Comedy writer and reality show champ Emma Kennedy is recovering this week after successfully completing her biggest challenge yet for Red Nose Day.

The Comet: Emma Kennedy and the gang take a selfie.Emma Kennedy and the gang take a selfie. (Image: Archant)

The former Hitchin Girls’ School pupil who spent her childhood years in Stevenage finished a marathon 27 hours on stage to raise funds for this year’s Comic Relief.

Emma said: “It was so gruelling it was ridiculous. I think I went a bit bonkers for a few hours through lack of sleep. I can’t believe we beat our record of 25 hours we achieved in 2013.

“We had so many celebrity guests. Gillian Anderson from serial killer drama The Fall was fantastic. It was all very surreal.

“She was due to shave a man’s hairy back with shaving foam – but there was no shaving foam to hand so we had to use hand churned butter as a lubricant.

“The reason we had hand-churned butter to hand? Because we had a man on the corner of the stage making churned butter of course. It was great fun and we raised more than £80,000 on the night – with a lot more to come.”