Comic Relief’s biggest selling singles revealed!

Today is Red Nose Day, where the entire nation gets together to ‘do something funny for money’ and help raise funds for Comic Relief.

In addition to the Red Nose Day telethon - which kicks off on BBC 1 this evening at 7PM - an important part of Comic Relief’s fundraising has been persuading the likes of Sir Cliff Richard, the Spice Girls, Westlife and, more recently, One Direction to release charity singles.

Over the course of Comic Relief’s 28 year history, a total of 21 singles have been released, with a a combined sales tally of nearly 8 million copies. This includes 13 Official Number 1 Singles, six singles which have sold over half a million copies, and one million seller.

The first official Comic Relief single was released in 1986 and featured Cliff Richard and the cast of The Young Ones performing Cliff’s 1959 hit, Living Doll. It peaked at Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart helping Cliff become just one of a handful of artists who’ve managed to take the same song to Number 1 in completely separate chart runs.

Living Doll is the third biggest selling Comic Relief single to date; its biggest selling single would follow nearly 20 years later…

At Number 1 on The Official Comic Relief Chart is Tony Christie and Peter Kay’s Is This The Way To Amarillo?. Though not strictly an official Comic Relief reelase, Kay performed it live on Red Nose Day 2005, lip synching to Tony Christie's 1971 hit. It was released as a digital download the following Monday, with all proceeds going to Comic Relief.

Is This The Way To Amarillo? knocked McFly’s official Comic Relief single All About You/You've Got A Friend (Number 7 in The Official Comic Relief Chart) off the top of the Official Singles Chart, and stayed at Number 1 for seven weeks. To date, it has sold over 1.24 million copies and it is the only Comic Relief track to break the million copies sales barrier.

As well as having the biggest selling Comic Relief , Peter Kay has also appeared on the most Comic Relief singles; once as himself (Is This The Way To Amarillo?), and twice as his alter egos Brian Potter (from Phoenix Nights) on The Proclaimers' 2007 rendition of I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), and Geraldine McQueen (she of Britain's Got the Pop Factor... and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice fame) on Susan Boyle’s I Knew Him So Well.

So here it is, then, The Official Comic Relief Chart:

© 2013 The Official Charts Company. All rights reserved.