After a summer season which has so far looked like spelling doom and gloom for the future of showbusiness and pretty much everything else in the resort comes a gold shoot of recovery which must surprise even the most blatant wearer of rose-coloured spectacles.

A Royal Command Show! A visit of Her Majesty the Queen! A Royal Box for her to sit in? (All right, two out of three's not bad because the Opera House hasn't boasted a Royal Box since the last one was torn down to accommodate the props and fittings for what became Blackpool's biggest ever show – the smash hit musical Cats.)

And, unlike so many of the town's other positive stories, this is one bit of good news which we don't have to wait years and years to come to fruition.

It's here in December, screened in December and we'll be enjoying the big build-up for the next six months.

That really is the kind of publicity you can't buy.

So who's on? Who cares? That's like finding out that Blackpool FC have been given a by into the FA Cup Final and then asking "but who are we playing?"

We know that Britain's Got Talent winners Diversity will be dancing their socks off – and let's just quietly forget they won the show that delivered a body blow to Blackpool when its audition judges proclaimed Blackpool didn't have talent after all.

Ha! At least we've got the Royal Variety Performance and we've got the mighty Opera House.

We're even prepared to put on the back burner the fact the country's biggest theatre has a question mark hanging over its future and is in desperate need of a bit of tender loving care.

Doubtless the Winter Gardens won't be the only place in Blackpool smelling of fresh paint and looking sparkly new by the time Her Majesty waves her regal hand to the gathered crowds on the newly pedestrianised St John's Piazza.

So as you sing God Save The Queen on December 7 just be thinking – perhaps The Queen has helped save Blackpool (and its Opera House).