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Royal Variety Performance to return to Blackpool this year

Published Wednesday 1 July 2009 at 12:05 by Alistair Smith

Blackpool is to host this year’s Royal Variety Performance in a move which will be regarded as a major boost to the entertainment resort.

It will mark the second time the event has visited the town, the first and only other occasion being in 1955, when the line-up featured performers including Reginald Dixon, Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warriss, George Formby, Arthur Askey and Morecambe and Wise. At the time, it was the first Royal Variety Performance to be held outside London.

This year’s show, which will take place in December, will be held at the 2,900-seat Blackpool Opera House, which also hosted the 1955 event.

Further details, including the line-up, are currently being confirmed. However, the programme will feature Diversity, the dance act which won this year’s edition of Britain’s Got Talent.

ITV and the BBC currently alternate organising and televising the RVP. The 2009 show will be broadcast on ITV. Money raised by the event is donated to the Entertainment Artistes’ Benevolent Fund.

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