Comic Relief anthem. That honour goes to McFly, who were number one last week. The teenagers' rendition of All About You failed to impress this viewer, who claims they were upstaged by Chris Evans. Surely not.
Is this the first ever instance of a charidee single knocking another off the top spot? Answers on a (virtual) postcard to the usual address.
Meanwhile this gives us a good excuse to mull over Comic Relief's previous efforts, and wince. Remember the first ever, The Young Ones duetting with Cliff Richard on Living Doll? Cliff came off best in that one, and that's saying something. Help, featuring Banararama (whose career had effectively been over for at least three years at the point) and LaNaNeeNeeNooNoo, scores points if only because of the weak smile raised at the name. The nadir must be 1991's The Stonk by Hale & Pace and The Stonkers, two men who looked like bouncers at a Chingford nightclub and were marginally less funny.
LaNaNeeNeeNooNoo returned in 1997 on the video for the Spice Girls' Who do you think you are/Mama. Although not a comedy record, the girls made a video that was and donated proceedings to the charity. I've searched long and hard for a still from the video that featured the spices with their comedy doubles, including Jennifer Saunders as 'Ginger Lumps' and Dawn French as 'Posh Lumps'. Alas no luck, but there's a little more about it here.
Last year, the tried and tested pop-star-plus-prime-time-comedy formula proved a winner when the spikey-haired Gareth Gates teamed up with the Kumars at number 42 on Spirit in the Sky. The 'hilarious' video featured little Gareth having a bad hair day.
And so back to Christie and Kay. It's raising lots of money for charity, we'll have forgotten all about it in a month, and neither Christie nor Kay's hair plays a leading role. All together, now, "is this the way to Amarillo/every night I've been hugging my pillow" etc etc to fade.
