It involved choreographing and booking around 60 celebrities and Ex-Pros including Jose Mourinho, Jamie Dornan, Damian Lewis, Sir Mo Farah, Wretch 32, Jarvis Cocker, Russell Howard, Lee Mack, Olly Murs, Tinie Tempah as well as fire fighters who had attended the blaze and survivors from the tragedy.
There were also celebrity commentators and pundits Matt Lucas, Ian Wright, Alan Davies, and host Adam Hills as well as half-time music performances from Marcus Mumford, Rita Ora, Emeli Sande; and special guests Cheryl Cole, Roy Hodgson, Helen McCrory. The 90 minute football match took place at QPR’s Loftus Road, a stones throw from the scene of the Grenfell tower fire.
The coverage included several moving appeal films that were researched and recorded for the show. These dealt with extremely harrowing subject matter and required the highest levels of sensitivity with the contributors. These films proved remarkably effective in getting viewers to donate. As did some more leftfield comedic methods, such as encouraging viewers to give generously when they spot certain things happening during the game. Be that a goal, or Paul Merson eating a cake on the bench. Adam Hills along with commentators Matt Lucas and Joe Speight did an incredible job of encouraging people to donate. All of this helped the total raised by the Game4Grenfell for the victims and local community organisations reach around the million pound mark.
The 4 and a half hour transmission took time to carefully tell the personal stories of those closest to the tragedy and in the case of one player, surviver Shahin Sedafi airing his awe inispiring pre match team talk. This meant that everything was set up perfectly so that when there was a little bit of magic – with Shahin scoring a penalty past Jose Mourinho in the deciding penalty shoot out – every viewer knew exactly how much that moment meant to Shahin and the delighted members of the local community who were losing their minds in the terraces. With Jose, a man with a long association with QPR rivals Chelsea, revelling in his role of pantomime villain.
1 x 210’ for Sky One.