Stand Up To Cancer smashes record with over £31 million raised

16 October 2021

On Friday 15th October, a glittering array of stars from across the worlds of music, sport, comedy, and film came together to Stand Up To Cancer and speed up progress in life-saving cancer research.

The star-studded RTS Award winning live spectacular, hosted by Davina McCall, Alan Carr, Maya Jama, and Adam Hills, announced the incredible grand total of £31,169,340 which will go to further research into cancer, accelerate new cancer treatments to UK patients and save more lives.

Harry Styles gave us a sneak peek into his everyday life as he got stuck into some household chores in unique superstar style, Usain Bolt showed us what else he could finish in 9.58 seconds bar a world record 100m, Olivia Colman teamed up with Alan Carr to assemble a crack team of celebrity doctors and the Derry Girls travelled back to the 1990s for a hilarious sketch.

Music superstar James Blunt showed just how easy it was to donate with an eyebrow raising reboot of his breakout hit, You’re Beautiful, Ed Sheeran gave us a comedy twist of his smash hit track, Bad Habits, and friends and family members including Martin and Roman Kemp and Abbey Clancy and Peter Crouch took each other on in fiendishly silly challenges. Tom Parker and The Wanted were live in the studio talking about Tom’s inspiring journey while going through treatment for a brain tumour and there were cameo appearances from a whole raft of famous faces including Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Kris Jenner, Khloe Kardashian, Chris Martin, Courteney Cox, Jamie Lee Curtis, Liam Payne, Mo Gilligan, Steve Coogan, the Jonas Brothers, Tom Daley, Natalie Imbruglia, Jeremy Clarkson, David Oyelowo, Mabel, Jamie Oliver and many more.

Bill Bailey paid an incredibly emotive tribute to his best friend and much-loved fellow comedian Sean Lock, who died from cancer earlier this year, and Tom Jones delivered a powerful music performance in memory of his late wife, Linda.

Graham Norton, Michelle Visage, Matt Lucas, his mum Diana, Aisling Bea, Rob Delaney, Suranne Jones, Adam James, Kalvin Phillips, Aitch, Michael Sheen and his partner Anna Lundberg invited us into their front rooms as they became the stars of our Celebrity Gogglebox special and there were very special music performances from Sigrid, Dermot Kennedy and Joy Crookes.  

Joe Lycett was on hand totting up the totaliser from his high-tech hub, helped by a nationwide band of celebrity reporters, and Stephen Mangan shared his findings from his light-hearted look at the life-saving, cutting-edge science funded by Stand Up To Cancer.

Adam Hills hosted a one-off edition of #IsItOk in which Tom Allen, Desiree Burch and Sarah Mills tried to answer viewers’ outrageous cancer questions and Rosie Jones led out some of our Paralympic heroes before Big Zuu wrapped the night up in his own inimitable style.

Stand Up to Cancer is the joint national fundraising campaign from Channel 4 and Cancer Research UK. The live TV show, a culmination of inspirational programming and epic fundraising activities, was bursting at the seams with celebrity sketches, comedy skits, interviews and moving moments.

Donations can still be made by phone, text or online at channel4.com/SU2C. 100% of your donation goes to Cancer Research UK in support of the Stand Up To Cancer campaign.   1 in 2 of us will get cancer in our lifetime. All of us can support the research that will beat it.

Ian Katz, Chief Content Officer at Channel 4 said, “It is both heartening and humbling that after such a tough 18 months the British public have shown such extraordinary generosity, and that so many amazing people have done so many amazing things for such a vital cause. It’s a sobering fact that 1 in 2 of us will get cancer in our lifetime, and all of us at Channel 4 are incredibly proud that this money will go to speed up life-saving cancer research and accelerate new cancer treatments for UK patients. We are profoundly grateful to everyone who helped fundraise, contribute to our shows and donate.”

Simon Harrison, Head of Fundraising Campaigns at Cancer Research UK, said: “On behalf of Cancer Research UK I’d like to say a massive thank you to everyone who shared their experience of cancer, fundraised or donated to help us reach this incredible total.  “One-in-two* of us will get cancer in our lifetime but thanks to the incredible generosity of Stand Up To Cancer supporters we are able to get new tests and treatments to people who need them faster, ensuring more people in the UK will survive the disease." 

#standuptocancer trended all night on 15th October on Twitter.

For a more information please contact:

Kate Conway kconway@channel4.co.uk

Lesley Land lland@channel4.co.uk

Notes to Editors

*Ahmad AS et al, British Journal of Cancer, 2015

About Stand Up To Cancer (UK)  

• Stand Up To Cancer is a joint national fundraising campaign from Cancer Research UK and Channel 4 that brings the UK together to speed up progress in life-saving cancer research
• Supported by the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) in the US and launched in the UK in 2012, Stand Up To Cancer funds translational research, turning academic breakthroughs in the labs into new treatments that make a real difference for people with cancer 
• Research projects funded by Stand Up To Cancer include the development of new treatments that use viruses to fight cancer, clinical trials testing potentially more effective ways to deliver radiotherapy, improved surgical techniques for bowel cancer and much more 
• Stars such as Naomi Campbell, Noel Gallagher, Tom Hardy, Gillian Anderson, Idris Elba, Andy Murray, James Corden, Martin Freeman, Jamie Oliver, Richard Ayoade, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Peter Crouch, Abbey Clancy, Danny Dyer, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Lily James, Rosamund Pike, Sophie Turner, Stephen Graham, Toby Jones, Maya Jama, Joe Lycett and Roman Kemp are just some of the talent who have supported Stand Up To Cancer   

To find out more about fundraising activities visit channel4.com/SU2C  or follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram