From a banned performing seal to 'hideous' Tom Jones: 10 unbelievable Royal Variety Performances
Since the first Royal Variety Performance in 1912, it has played host to an astonishing range of performers: what other event would put Ozzy Osbourne and the English National Opera on the same stage?
Ahead of tonight's TV broadcast of the 2020 performance, we look back at 10 unforgettable acts – some brilliant, some awful – that have all almost brought the show to a halt.
1912: Vesta Tilley
Even at the very first Royal Variety show (then called the Royal Command Performance), there was already an awkward tension between notions of regal propriety and the salty side of pop culture.
Music hall darling Marie Lloyd was originally considered as a potential booking, but Lloyd was vetoed due to her risqué material. However, a performance by Lloyd's great rival Vesta Tilley proved just as provocative.
When Tilley arrived on stage dressed as a man, Queen Mary could only bear to sit through her saucy performance of "Algy, The Piccadilly Johnny" by hiding her face behind a theatre programme.
1921: Frank Marcelle and Jackie the Seal
The only act to have stirred up a major outcry in the tabloids without even performing. Frank Marcelle and his seal had been scheduled to perform, but were dropped at the last minute due to a co-ordinated protest by The Performing Animals Defense League, a group of middle-class animal rights activists.
According to a report in Billboard magazine, they "got busy, wrote letters and pulled wires in influential quarters, so much that Buckingham Palace got the wind up and informed [the venue] that the seal act could not appear. That's a pretty kettle of fish... The news broke Marcelle up."
They had planned to drop the seal from the show quietly by claiming it was "ill", but the plan was leaked, and soon papers were reporting that the seal had been "banned" from the show, leading to angry responses from other "animal men" and variety artistes.
But Jackie wasn't the last controversial animal to be booked for the gala: ahead of last year's show, Jules O'Dwyer and her Britain's Got Talent-winning dog Matisse came under fire from viewers who felt angry about the use of a "stunt double" in Matisse's act.
1960: Sammy Davis Jr
The first Royal Variety Performance to be televised also had its starriest headliner yet in Sammy Davis Jr. The Rat Pack singer's first ever UK performance had been awaited with feverish anticipation, and – judging by contemporary reports – it left them stunned.
"In eight electrifying minutes", wrote the Daily Sketch, "this entertainer made the word 'star' seem inadequate". Breaking with the "no encores" tradition, he was allowed to take eight curtain-calls, and was invited back to top the bill again the following year.
1961: Maurice Chevalier
For his third performance at the gala, French crooner Maurice Chevalier decided to put the focus back on the "Royal" part of the evening. Although the acts were under strict instructions not to address the royal box, Chevalier asked for permission to sing You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby directly to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother - and the organisers agreed. It caused quite a stir when, with a raised eyebrow, he looked the Queen Mother straight in the eye to sing: "You must have been a beautiful baby, 'cause Majesty look at you now!"
1963: The Beatles
Marlene Dietrich was officially the headliner, but the 1963 show belonged to The Beatles. Performing just as Beatlemania was reaching its height, the Fab Four took the opportunity to poke fun at the audience.
"For our last number, I’d like to ask your help," John Lennon began. "Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And for the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry…" The joke earned him a round of applause – and a few audible cheers from those "cheaper seats."
1968: Diana Ross
One of the few occasions when the Royal Variety Performance has been used as a platform for a serious political message. Diana Ross's first appearance at the gala show showed just how rapidly the world was changing in the Sixties: just six years previously, "The Black and White Minstrel Show" had been booked to perform on the same stage.
Ross and the Supremes gave a powerful rendition of Somewhere from West Side Story, but the real impact of Ross's performance wasn't what she sang – it was what she said. She stopped the song to deliver a moving tribute to Martin Luther King, who had been assassinated earlier that year.
"Let our efforts be as determined as those of Dr Martin Luther King, who had a dream that all God's children... could join hands and sing," she told the audience, before referencing to the lyrics of Somewhere: "There's a place for us – black and white... and the world of Martin Luther King and his ideals."
1969: Tom Jones
If the purpose of the Royal Variety Performance is to entertain the Royal family, the 1969 show was a disaster. Prince Philip wasn't impressed by the headline act, Tom Jones, and said as much to his face. He asked the singer: "What do you gargle with, pebbles?" The Prince's later comments were even less charitable: "It is very difficult at all to see how it is possible to become immensely valuable by singing what I think are the most hideous songs."
2001: The Full Monty
A technical hiccup created one of the most embarrassing moments in the gala show's history. The cast of The Full Monty were expecting a black-out at the climactic moment of their striptease – but the blackout never happened, and they were left hanging (as it were) entirely naked, barely a foot away from the royal box.
2004: Ozzy Osbourne
It's a curious thing, how the passing of time can make anyone seem respectable. In 1982, Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a live bat onstage. Just two decades later, the Black Sabbath singer was performing within nibbling distance of Prince Charles, accompanied by Guns n' Roses guitarist Slash for a cover of The Beatles' In My Life.
Clarence House hasn't given any comment on Prince Charles's opinion of the rocker, but it seems Osbourne was rather impressed by his brush with royalty, and has since referred to the Prince of Wales as his "mate". The following year, he was invited back to perform again – and was received warmly by the Queen.
2005: Catherine Tate
Catherine Tate broke the invisible wall between the stage and the royal box more than any previous performer, addressing the Queen repeatedly in her comedy routine. Performing as her surly schoolgirl character Lauren, she asked the Queen "Is one bovvered? Is one's face bovvered?" The Duke of Edinburgh reportedly chuckled at the joke, but all the monarch managed was a polite smile.
The 2020 Royal Variety Performance is on ITV at 8pm tonight