After this week's bad-tempered squabbling over Jeremy Clarkson, it was nice to see the BBC uniting for a good cause.

The BBC have had a tough week: if they support Clarkson, they're overlooking alleged violence and bullying in the workplace but, if they drop him, they're depriving the public of a wildly popular show. No matter which move they make they'll be harassed, derided and mocked.

So Comic Relief gave them a chance to hide behind a red nose, and I don't mean the one on that poor Top Gear producer. Comic Relief shows the BBC at its best, where the organisation gathers its massive resources of talent and clout to entertain us, spread goodwill, highlight worthy causes and, of course, raise a hefty wad of cash.

With it being Comic Relief there's the necessity to endure Lenny Henry. There's no way around this. Just as Dolly Parton told us that if we want the rainbow, we gotta put up with the rain, so Comic Relief tells us that if we want several hours of capering celebrities, we gotta put up with that man from Travelodge.

But we were quickly offered a new Mr Bean sketch to soften the blow, although it borrowed a lot from his sketch in a church alongside Richard Briers, even recreating the awkwardness of having to wipe your nose.

After the relative silence of Mr Bean, we had the breathless Dermot O'Leary who'd been dancing for 24 hours: an 'epic feat with his epic feet'.

Threaded throughout the manic activity were films highlighting the good causes Comic Relief works with. You might think the various films from Africa are depressingly familiar, always featuring famine, disease and children orphaned by war, but this year the relatively new horror of Ebola was added.

In terms of British charities, there was a particularly upsetting segment, hosted by Olivia Colman, about children who act as carers to their sick or injured parents. Of course, the little sweetheart in the film cared for her mum, who had lost a leg, without a single grumble.

You might expect to slump into misery when these sad stories came on, but no. Any dejection arose when we left the heart-rending films, or the energetic sketches, to cut back to Lenny and Davina. Thankfully, he left the stage at 8pm promptly, as the BBC had solemnly promised.

There was an improvement after he'd gone, but we can't attribute that solely to his leaving. It was probably just the way a party takes a while to heat up. You all start off with the small talk in the living room, thinking you may as well have stayed at home with a Domino's, but after an hour or two you're all laughing and spilling things in the kitchen.

The equivalent of the jovial host in the kitchen, a dishtowel tossed over his shoulder, sleeves rolled up as he pours the drinks, was David Walliams. He replaced Henry and was lowered onto the stage on invisible wires, and then manoeuvred into place by Davina who was brandishing a hook.

As for Davina, she spoke to us as though we were children cross-legged on the dusty floor of the gym hall. 'Have a look at this lovely lot!' she cried. 'You! You are all the backbone of Comic Relief!' She was like a bubbly teacher cheering on her pupils, pupils fresh from the sandpit or from learning to dial on a plastic, squeaky phone. Were children the target audience? I'd expect not. Surely it has to be the people with the debit cards. So why talk to us like children? Maybe because the audience were whooping and cheering just like them. People complain about intrusive music in dramas, but never intrusive audiences.

But Walliams saved the day, bringing things down a notch with his black suit and deadpan expression, beseeching us to raise money for people in trouble, such as Jeremy Clarkson.

The celebs were coming thick and fast by now. Barbara Windsor made a three-second appearance, just as she did in her short, unexplained visit to Eastenders during its 30th anniversary week. Eddie Izzard and chums did a watery recreation of the famous Monty Python Yorkshiremen sketch, and then came the highlight of the night: David Walliams met up with his new comedy partner, Stephen Hawking, to do a brand new Little Britain Sketch. Walliams wheels Hawking along by the River Cam, quacking like a duck. 'I am a university professor,' says Hawking with dignity. 'Well, you should know what ducks say!' replies Walliams.

That was indeed the spirit of comic relief: the great and the good doing something utterly daft for a good cause.