It will involve 6,000 performers — ranging from Bhangra dancers to ballerinas, supermodels to Paralympians, dames to drag queens — plus 1,800 troops, 500 horses, 320 cyclists, 10 sousaphones and one heliosphere (a big balloon supporting a trapeze artist). The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Pageant, this Sunday’s centrepiece of a four-day celebration of her 70-year reign, aims to forge a moment of national unity. It’s a celebration of tradition and inclusion, an exploration of the changes that have shaped Britain since Elizabeth II was crowned in Westminster Abbey, aged 26.
“If you took the very best of the Lord Mayor’s Show but multiplied it by 10 in terms of scale and polish, weave in some elements of Trooping the Colour, the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony and some the best of the Notting Hill Carnival, I think you would begin to come towards what it’s intended to be,” says Nicholas Coleridge, the co-chairman of the event, who looks sublimely unbothered by the complexities involved.
