Children in Need: Got it Covered, review - The Queen, Fleabag and Doctor Who make music for charity
Well played, Pudsey. An impressively star-studded line-up of actors were roped in to record a charity album on Children in Need: Got it Covered (BBC One). The stellar cast included Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, Olivia Colman, Suranne Jones, David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker – a sextet with a hefty haul of Oscars, Emmys and Baftas (and the keys to the Tardis) between them.
Just when things couldn’t get much more A-list, surprise guests Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Taylor Swift dropped by to lend their support. That bear with a bandaged eye has an enviable contacts book, plus the help of actor Shaun Dooley, who masterminded the project.
This film charted the making of the album Got it Covered, which sees illustrious thesps picking and performing pop songs. Big names invariably come out for the annual fundraiser but watching them sing solo, with their bum notes caught on camera, was a rare and intimate treat.
Indecisive Bonham Carter eventually settled on a Joni Mitchell number. More remarkable was how she always had six drinks on the go: coffee, soy bark tea, water, Coke and two others we didn’t get to identify. Carrying a bagful of cans, cups and bottles, she clinked like a recycling bank, albeit one with a CBE.
Adrian Lester proved so accomplished at beat-boxing that he recorded all 28 layers of his Stevie Wonder track I Wish a cappella. Broadbent crooned Blue Moon in a country style, soppily comparing the lyrics to meeting his wife.
However, it was former Broadchurch buddies Colman and Whittaker who stole the show. Colman trembled with fear (“I’d rather give birth again with no drugs”) but delivered a gorgeous rendition of Portishead’s Glory Box, with Waller-Bridge on ukulele.
Whittaker dedicated Coldplay’s Yellow – accompanied by two members of the band and sung beautifully in her native Yorkshire accent – to her late nephew Harry, who had Down’s syndrome and died aged three. Watched by Harry’s emotional parents, Whittaker’s voice cracked on “Look at the stars, look how they shine for you”. There wasn’t a dry eye in Abbey Road Studios – or, I’ll wager, on sofas nationwide.
