Graham AND Angellica

Graham Norton and Angellica Bell

7th February 2003
From the 7th floor of BBC Broadcasting House, Graham Norton and Angellica Bell switch on the BT Tower lighting effects, which symbolises the start of Comic Relief 2003.

Graham: "I am very excited about this year's Comic Relief and it's an enormous honour to be asked to launch the appeal with Angellica.
"It's quite a famous landmark and hopefully people will be driving around London and will say to themselves 'Why is that thing red?' and then they will remember it's Comic Relief and it will give them plenty of time to raise money."

Angellica Bell

Is the well known CBBC/CBBC1 (Children's BBC) personality who was nominated for Best Presenter at the Children's BAFTA Awards in 2002.

Angellica grew up in West London and went to the same school as Blue Peter's Konnie Huq. Angellica has a BA Honours Degree in Politics which is useful when she interviews the many pop stars and famous people who appear on CBBC.

Of the event, Angellica said: "This is a fantastic way of kicking off the campaign. BT Tower is such a major London landmark, it'll be great to see it get the full Red Nose treatment!".

"Children's BBC are doing all sorts of different things for this year's Comic Relief. We are also lighting up the Botanical Gardens in Llanarthne and in Scotland we are going to make people believe that the Loch Ness monster is alive and wears a big red nose. We are going regional."

Media Coverage

The launch of CR 2003 was a spectacular success with the Tower switch-on being broadcast live on the BBC's 6 O'clock national and London News.

As well as Broadcasting House, news teams were also aloft at Centre Point, Euston Tower, Shell Buildings and Westminster University. Additionally, a helicopter circling the area ensured full coverage of the event.