In 1850 there were no televisions so live entertainment was in more demand. however in the 90's when television, cinema, live music concerts, and theatre were all on the rise and this is when there was a real decline in music hall entertainment. Because of war it was not the time or place for entertainent and there was a ban on drinking in venues which discoureged a lot of the audience. So it developed and in the 1950's after WW2 it became more formal and started to be performed in theatres. Big auditoriums with a quiet audeinces rather than the social event music hall was seen as. A lot of seaside towns can be associated with nice theatres and piers and these tourist sites used variety entertainment to pull tourists in. They were often held on the pier and knows as an 'end of the pier show'. 

They currently have 20 on going shows and hundreds of members with headquarters in montreal, Quebec and Canada. However, there was recent controversy over the death of a performer in Las Vages whilst on stage The investigation concluded that she ascended too quickly before falling to her death in part, because she did not receive proper training. She was an acrobat with 22 years training and mother. She was aged 31 and fell 94 feet feet from a vertical stage during the ending of the show, marking the first onstage death in Cirque du Soleil's 29-year-history. Just proving the sheer skill, practice and precision that must go into every one of these dangerous routines.

The Royal Variety became an annual event at the suggestion of His Majesty King George V from 1921,when he became Patron of the Variety Artistes' Benevolent Fund. The Alhambra Theatre in 1926 was where the first-ever Royal Variety Performance was broadcast (on the radio by the BBC), They provided commentary on the performances as and between acts to avoid dead air. The Royal Variety was held at the London Coliseum in 1938 which was to be the last for 7 years due to the war that came upon the country. This show however, involved around 250 artistes and was the biggest ever for the Royal Variety Performance it acted like a big grande finale before the break and terrible war ahead. Blackpool had its first Royal Variety show in the seaside town in 1955. The 1960 Royal Variety Performance was the first to be televised.

1974 was when the Variety Artistes' Benevolent Fund (the VABF), changed its name to the Entertainment Artistes' Benevolent Fund, marking its help for a wider audience and it was also the year of the first female compere Noele Gordon. 1976 was the 17th television broadcast show but first ever live broadcast of the performance.

The Royal Variety Performance has been hosted  in many places throughout the UK, including London on serveal occasions, Manchester in 1959, Birmingham in1999, Edinburgh in 2003, Cardiff in 2005, Liverpool in 2007 and Blackpool in both 1959 and 2009.

'Britain's Got Talent' has since 2008 donated money raised from telephone votes to the Entertainment Artistes' Benvolent Fund, every year. In return, the EABF, has agrees that the winner of the show is awarded a spot on the next Royal Variety Performance. 

2012 marked 100 years of the Royal Variety!

I also took influence from different comedy sketches that i found online. One video that i took some character influences from was a comedy monologue 'i ate the divorce papers': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpXt_AGhwvY i think the heartbroken slightly crazy character was quite funny and i could take aspects from this character and performance. Although it has different topic it was a similar format, a woman doing a comedy ideologue with an interesting character. Something else that really influenced me and helped me develop and better my performance were the smack the pony dating agency videos. These consisted of a selection of actresses playing different characters trying to get a date and describe themselves and their ideal partner. Each character was very different even though some were played by the same people but defined themselves by costumes, facial expressions, mannerisms, personality but what stood out for me was their voice. Watching these videos helped me come up with a strong character and voice. This is one of the videos i watched: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJg8Z0dL350. I personally really enjoyed watching these videos and found them really funny. I liked the two woman Tanya and Kimberly, their relationship and personalities really made me laugh. Watching these videos made me feel excited about getting my act on stage. After watching Bridget Jones' diary i realised that i liked the character of Bridget Jones she seemed real and down to earth and like my character and funny she didn't have much luck in love and i felt like i could take aspects from her raw attitude.

After watching these different sketches online i realised that the key to a good performance was a good, strong character especially for a monologue performance. Watched these videos really helped me define and bring my character to life which made the performance much better.