I can exclusively break the news that The Royal Variety Performance for this year will be on M-Net in December with the pay broadcaster which has secured the broadcasting rights for The Royal Variety Performance 2012 which will be extra special this year.
M-Net and DStv viewers fumed after M-Net inexplicably dropped the annual high-quality end-of-year variety TV special in 2010, which M-Net then instantly returned to its schedule last year. Likewise, M-Net has The Royal Variety Performance for 2012 now in the bag, again as an ongoing TV jewel in M-Net's year-end celebratory festive programming.
M-Net tells me the paycaster will be scheduling the sterling The Royal Variety Performance 2012 for Monday 31 December at 22:30.
This year will mark the 100th anniversary of The Royal Variety Performance, anually dutifully attended by members of the United Kingdom's Royal family. This year Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh will attend.
The Royal Variety Performance 2012 takes place on 19 November in London and will be shown in Britain on ITV1 early in December. The host is comedian David Williams.
Already included in this year's line-up are Rod Stewart, Neil Diamond, the boy band One Direction, Britain's Got Talent winners Ashleigh and Pudsey, the girl band Girls Aloud, Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, Andrea Bocelli, Alicia Keys, comedians Rhod Gilbert and Bill Bailey, an extract from the Seven Olivier Award-winning Matilda The Musical and the eagerly anticipated musical The Bodyguard, Cuba's Ballet Revolución plus a spectacular duet from tenor Plácido Domingo and Katherine Jenkins.
