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The roll call of stars with their names in lights at the beginning of The Royal Variety Performance 2020 (ITV, Tues, 8pm) might have been enough to strike fear in your heart.

Gary Barlow! Stephen Mulhern!! Steps!!!

Then the Prince of Wales gave a short speech through his starched jaw, welcoming us to “a unique British tradition”, and it all seemed so yesterday.

Running since 1912, but only on its third visit to the UK’s home of light entertainment, Blackpool, you do wonder how long the Royal Variety Performance can last. Variety was supposed to be dead when I was a lad in the late 70s, so it must be positively decomposing now.

Review: The Royal Variety Performance was middle-of-the-road, but there was still enough star power to entertain