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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Alexis Petridis

Platinum Party at the Palace review – you can understand why the Queen didn’t turn up

Brian May performs with Queen.
Brian May performs with Queen. Photograph: Reuters

The last time the exterior of Buckingham Palace and the Mall was turned into a concert venue – for the Gary Barlow-curated diamond jubilee celebration in 2012 – the Queen arrived midway through: a canny bit of timing that meant she got there in time for Kylie, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney but missed Jessie J, as well as Gary Barlow and Cheryl Tweedy’s unprovoked assault on Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now.

This time, she gamely took part in a sketch with Paddington Bear, tapping out the rhythm of Queen’s We Will Rock You on a teacup before Queen themselves appeared – Brian May, clad in a jacket covered in drawings of badgers, performing on a hydraulic platform – but didn’t show up in person at all, which was a surprise: what apparently poorly 96-year-old wouldn’t want to spend an evening watching Jax Jones and Sigala?

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