25th anniversary of Secret Policeman's Ball
Howard Lake | 1 November 2004 | News
The twenty fifth anniversary of the Secret Policeman’s Ball, the comedy fundraising event for Amnesty International that spawned a whole new breed of celebrity comedy and music events for charities such as Comic Relief and Live Aid, is being marked by a BBC Arena documentary.
The documentary will have a special screeing at the Prince Charles Cinema in London on 2 December 2004 at which some of the original event’s stars including Rowan Atkinson will be prsent for a question and answer session.
The original comedy event, and the film of it, led to a number of follow-ups by Amnesty including The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball. Comedians and musicians involved included John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Sting, Lenny Henry, Sir Bob Geldof, Jennifer Saunders, Stephen Fry, Terry Jones, Alan Bennett, Phil Collins, Rowan Atkinson, and Ruby Wax.
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Amnesty International reprised the theme back in 2001 with “We Know Where You Live Live”.
The BBC Arena documentary will be screened on BBC Four on 9 December and on BBC Two in 2005.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.