Duchess Sophie’s brutal ‘don’t give up the day job’ review shocked Royal Variety performer

The Royal Variety Performance takes place on Friday 22 November in London, with King Charles in attendance. Back in 2022, Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh and her husband Prince Edward were among the guests, but Sophie wasn’t exactly thrilled by one particular act and her unexpected remarks about a performance raised eyebrows. During the night, comedian and radio presenter Frank Skinner performed the song Three Lions with his mate David Baddiel, but it didn’t quite hit the right note with Sophie.

After his performance, he had a chat with the royals, where Sophie delivered her brutally honest feedback. “Sophie led the way, bearing in mind I’d had a really hard day and I battled on like a trooper. So she comes up and she says, ‘Well, don’t give up your day job,'” he said, reports the Mirror.

“I thought, ‘This is not how the royal walk thing works’. And we honestly said, ‘Pardon?’ It’s supposed to be just banal compliments. I said, ‘Was it that bad?’ And she said, ‘Well, you know, I could tell, you know, it’s not what you do.'”

Frank was taken aback by these comments and continued: “And I said, ‘Erm, well, normally we’re like comics’. She said, ‘Yeah, but you’re on screen aren’t you, you’re not used to a live crowd’. I said, ‘Well we’ve done a bit of live stuff you know, stand-up and stuff’. But she’s sticking with it and she said, ‘Yeah, but you haven’t done anywhere the size of this.'” He then told Sophie about his recent performance at the Palladium. He added: “She looked at me like, ‘You’re not supposed to be arguing, I don’t think you’re supposed to be arguing with me, you’re supposed to just nod’. It was like a really awkward thing.”

However, last year Frank revealed that Sophie did send him a heartfelt apology a few days later. “I got a Christmas card – and I have to say, she doesn’t need to send a note to someone like me, do you know what I mean?” He added of her apology: “It was handwritten, really lovely and it was really polite.”