The Queen’s Golden Jubilee festivities are well underway, with the highly-anticipated Party At The Palace pop concert, featuring performers from Sir Paul McCartney to Pop Idol Will Young, set for Monday evening. The day’s events will kick off with lunchtime street parties around the country, and a nationwide sing-along of The Beatles’ hit All You Need Is Love, launched by the monarch herself.
The Queen will set in motion a ceremonial metronome as the cue for people throughout Britain to sing the 1960’s Beatles anthem, which will also signal the start of a series of music festivals in over 200 towns and cities throughout the Commonwealth.
The song will again feature as the closing number of the Monday night pop concert, which brings us such diverse names as Ricky Martin, Tom Jones, Eric Clapton, Dame Shirley Bassey and rocker Ozzy Osbourne. The star-studded celebration, which will take place in the garden of Buckingham Palace despite the weekend fire in the west wing, will be simulcast on special giant screens erected in major cities around the country. Viewers at home can also see a live broadcast on BBC One from 1930 BST.
Bringing the concert to a close will be a spectacular firework display, accompanied by music and an impressive light show projected onto the facade of the Palace. Simultaneously, in a re-enaction of events at the last Golden Jubilee – that of Queen Victoria in 1887 – a chain of beacons and bonfires will be lit across the UK and around the Commonwealth, with the Queen igniting the last of the 2,000 symbolic flames.
On Tuesday, also a public holiday and the final day of the official celebrations, the day begins with a state procession from the Palace to St Paul’s Cathedral, where a service of thanksgiving will be celebrated. Over 1,000 musicians, playing from two large stages opposite the Queen Victoria Memorial, will accompany the Queen and Prince Philip as they make their way down The Mall in the gold Coronation Coach.
The afternoon’s highlights include a series of processions, including one of people who have served Britain during Queen Elizabeth’s 50-year reign, and a pageant down the Mall led by 2,500 representatives of Notting Hill Carnival. The latter will include the largest gospel choir ever formed – comprising some 5,000 singers – to bring the last day’s celebrations to a high point of colour and energy.
For the grand finale closing the landmark occasion, the Queen and Prince Philip will appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace at 5.40pm, to watch a flypast of Concorde and the RAF.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
