What will she think of it so far (up north)?

Pack your bucket and spade, Your Majesty, you’re off to Blackpool. After a 54-year drought, the traditional home of end-of-the-pier entertainment has finally lured the Royal Variety Performance away from its London base.

It was 1955 when Arthur Askey and a young Morecambe and Wise sought to entertain the new Queen at the Blackpool Opera House. With organisers seeking to chop £500,000 from the ITV1 show’s £1.2 million budget, cost-effective Blackpool is preparing for a repeat Performance.

“We’re thrilled and honoured to be welcoming her Majesty,” says Councillor Maxine Callow, Blackpool cabinet member for tourism and regeneration. She promises an event that will “prove to the world that Blackpool can put on a great show”.

For the resort, deemed too shabby even for the Labour Party conference, attracting the show is one in the eye for its brassy rival, Manchester.

Last year the Performance featured Sir Cliff Richard and the Shadows. The star turn this autumn will be Britain’s Got Talent winners Diversity. Will this be the year that the Queen is finally amused?

The super-Twitterer Stephen Fry has a rival in cyberspace. “It’s great, you have such an effect,” Eddie Izzard told People at the Terry Gilliam tribute night in Notting Hill. “Stephen Fry has 607,000 followers and I have 519,000. I’m that close,” he added closing his forefinger and thumb.

Boris Johnson declared himself “as tired as a gay 1970s disco” after racing back from Greece for the Pride London launch (not a celebration of the London Pride tipple, it turns out). Inspired by his Aegean trip, the mayor quoted Sappho in Greek and declared that London was “proud to pick up the legacy of Lesbos”.

How Wembley started something

The Face: Gary Go

Growing up in the shadow of Wembley’s twin towers, Gary Baker heard the strains of Michael Jackson performing. Today the songwriter, who adopted the dynamic Go sobriquet, will achieve his dream when he steps on to the stadium stage in front of 60,000 fans.

Admittedly, the bespectacled singer, described as a “one-man Coldplay”, is opening for Take That, whose Gary Barlow is a Go enthusiast. A self-taught musician, Go, 24, took studio jobs until Peter Gabriel said that he should strike out on his own. A move to New Jersey honed his songwriting before Universal Music detected his knack for a radio-friendly anthem. Go says: “Maybe while I’m playing there’ll be another little boy in his garden near by hearing my songs blowing in the wind, dreaming of a life in music.”

Postcript

Did Dizzee Rascal enjoy Justin Timberlake’s William Rast fashion show? “It was short. Fast and furious.” And the clothes? “Some of the girls looked really nice.”

• The keen angler Keith Richards is to catch – and release – great white sharks for a US TV series.

people@thetimes.co.uk

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