RED NOSE DAY ACTUALLY: Charity Is All Around!

Sequels. You either love them or hate them. But you’ll always watch them.

Setting rom-com fans everywhere ablaze with excitement was the news that Love Actually was getting the sequel treatment. Sort of. Red Nose Day Actually is the Love Actually sequel 14 years later. With almost all of the original cast reprising their roles as some of London’s unlucky in love for a 15-minute charity special. It aired on March 24th on BBC One in the UK and May 25th on NBC in the US.

Richard Curtis, the director of Love Actually released in 2003, is the founder along with Lenny Henry of Comic Relief. Established in 1985, Comic Relief seeks to raise money through comedy by embracing all that is silly and funny. It all builds up to one day in March (May, in the US) which is known as Red Nose Day and generates lots of money to transform lives and help some of the worlds poorest communities.

A reunion of more than just the cast

It is revealed almost straight away that some of the characters haven’t seen each other since the original film. And it’s a theme that repeats itself throughout. A strange decision seeing as it’s been over a decade. It felt almost as if the story line had been froze in parts and important things only happen when there’s a camera around. For example when Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) turns up at Radio Watford with his new charity single, we learn he hasn’t been there since Christmas 2003! This time he’s alone as his manager Joe (Gregor Fisher) had apparently died of a heart attack.

The same radio presenter, Mikey (Marcus Brigstocke), asks the same questions and gives the same responses as in the first film. I like it and I hate it. Love Actually was a very popular film and still is today. So it’s understandable that the writers wouldn’t want to stray too far from the characters they’ve already created and would want to cash in on memorable lines and traits, but it does feel as though material has just been reused.

It starts with Juliet (Keira Knightley) and husband Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) watching what seems to be the opening scene of the original film but modified slightly to show a red nose instead of a heart. There is a knock at the door and upon Juliet opening it, we see Mark (Andrew Lincoln). He is stood with his conveniently responsive cue-cards, sporting a greying beard and scruffy hair. Had Rick Grimes come to save Juliet from an impending zombie apocalypse? Sadly not.

When Peter asks who it is from the sofa, Mark raises a card that says “tell him its carol singers”. A nice throw back to the first film. When she dismisses his request because of it being March, his next card tells her to say that he’s raising money for Red Nose Day. He then plays Silent Night on his iPod and cycles through the next set of cards. Okay, so it’s somewhat nostalgic to see the same tropes being used, I’ll admit that.

They comment on the beard and the pair share their mild dislike for it and Peter (from the sofa) chimes in with his dislike too. He then says he thinks they should catch up on some of their friends lives. Making this encounter sort of a prologue to the rest of Red Nose Day Actually and justifies jumping between each character later down the line.

Those who returned for Red Nose Day Actually

Huge Grant was up next, starting another term as the Prime Minister after a five year break. Falling down the stairs dancing to Drake’s Hotline Bling – a bad song choice when compared to ‘Jump (For My Love)’ by The Pointer Sisters which was used for the dancing scene in the first film – we see Natalie (Martine MuCutcheon) who tells him off for dancing in stupid places again. She no longer works for him and they’re now married!

Rufus, played by Rowan Atkinson, now works in a British supermarket. It’s a completely different store in the US version – in fact there’s a lot of differences in the US version! He is still going the extra mile and gift wrapping everything (even a red nose) should the customer make the mistake of agreeing. He even has a draw full of Jelly Beans and yogurt coated raisins. How convenient?

Jamie Billingham (Colin Firth) and wife Aurelia (Lúcia Moniz) now have three kids and a fourth on the way. Not that Jamie would know because despite him learning Portuguese all those years ago his grasp on the language has since slipped and now Aurelia and their kids are tasked with speaking it at every opportunity to help him learn again.

Daniel (Liam Neeson) is surprised by his son Sam’s (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) sudden appearance whilst sitting on the very same bench they had talked about his love interest on just 13 years earlier. Sam is back from his travels in America and reveals he had met up with Joanna (Olivia Olson)! She asks Daniel for his permission to marry her son. A good family to marry into as Daniel looks like he has a very particular set of skills that might just come in handy..

Those who didn’t

Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman (Karen and Harry): Curtis and Thompson didn’t feel it was right to try and attempt a story line after the passing of Rickman earlier in 2016. Martin Freeman and Joanna Page (John and Judy): It’s unclear why these two didn’t get some sort of story line as their characters in the original were quirky and likeable. Although Freeman was probably tied up filming for Sherlock and his new role in Marvel’s Black Panther movie.

Kris Marshall (Colin Frissell): Marshall said he received a very nice email from Curtis explaining that there just wasn’t the time to develop a storyline for him. Laura Linney and Rodrigo Santoro (Sarah and Karl): Again, it’s unclear as to why there wasn’t a storyline for these two, but in the American version there is an extra scene where Sarah answers her phone to Patrick Dempsey who is now her husband. It is also suggested she now has kids.

And for the other less major characters, it would have been more hassle than it was probably worth to get them back only to give them less than a minute screen time.

“No surprises?”

Red Nose Day Actually was actually kind of good. With almost all of the stars from the original film now big names in the film and television world, it was good to see them come back to something that kickstarted some of their careers. Red Nose Day Actually let itself down in some parts with some scenes feeling as though they had been re-purposed for Red Nose Day, some were a direct copy only this time it wasn’t Christmas.

The budget was obviously a lot smaller and the stages of production were significantly shorter, so with that in mind, and in the spirit of charity, it was very good and you feel as though you ought to forgive the parts that seem corny and cheap.

It was exciting to see how the lives of the beloved characters had changed and how some problems had been resolved in Red Nose Day Actually. However if a proper sequel was ever made they have done themselves a bit of an injustice here by setting some story lines in stone. Although don’t expect that anytime soon.

Have you seen the ‘sequel’? What did you think? Should there have been a proper feature length version instead?