The Royal Variety Show-How Poor Was It?

[gollob]

No wonder the Queen did not go
Michael McIntyre was an embarrassment as the compere especially at the start of the show..Sara Milligan was no poor. About time she had some new and better material
The coloured singer from South Africa and Alfie Boe were both very good.
Bette Midler-It's unbelievable that she only sung one song and as an opening act.Should have cut McBusted out and given her another 10 minutes
Miss Sagion was a great excerpt especially "The last night of the world"
Shirley Bassey is still terrific as per usual. Why did she not close the show.
The rest of the acts except Elle Goulding were very ordiniary and would be lucky to top the bill at Wigan Pier

[lankeela]

M remote worked overtime as I tried to avoid Michael McIntyre - he makes me feel sick as does Sarah Millican. The Ellie Goulding dress was amazing but her singing was very bland. The musical number was impressive too, and that's about all I saw.

[Retrochic]

Whiskeyron -non of the men in the Black and white minstrels were actually black -they were all 'blacked up' with white eyeshadow and white lips -jesus christ!
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45128000/jpg/_45128091_386f29cb-bc3d-4337-b63f-9ebedccf99cb.jpg

[Mamyalynne]

Ron said The Minstrels were complimentary to the wonderful talents of black people & their absolutely great singing ability.

[Retrochic]

Sorry but there is a world of difference between a Pentecostal choir and a quartet of blacked up Caucasians singing 'Mammie' while waving their white gloved hands

[Mamyalynne]

There is.

[ladybirder]

This coloured discussion has come up on here before so I asked my "coloured" friend if being described as such would offend him and he said it would. The correct term is "mixed race".

[Retrochic]

ladybirder you are bound to offend someone using 'mixed race' . I think you will find if you have to describe someones ethnicity, and if they have originated from African continent and not Asia, 'Black' is now deemed the correct term. fIn the usa 'African American' is preferred

[-Talbot-]

The correct term is "mixed race".


Black mother black father .............."mixed race"

eh?

[ladybirder]

No I'm talking about black and white, i.e. mixed.

[-Talbot-]

That's not the correct term for a black person though (which is what the discussion had moved on to)

[pastafreak]

But those words describe specific mixtures...one quarter black,etc. So unless you know what a person's specific ethnicity is,then its not applicable.

[ladybirder]

If you say so Talbot. Please accept my apologies for not keeping up.

[Ann]

Whiskeryron states //Retrochic referred to the Black & White minstrel show being terminated with the words 'thank god'. Why ? I always thought of it as one of the best shows ever & far from it being racist I have always regarded it as being complimentary to the wonderful talents of black people & their absolutely great singing ability. If you have ever seen & heard a Black choir singing you will know what I mean
( they can reduce me, an elderly white man to floods of tears ) //

How I agree with you Ron! I loved the B&W Minstrels - a great variety show not bettered since - in my opinion.
AND we have West Indian friends living in the UK since the 60s and they also say it was their favourite TV programme and they used to sing along. So who makes up all this rubbish about them being "offended".
I still have B&W Minstrel vinyl LPs in my collection and "The Magic of Christmas" comes out every Christmas - it's so jolly and uplifting - in fact I'm going this very minute to play it - SO THERE!

[mrs.chappie]

I thought it was a tad disappointing too - something lacking.

[anotheoldgit]

Variety is the spice of life so they say, and it means watching that than what goes for entertainment these days I say bring it on.

Today's entertainment seems to consist of countless boy and girl groups who class themselves as 'Bands', groups who only play guitars and key boards, 'Singers' who sing the same lines over and over again simply because there seems to be no lyric writers left today, and comedians who can only get their laughs by constantly swearing or talking about bodily functions etc,

The acts in 'Variety' have real talent, which sadly is now dying away.

[Butterbun]

gollob asked about the Royal Variety Show. I was disappointed to see it diverted into a debate on race/skin colour. Does this always have to happen?
Anyway, back to the question, I agree with AOG re the so-called 'comedians and singers'. I wouldn't be applauding a swearing comedian, it is totally uncalled for. Tommy Cooper, Bob Monkhouse types seem to have long gone and being replaced by people whose every second word is an f word or worse. Michael McIntyre as a compere if fine, I enjoyed his little 'stories', the lady in the red dress, what a voice. Alfie Boe should have been given a longer stint, and even Shirley Bassy wasn't too bad, but Midler should really have closed the show and giver a longer time too. Cutting out some of those silly comedians would have been preferable. There, that's my opinion of it.

[Butterbun]

^^^Bette Midler^^^

not sure what happened there.

[gingejbee]

There's lots of you on here who definitely aren't going to like "Live at the Apollo" (tonight, BBC1, 10.35)...hosted by Frankie Boyle....

[netibiza]

Well I loved it and michael mcintyre had me laughing out loud. Agree though that Bette and bassey should have sung more. Loved the pole dancer.