Get set for... (From The Northern Echo)

Get set for...

10:37am Friday 19th March 2010 in

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Sport Relief (BBC1, 7pm); Dom Joly and the Black Island (C4,7.30pm); Mastercrafts (BBC2, 9pm)

IN the years since Sport Relief’s inception, attempts to bring in the cash have always been impressive, but as each year goes by the pressure is on the backroom people to come up with increasingly weird and wonderful feats for famous people to take part in.

In 2006, David Walliams’ swim across the Channel grabbed the headlines. No one really believed that the comedian, best known for playing a variety of characters in Little Britain, could do it.

But he did – and in some style too, completing his journey in ten hours and 34 minutes, making him the 167th fastest person to manage the distance.

That was remarkable enough, but Eddie Izzard has outdone it this time by running 43 marathons in 51 days. He even won a special trophy at the Sports Personality of the Year awards, and the three-part BBC Three documentary Eddie Izzard Marathon Man charted his efforts.

“Blisters upon blisters are not very nice,” he says of his ordeal. “It’s the pain.

Like the pain from mouth ulcers, it’s not a massive area, but sharp and quite agonising.”

He also claims that some people just didn’t believe he’d achieved what he set out to do. “I might as well say I’ve just eaten a car.” he grins.

But he isn’t the only celebrity who’s been pushing themselves to the limit.

Fearne Cotton, Miranda Hart, Jimmy Carr, Russell Howard, Patrick Kielty, Davina McCall and David Walliams spent four days cycling from John O’Groats to Land’s End. The One Show’s Christine Bleakley decided to water-ski across the Channel and Blue Peter’s Helen Skelton set out to canoe down the Amazon.

Other highlights promise to include a special edition of Ashes to Ashes featuring Eighties legends, and fun-filled editions of MasterChef, A Question of Sport and Strictly Come Dancing.

Gary Lineker, James Corden, Richard Hammond, Claudia Winkleman and Davina McCall are among the hosts.

Members of the public have also been encouraged to take part in the Sport Relief Mile, for which people all over the UK are sponsored to run the distance.

YOUR starter for ten, no conferring: what links film critic Mark Kermode, animator Nick Park, directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, and comedian Dom Joly?

Give up? Well they’re all fans of iconic young comic book reporter Tintin, and in the next couple of years his big screen animated debut (and sequels) could leave box office tills ringing.

Joly has been a fan of the young hero since he was a lad, and in Dom Joly And The Black Island, he fulfils his fantasy to become the world-famous Belgian, and attempts to retrace the steps of Tintin’s British adventure: The Black Island.

The Trigger Happy TV veteran sets out to track down the places that inspired the story and find the Black Island Castle.

Donning the costume of his hero – shorts, plus fours, a white shirt and blue jersey, he heads for Brussels and visits the studio where Georges Remi, aka Herge, drew the character.

THE problem with advancing technology and culture, if you can call it a problem, is that arts and trades that were once of great importance are now rather redundant.

Over the past six weeks, Monty Don has revisited the past to learn about and celebrate traditional crafts that once helped shape Britain. Among them have been how to thatch a roof and how to train as a blacksmith.

As the show comes to its end, Monty meets people hoping to learn how to become handloom weavers. He uncovers how the Romans brought the craft to Britain 2,000 years ago and how it became a global industry during the Victorian era.

Mentor Margo Selby teaches Monty’s latest batch of willing amateurs how to set looms and handle shuttles, before they try to sell their wares.