List Of Royal Variety Performances
This is a list of Royal Variety Performances, gala evenings held annually in the United Kingdom, which are attended by senior members of the British Royal Family. Initially, the reigning monarch(s) would attend the show but in more recent years, the senior members attending have alternated, with Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ... attending less and less frequently as her reign progressed. Performances Where no town or city is noted in the venue column in the following table, it means that the venue is situated in London. 1910s Consumer broadcasting had yet to be invented. 1920s All of the gala evenings in the 1920s were un-broadcast and had no main presenter. 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 20 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Royal Variety Performance
The ''Royal Variety Performance'' is a televised variety show held annually in the United Kingdom to raise money for the Royal Variety Charity (of which King Charles III is life-patron). It is attended by senior members of the British royal family. The evening's performance is presented as a live variety show, usually from a theatre in London and consists of family entertainment that includes comedy, music, dance, magic and other speciality acts. The ''Royal Variety Performance'' traditionally begins with the entrance of the members of the royal family followed by singing of the national anthem, God Save the King, which was also performed by the participating acts as a traditional end to Royal Variety Performances; with the exception of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, as a result of which, As If We Never Said Goodbye opened that year's show instead, sung by that year's host, Jason Manford. Background and founding The first performance, on 1 July 1912, was called the Roy ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Harry Lauder
Sir Henry Lauder (; 4 August 1870 – 26 February 1950)Russell, Dave"Lauder, Sir Henry (1870–1950)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, online edition, January 2011, accessed 27 April 2014 was a Scottish singer and comedian popular in both music hall and vaudeville theatre traditions; he achieved international success. He was described by Sir Winston Churchill as "Scotland's greatest ever ambassador", who "... by his inspiring songs and valiant life, rendered measureless service to the Scottish race and to the British Empire." He became a familiar worldwide figure promoting images like the kilt and the cromach (walking stick) to huge acclaim, especially in America. Among his most popular songs were "Roamin' in the Gloamin", "A Wee Deoch-an-Doris", "The End of the Road" and, a particularly big hit for him, "I Love a Lassie". Lauder's understanding of life, its pathos and joys, earned him his popularity. Beniamino Gigli comme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Billy Merson
Billy Merson (born William Henry Thompson; 29 March 1879 – 25 June 1947)Richard Anthony Baker, ''British Music Hall: an illustrated history'', Pen & Sword, 2014, , pp.227-228 was an English music hall performer, comedian and songwriter. Biography He was born in Nottingham. He began his career while working in a lace-making factory. He performed in the evenings in a duo with Bernard Whiteman, at first as "Whiteman and Thompson - Irish Comedians and Trapeze Performers", and later as "Snakella and Travella". With Whiteman, he toured Ireland and the north of England, and appeared in pantomimes. In 1904, they changed their name to "Keith and Merson". Merson was initially an acrobat and clown, and first played in London in 1905 under the character name "Ping-Pong".Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson, ''British Music Hall: A story in pictures'', Studio Vista, 1965, p.158 It took some time until he could make a living from his stage work. "For five or six years on the stage, I sur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Malcolm McEachern
Walter Malcolm Neil McEachern (1 April 1883 – 17 January 1945) was a noted Australian Bass (voice type), bass singing, singer who enjoyed a successful career in the United Kingdom, both as a concert soloist and as one half of the comic musical duo Mr. Flotsam and Mr. Jetsam, Flotsam and Jetsam. Personal life McEachern was born in Albury, New South Wales, the sixth of 13 children of Archibald Hector McEachern and his wife, Rebecca Mary. On 2 February 1916, McEachern married pianist Hazel Hogarth Doyle, who later became his accompanist and provided the musical direction for his career. Hazel came from a musical family: her mother Florence was a pianist and the violinist Bessie Doyle was a sister. He was a Freemason, and a member of the Savage Club Lodge in London. Career and death During World War I, McEachern went on a tour of Australia with the great Australian soprano Nellie Melba. Also in the touring company were Ella Caspers, Ada Crossley and Marie Narelle. In 1921 McE ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Hippodrome, London
