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Traditional Variety has been a lifelong fascination for poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. She grew up in a family that included several amateur and professional entertainers and from an early age the world of Variety Theatre was \\u2018in her blood\\u2019... During WW2, her dad organised and performed in a night of entertainment at King Farouk\\u2019s palace in Cairo, She recalls her mum tap dancing in the kitchen as the dinner burnt. One of her most precious and prized possessions is a poster, retrieved from her uncle\\u2019s home, for a variety show at the New Hippodrome, Darlington in 1938 - acts including Waldini\\u2019s Famous Gypsy Band, Billy Brown Upside Down and his wonderful dog Lady and her uncle himself, Barry Phelps. With Idina Scott Gatty, Entertainer. As a child, Amanda never missed Sunday Night at the London Palladium or the Good Old Days on TV. Variety shows were her parents\\u2019 favourites - her obsession with them is perhaps not surprising.

The acts that have always most fascinated her are those \\u2018speciality\\u2019 acts that disturb even as they entertain, designed to bamboozle the audience and mess with the mind. These essays will explore Amanda\\u2019s relationship with the different kinds of acts that thrived as UK Variety emerged from the embers of Music Hall (1930s \\u2013 1950s). Listeners are introduced to some of the key performers, a fascinating collection of unusual and striking characters with extraordinary skills and showmanship.

In That\\u2019s Entertainment...? Variety and Me, Amanda revisits some of the acts that made up this form of light entertainment, exploring how they connected with her own family\\u2019s life and considering their personal and cultural meaning for her both as a child and as the writer she is today.

Essay 1: Singing, Dancing and Having a Laugh: The Backbone of Variety.

The first essay of this series introduces listeners to the world of Variety as it morphed from Music Hall and journeyed into televised entertainment. It considers the backbone of the Variety Show \\u2013 song, dance and comedy \\u2013 through the lens of Amanda\\u2019s personal memories of growing up in a rather unusual family.

Writer and reader, Amanda Dalton\\nProducer, Polly Thomas\\nExec Producer, Eloise Whitmore

A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3.

Biog\\nAmanda Dalton is poet, playwright and essayist based in West Yorkshire. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 and 3 and for theatres including Manchester\\u2019s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatre By The Lake, Keswick who are premiering her radical adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett\\u2019s A Little Princess during Winter 2023-4. Her poetry collections are published by Bloodaxe Books and she has pamphlets with Smith|Doorstop and ARC. A new collection \\u2013 Fantastic Voyage \\u2013 is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in May 2024 and includes some poems about magic!