LOLathon special: the home stretch
LOLathon special edition
The fourth and final 8 March source file began with only around 90 minutes left.
The atmosphere had changed completely.
Scott and Chris were exhausted, but there was now a clear endpoint.
Every joke, guest and donation was taking them closer to the 24-hour mark.
Sharon Horgan joined during the closing section.
Other Radio 1 names and friends of the show moved through the studio too, including people who had appeared at different points during the night.
The event had become visibly communal.
The overnight highlights already felt like memories
The final section looked back at things which had happened only hours earlier.
Megan Barton Hanson’s Innuendo Bingo was already being described like an archive classic.
The rude late-night stories had become slightly unbelievable in daylight.
Scott and Chris kept discovering pieces of the night they had almost forgotten because tiredness had blurred everything together.
More than £250,000
Then came the figure which mattered.
The fundraising total had passed £250,000 for Comic Relief.
Scott and Chris were visibly emotional.
The huge amount transformed the previous 24 hours from an absurd endurance stunt into something they could genuinely be proud of.
They thanked everyone
The closing minutes became a long thank-you.
Producers.
Studio managers.
Radio 1 colleagues.
Guests.
Listeners who had submitted jokes.
People who had donated.
The road-trip contributors who filled the Book of LOL.
Everybody who had stayed awake with them.
Scott and Chris also spoke warmly about one another.
They had spent almost an entire day trapped together under increasing physical stress and still ended by describing themselves as best mates and saying how privileged they felt to work at Radio 1.
Then the 24 hours were over.
The LOLathon had started with a giant joke book.
It ended with more than a quarter of a million pounds raised.
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