As previously announced, His Royal Highness Prince Harry will be attending the Royal Variety Performance on Friday 13 November at the Royal Albert Hall.
Comedian/Actor Jack Whitehall will host the evening and highlights will include performances by Sir Elton John, One Direction, and Kylie Minogue.
Every year The Royal Variety Performance takes place in London or in a theatre around the United Kingdom in support of the Royal Variety Charity.
Formally The Entertainment Artistes’ Benevolent Fund, the Royal Variety Charity which Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is Patron raises money to assist hundreds of entertainers in the UK, who are in need of help and assistance due to ill-health, old age, or hard times.
Dating back to 1912, the origins the Royal Variety Performance stem from when King George V and Queen Mary attended a ‘Royal Command Performance’ at the Palace Theatre in London in support of the Variety Artistes’ Benevolent Fund. The second Royal show came in July 1919 and was the first to be billed a “Royal Variety Performance”. This time is was held at London’s Coliseum and was staged as a ‘celebration of peace’ and expressed in the official announcement that it “had been commanded The King to show his appreciation of the generous manner in which artists of the variety stage had helped the numerous funds connected with War.”
Prince Harry will meet ITV Board Members and many of the performers both before and after the show. The Royal Variety Performance has seen acts put on by Luciano Pavarotti, Take That, The Beatles and Lady Gaga.
While Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales traditionally attended in alternate years, they have had other senior members of the family step in their place recently such as The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge last year.
This year’s show is to be produced by ITV Studios and will be screened on ITV in December.
