The Chuckle Brothers will be helping to inject some special festive fun into The Northern Echo's Christmas Eve edition this year.

Paul and Barry, who are starring in Aladdin at Darlington Civic Theatre, will chair the paper's lunchtime news conference on Monday and help to decide how the following day's paper should look.

By "guest editing" the paper, the panto legends will also be helping to raise money for St Teresa's Hospice.

Bucket collections are already being held at every performance of Aladdin, helping to raise thousands of pounds for the hospice.

And one of The Chuckle Brothers' tasks during their time at The Northern Echo will be to pick a "Chuckle Champion Christmas Cracker Joke".

Readers are being asked to send in their favourite jokes and the Echo will donate £1 for every one published in the Christmas Eve paper. The sender of the joke chosen as the Chuckle Champion will win a Christmas hamper.

With so much bad news around, this is an opportunity to have some fun at Christmas so send in your jokes - either by email to me at peter.barron@nne.co.uk or via Twitter @echopeterbarron, using the hashtag #chuckleatchristmas