Panic erupted this evening when studio technicians at London's BBC Television Centre discovered that all of the jokes, planned for use in the upcoming Comic Relief extravaganza, had been stolen by thieves.
The unscrupulous ne'er-do-wells had climbed in through a third story window at the home of British broadcasting, leading some to believe they may have had a ladder or some other form of raisable platform, from which to gain entry, and stolen the jokes from a desk drawer.
A spokesperson for the BBC told us "we are mortified, it has put our planned evening of humorously disguised money grabbing, right up shit creek!"
The charity event, which raises money year after year for various good causes that never seem to get any better, no matter how much money we throw at them, relies on it's fun themed sketches and skits. And without any jokes the evening could be in jeopardy.
The spokesperson continued "the three jokes, belonging to Lenny Henry, and the four that were set aside for James Corden, who will no doubt be making an appearance as he appears on everything else, are said to be worth over £18."
A team of writers have been drafted in to try and re-write something funny for the 6 hour humour-fest, but things aren't looking hopeful.
"Luckily we've already recorded two 5 minute sketches, involving Kate Moss and the Little Britain guys pretending to be funny," said the spokesperson "so that'll take up 10 minutes, and Lenny is obviously a master of the ad-lib, so he'll control things for another two. Then, I guess we'll just wing it!"
"Oh, and of course there's the news readers dance routine that we do every bloody year without fail, so that'll be as entertaining as it ever is, and then we'll just fill the rest of the time with 'heart-wrenching' stories of people being hungry and poor, while our over-paid stars pat them on the head and cry, while asking for your money. Ironically as you watch that they'll be sitting back stage quaffing champers and smoking fat cigars on your licence money!"
Police are looking for the thieves and a £50,000 reward has been offered by the BBC (depending on how much is made on the night) for information leading to an arrest.
The jokes are not thought to be harmful if used in the wrong hands, they were pre-watershed.
Local window cleaners, who were working on the BBC building at the time, were unable to help, as they hadn't seen a thing.
Updates as they come.
