Light entertainment encompasses a broad range of television and radio programming that includes comedies,

variety show Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a comp� ...

game show A game show (or gameshow) is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment where contestants compete in a game for rewards. The shows are typically directed by a game show host, host, who explains the rules of the program as well as commentating a ...

s, quiz shows and the like.

In the UK

In the early days of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, virtually all broadcast entertainment would be considered light by today's standards, as great pains were taken not to offend audiences—which is not to say that they always succeeded in this. Singers, magicians and comedians were drafted from the

music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was most popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850, through the World War I, Great War. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as Varie ...

circuit to fill the schedules. Stage acts were transferred directly to screen; in the case of productions such as ''Sunday Night at the

London Palladium The London Palladium () is a Grade II* West End theatre located on Argyll Street, London, in Soho. The theatre was designed by Frank Matcham and opened in 1910. The auditorium holds 2,286 people. Hundreds of stars have played there, many wit ...

'', the broadcasts actually came from large theatres. Many future household names, including

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

, were given their first public airings during these programmes, which attempted to cater for varying tastes through staging variety acts.

Bruce Forsyth Sir Bruce Joseph Forsyth-Johnson (22 February 1928 – 18 August 2017) was an English entertainer and television presenter whose career spanned more than 75 years. Forsyth came to national attention from the late 1950s through the Associated Te ...

was one of several hosts for the show. He went on himself to present the studio-based '' Generation Game,'' which remains a landmark in the light entertainment genre. ''The Generation Game'' revolved around the now-common television standby of getting members of the public to provide the entertainment themselves by doing silly things for prizes. The show's format was somewhere between the old variety programmes and the increasingly ubiquitous quiz shows and it and its descendants still appear in the television schedules.

1970s

The 1970s continued the move away from the music hall format to studio-based shows. Staged concert acts lived on through television magicians such as Paul Daniels and

Royal Variety Performance The ''Royal Variety Performance'' is a televised variety show held annually in the United Kingdom to raise money for the Royal Variety Charity (of which King Charles III is life-patron). It is attended by senior members of the British royal ...

s. '' The Comedians'' was another programme which looked back at the live entertainment of the music halls and was also a prototype of many later stand-up comedy series. It employed a number of comics from the working men's club circuit to do their routines on camera.

1980s

In the 1980s the budgets available for light entertainment increased, and shows had dazzling sets and expensive prizes. With the simultaneous ascendancy of

alternative comedy Alternative comedy is a term coined in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era. The phrase has had different connotations in different contexts: in the UK, it was used to describe ...

, however, the popularity of light entertainment shows started to decline among audiences. An example of this phenomenon is found in the name of a lesser-known panel show '' Bring Me the Head of Light Entertainment'' (which is also a pun on a broadcasting job description). Part of the complaint was that light entertainment sought to amuse, yet younger audiences found the attempts at humour weak and watery.

1990s

Popular light entertainment in the 1990s included '' Barrymore'', '' Des O'Connor Tonight'', '' Noel's House Party'', '' Surprise Surprise'', '' Stars in Their Eyes'' and '' The Paul Daniels Magic Show'' as well as radio shows such as '' Wake Up to Wogan''. Shows typically averaged over ten million viewers and over fifteen was not unusual.

21st century

In spite of critical reaction, light entertainment continues to be popular, perhaps because it provokes no awkward questions when the viewing is shared by different generations of the same family. Current light entertainment stars include the Geordie double act Ant & Dec. They have in the past included the late

and the late

Cilla Black Priscilla Maria Veronica White (27 May 1943 – 1 August 2015), better known as Cilla Black, was an English singer and television presenter. Championed by her friends the Beatles, Black began her career as a singer in 1963. Her singles "A ...

. '' Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway'' achieved a viewing figures ratings high of 8.5 million viewers in 2020.

Canada

During the 1970s,

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV, or simply CBC) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting, p ...

introduced ''Sunday at Nine'', a time slot where '"dramas Corwin''">Corwin_(TV_series).html" ;"title="uch as ''Corwin (TV series)">Corwin''alternate with light entertainment [such as ''The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour''] and special documentaries."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Light Entertainment Television in the United Kingdom Television in Canada Popular culture