Royal Variety Performance
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The Royal Variety Performance is a gala evening held in London once each year, usually in a theatre in the West End. Comics and other entertainers perform before royalty and a television audience. The show is designed to raise money for the Entertainment Artistes Benevolent Fund. Often called, informally, the Royal Command Performance only the first show, on 1 July 1912, had that name. The organisers did not invite Marie Lloyd, one of the most famous Music Hall artistes of the time, because of a professional dispute. She held a rival performance in a nearby theatre, which she advertised was by command of the British Public. The event's name was changed to prevent possible Royal embarrassment.
The first Royal Show on was at The Palace Theatre, Shaftsbury Avenue, London, in the presence of Their Majesties King George V and Queen Mary. The King said he would attend a once-yearly variety show provided the profits went to the Variety Artistes Benevolent Fund, as the EABF was then known. The Royal Variety Performance provides most of the funding for Brinsworth House, a home for retired members of the entertainment profession and their dependants. The December 2004 show will be the 76th annual Royal Variety Performance, 16 Performances have been cancelled because world conflict or the Royal Family's official mourning.