The Hippodrome is a building on the corner of Cranbourn Street and Charing Cross Road in the City of Westminster, London. The name was used for many different theatres and music halls, of which the London Hippodrome is one of only a few survivors. ''wikt:hippodrome, Hippodrome'' is an archaic word referring to places that host horse races and other forms of equestrian entertainment. History Hippodrome The London Hippodrome was opened in 1900. It was designed by Frank Matcham for Moss Empires chaired by Edward Moss (impresario), Edward Moss and built for £250,000 as a hippodrome for circus and variety show, variety performances. The venue gave its first show on 15 January 1900, a music hall revue entitled "Giddy Ostend" with Little Tich. The conductor was Georges Jacobi. Entry to the venue was through a bar, dressed as a ship's saloon. The performance space featured both a proscenium stage and an arena that sank into a 230 ft, 100,000 gallon water tank (about 400 tons, w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the ''Enigma Variations'', the ''Pomp and Circumstance Marches'', concertos for Violin Concerto (Elgar), violin and Cello Concerto (Elgar), cello, and two symphony, symphonies. He also composed choral works, including ''The Dream of Gerontius'', chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924. Although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically, but socially. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer; in Protestant Britain, his Roman Catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters; and in the class-consci ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Grock
Grock (born Charles Adrien Wettach; 10 January 1880 – 14 July 1959) was a Swiss clown, composer, and musician. Called “the king of clowns”Pat CashinGrockClown Alley (blog). (August 24, 2006). Retrieved April 22, 2011 and “the greatest of Europe's clowns”,"Life on the Newsfronts of the World" Google Books. ''Life'' magazine (November 15, 1954). Retrieved April 22, 2011. Grock was once the most highly paid entertainer in Europe. Biography Early life Grock was born in , a village in the[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Violet Loraine
Violet Loraine (26 July 1886 – 18 July 1956) was an English musical theatre actress and singer. Early life She was born Violet Mary Tipton in Kentish Town, London, in 1886 and went on the stage as a chorus girl at the age of sixteen. Musical revue Her rise to fame came in April 1916 at the Alhambra Theatre in the musical/revue ''The Bing Boys Are Here''. She was given the leading female part, Emma, opposite George Robey playing Lucius Bing. It became one of the most popular musicals of the World War I era. Recording and film Her duet with Robey " If You Were the Only Girl (in the World)" became a "signature song" of the era and endured as a pop standard. She retired from the stage on her marriage on 22 September 1921 to Edward Raylton Joicey MC (1890–1955) and they had two sons, John and Richard. She returned to acting for the screen, appearing in ''Britannia of Billingsgate'' (1933), a musical based on the play of the same name by Christine Jope-Slade and Sewell Stokes, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Ernest Hastings
Ernest Walter Hastings (15 June 1879 – 2 September 1940) was an English singer, pianist, composer and performer of comic monologues. He was popular from the 1900s to the 1930s, when he was described as "England's Greatest Entertainer at the Piano". Biography He was born in Manchester in 1879, and at first found work as a shipping clerk. He also played piano, and developed a talent for mimicry and monologues which led him to a theatrical career in music halls before 1900. He became popular, and toured in the United States as well as in Britain. His early successes included "The Commissionaire" (1899, with lyrics by Charles H. Taylor), "A Blooming Ballad" (with lyricist Astley Weaver, 1901), "The Three Ages of Man" (with lyrics by Nelson Jackson, 1909), and "The Emigrant's Letter" (with lyrics by Percy French, 1912). [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
London Coliseum
The London Coliseum (also known as the Coliseum Theatre) is a theatre in St Martin's Lane, Westminster, built as one of London's largest and most luxurious "family" variety theatres. Opened on 24 December 1904 as the London Coliseum Theatre of Varieties, it was designed by the theatrical architect Frank Matcham for the impresario Oswald Stoll. Their ambition was to build the largest and finest music hall, described as the "people's palace of entertainment" of its age. At the time of construction, the Coliseum was one of the few theatres in Europe to provide lifts for taking patrons to the upper levels of the house, and was the first theatre in England to have a triple revolve installed on its stage. The theatre has 2,359 seats making it the largest theatre in London. After being used for variety shows, musical comedies, and stage plays for many years, then as a cinema screening films in the Cinerama format between 1963 and 1968, the Sadler's Wells Opera Company moved into t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Edward VIII
Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20 January 1936 until Abdication of Edward VIII, his abdication in December of the same year. Edward was born during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George V and Mary of Teck, Queen Mary. He was created Prince of Wales on his 16th birthday, seven weeks after his father succeeded as king. As a young man, Edward served in the British Army during the First World War and undertook several overseas tours on behalf of his father. While Prince of Wales, he engaged in a series of sexual affairs that worried both his father and then-British prime minister Stanley Baldwin. Upon Death and state funeral of George V, his father's death in 1936, Edward became the second monarch of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |