Official Chart Flashback 2005: Peter Kay and Tony Christie fight off Mario's Let Me Love You

The year is 2005. You turn on BBC Radio 1 to hear comedian Peter Kay has bagged himself a Number 1 single for the second consecutive week. How did this happen?

Well, Peter Kay leveraged his star power to raise money for Comic Relief by 'featuring' (he didn't sing) on Tony Christie's 1971 single (Is This the Way to) Amarillo. Besides uniting generations, their charitable collaboration was the UK's best-selling single of 2005 and the fourth best-selling single of the 2000s in the UK; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time in the UK.

Fun fact: Amarillo also holds the record for the longest gap between a single first entering the Official Chart and eventually reaching the top spot. Tony Christie's hit took 33 years and four months to go Number 1 and it stayed there for seven weeks.

MORE: The longest waits for Number 1 on the Official Chart

One week after Amarillo's debut atop the Official Singles Chart, US teen star Mario came close to dethroning the hit. Let Me Love You - the lead from his more mature second album - leaped an incredible 94 places to Number 2, where it peaked.

McFly's double single All About You/You've Got A Friend - another Comic Relief release - dropped Number 2 from to Number 3. The Top 5 was rounded off with two new entries: 50 Cent debuted at Number 4 with Candy Shop and Elvis Presley's re-release of Return To Sender spent its only week in the Top 10 at Number 5.

Elsewhere, Will Smith landed at Number 6 with his musical comeback Switch and Natalie Imbruglia also made a return with Shiver at 8, her first UK Top 10 in over three years.

See this week's Official Singles Chart from 2005 in full

Listen to the UK Top 40 from this week in 2005 on Spotify below. Also available on Deezer and Apple Music.

Image: PA