Sara Cox's Danceathon

Comic Relief has been raising money for charitable causes for very many years in the UK. To some extent it, or at least the idea and name, has spread to other countries, but here it is now an established institution. This year's Red Nose Day comes this Friday.

What their formal mission statements are I don't know but, broadly, BBC Radio 6 Music carries a wide selection of music, BBC Radio 1 carries plenty of popular music to which one might expect the youth of today to listen (as a teenager I liked the weekly chart rundown) and BBC Radio 2 carries a fair bit of older popular music, among other things. A number of voices on Radio 2 started out on Radio 1 and shifted over as they and their audiences aged. Radio 3 gets the classical music. These stations are available as online streams.

Sara Cox is a familiar voice, mostly from BBC Radio 1, and she also appears on various BBC television. She was born not far in time or space from where I was. At the moment, for Comic Relief, she is engaged in a 24-hour danceathon: Radio 2 plays music from the 1980s and she dances along, livestreamed online.

I like the music of the era and I haven't been able to resist watching Sara from time to time for a few reasons, including:

• Fatigue is a powerful force: despite the ongoing scrutiny, I expect that after a while we end up seeing Sara much as she really is underneath. I also wondered how she would flag as the hours went on. However, at the time of writing, she is still doing well and seems genuinely nice: the more I watch, the more I am inclined to root for her.


• As somebody to whom dancing is quite alien, I figure that somebody who engages in an unchoreographed 24-hour danceathon is quite the opposite of me: I get to see extended video of somebody for whom dancing comes naturally and I can study how they do it.

So far it all seems to have been a good idea and Sara comes across warmly and is probably doing plenty of good for charity. One thing I had not anticipated but have enjoyed is watching her react and adjust as each new song starts.

Update: The following morning Sara was still doing well and the danceathon raised over one million pounds for Comic Relief.