David Tennant responds to request to bring back acclaimed comedy Staged

Virgin Radio

15 Mar 2024, 11:08

Ahead of co-hosting this year’s Red Nose Day, David Tennant spoke to Chris Evans about what viewers can expect, and he also responded to a request for more from his much-loved TV series, Staged.

Set and filmed during lockdown, and largely involving Zoom conversations, Staged starred Michael Sheen and Doctor Who’s David as fictionalised versions of themselves. When Chris Evans Breakfast Show with webuyanycar’s co-host Vassos Alexander asked David “on behalf of the whole planet” to bring the show back, he responded: “Well, it's not entirely up to me. I mean, we sort of finished it. The trouble is, it was so born out of lockdown. I mean, it was something that existed because we suddenly found ourselves on Zoom screens and thought, ‘What do you do with this?’ So, it was sort of its time and of its moment. We'd have to have a new idea as to where to take it in a world where we don't exist locked in our houses.”  

He added, however: “Never say never.”

David is one of several star hosts on Red Nose Day, which airs tonight (15th March) from 7pm on BBC One, BBC Two and BBC iPlayer. The acting star said: “We're very excited. We're very much looking forward to seven o'clock tonight.”

He continued: “It's always a night full of stuff, isn't it? So there's some brilliant sketches. It's also Lenny Henry's final show. Lenny has been involved in Comic Relief for 39 years, and he thought, ‘I don't want to make it 40, I'm gonna give up this year.’

“It's his final one, so there'll be a bit of stuff about that, looking back at some of the amazing things that he's been involved in. He also does a bit of a Ryan Gosling. And there's an ‘I'm just Len’ [which] is one of the highlights of the evening!"

As well as a Traitors-inspired sketch, and stuff from Alan Partridge and French & Saunders, David also told Chris: “There is a W1A sketch. So I have a little bit of involvement in WIA as the voice of God in that, but other than that I'm just here on the night really. There's eight presenters. So it's chaos.”

Chris’s own CarFest has teamed up with Comic Relief for a brand new competition,which gives you the chance to win an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish, the very same make and model used in the iconic Bond film Die Another Day. “It's a thing of great beauty," David said.

“It's parked up outside the front of BBC Salford. It will be in the Piazza. I won't be allowed to drive it, because I'm not insured. But maybe we'll enjoy Martini outside it. Non-alcoholic of course!”

Find out how you could win the car here.

Speaking more about the live broadcast tonight, David said: “The thing was a big event like Comic Relief that you don't have when you're on set filming something, because it's live, there’s lots of other stuff happening in the day, especially because there’s social media things and an interview for this and a bit of that, and talking to this person. So it does sort of rumble on all day. It's a bit more like being at a festival.

“Once the day begins, and it has begun, it'll just sort of bubble along until we’re live on the telly, I think. It’s quite exciting.”

Red Nose Day airs tonight from 7pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

Get involved or donate now at comicrelief.com.

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with webuyanycar weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.