6
NEWS
We did Elizabeth a favour by treating her
as a human being, says The Crown actress
A rehearsal for
today’s pageant
passes through
Parliament
Square at dawn
earlier last weekShould the UK remain a monarchy for
another 70 years?
Have your say at sundaytimes.co.uk/pollmake you into the monarch”.
“There is absolutely that
sense that as they move
through a room, the energy of
the room always moves
towards wherever they are,
and when you’re playing the
monarch that’s what you
have to do,” Mirren, 76, said.
“You have to be as natural
and ordinary as you can and
allow everyone around you to
make you into the monarch.”
Other actresses who have
played the Queen include
lookalike Jeannette Charles,
94, who appeared in films
including Austin Powers in
Goldmember, and the
impressionist Jan Ravens,
who said “we wouldn’t get
away with” a lot of the 1980s
Spitting Image sketches
featuring the royals today.
Susan Jameson, who
played the monarch in a 2009
Channel 4 series, The Queen,
had to carry cheese in her
pocket to pacify the corgis.
Olivia Colman, who took
over from Foy in The Crown,
said she had to wear an
earpiece to listen to the
shipping forecast during
emotional scenes so she did
not cry.
@IamLiamKellyClaire Foy, star of The Crown,
says that if she were the
Queen she would appreciate
the television show because it
treats her as a human being
rather than “just an icon”.
Foy, who played Princess
Elizabeth and then the Queen
in the first two series of the
Netflix drama, said it
presented a more nuanced
version of the royals than
most.
“She has lived through her
life being criticised and all
her family splashed across
every single newspaper,” Foy,
38, said. “I think ... I would
be grateful that someone was
taking a look at me as a
human being, as opposed to
just an icon... that someone
was trying to understand
what it was like to be me.”
The series, created by
Peter Morgan, has drawn
criticism for not sticking
rigidly to historical fact,
including hinting that the
Queen and the Duke of
Edinburgh had affairs, as well
as inventing characters and
storylines.
The royal family’s feelingsLiam Kelly
Arts Correspondentabout the show have
attracted plenty of
speculation. Princess Eugenie
has confessed to watching it,
saying it was “beautifully
made”. The Duchess of
Cornwall recently met
Emerald Fennell, the actress
who played her in the last
series, and said it was
“reassuring to know that, if I
should fall off my perch at
any moment, my fictional
alter ego is here to take over”.
In 2020 Oliver Dowden,
who was then the
culture secretary,
said Netflix should
include a disclaimer
that the series was
fictional because he
was afraid that a
generation “who
did not live
through these
events may
mistake fiction
for fact”.
Foy told
Playing the
Queen, to be
broadcast
today on BBCRadio 2, that she thought the
monarch had “learnt to
create freedom in her cage”
by connecting with nature,
but was rarely afforded a
moment’s peace.
“[It] is pretty much the
only way: being free, being on
a horse, walking, being with
her dogs. It’s the only way she
does it,” Foy said. “But you
see it in the series: her car
arrives and someone says
something’s happened. She is
on call.”
Dame Helen Mirren, who
won an Oscar for her title
role in the 2006 film The
Queen, admitted on the
programme that she
approached playing the
monarch with “utter
terror and
intimidation and
fear” because she
worried about
whether she would
“get the voice
right”. She later felt
comfortable on set
when she realised
that “you never
play regal...
it’s the
people
around
you whoFoy: “Queen is
always on call”JUBILEE
As the glittering crown jewel of the jubi-
lee pageant, back on parade for the first
time in 20 years, the Gold State Coach
will make history today when the Queen
appears inside it as if by magic.
The monarch is not expected to attend
this afternoon’s finale of the Platinum
Jubilee celebrations, but holograms of
the Queen have been created that will
allow her to “time travel”, and appear to
be waving to the crowds through the
streets of London from the gilded coach
that carried her to her coronation.
The technological wizardry was
devised by the London-based designcompany Treatment Studio, which
makes special effects for performers
including Adele, Sir Elton John and the
Rolling Stones.
Helped by Buckingham Palace conser-
vators, its team assembled digital screens
featuring holograms of the young Queen
on to a custom-made steel framework
that sits inside the coach.
The coach, which was commissioned
in 1760 by George III for £7,562, the
equivalent of £1.07 million today, has
been used to transport monarchs at
coronations and jubilees. It has not, how-
ever, been on parade since the Queen’s
Golden Jubilee in 2002. Today, it will be
pulled by eight of her Windsor Grey
horses.
Willie Williams, the founder of Treat-
ment Studio, said: “Our goal was to create
a magical moment of live time travel, to
let viewers in the crowd experience what
it must have felt like on coronation day,
seeing the young Queen pass by in the
Gold State Coach.
“Outside the coach it’s 2022 but inside,
as the coach passes by, we are trans-
ported to 1953. Very little of the original
footage was suitable for what we needed
so we had to create ‘new’ content of our
own. By compositing and manipulating
footage from multiple sources, we were
able to create believable images of the
young queen as she was at her corona-
tion.”
More than 25,000 members of the
public are expected to gather along The
Mall and at Buckingham Palace today.
The Prince of Wales, Duchess of Corn-
wall, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
and other members of the royal family
will appear on the palace balcony at the
end of the 2½-hour star-studded specta-cle, featuring 10,000 performers proc-
essing from the Houses of Parliament to
Buckingham Palace, echoing the Queen’s
1953 coronation procession.
The pageant will be staged in four acts
— For Queen and Country, The Time of
Our Lives, Let’s Celebrate, and Happy
and Glorious — paying tribute to the
monarch and telling the story of her life
and reign through carnival-style per-
formance.
The Time of Our Lives will feature 150
“national treasures”, including Sir Derek
Jacobi, Kate Moss, Sir Cliff Richard and
Sir Steve Redgrave appearing on decor-
ated double-decker buses and vehicles
representing each decade of the Queen’s
reign.
There will be “Dames in Jags” includ-
ing Joan Collins, Prue Leith, Darcey Bus-
sell and Twiggy. Celebrities, including
the explorer Bear Grylls, will be driving
vintage Land Rovers, including one
presented to George VI that was used at
Balmoral until 1966, then later found
unused in a garage by Prince Charles and
restored.
In a poignant tribute to the Duke of
Edinburgh who died in April last year
aged 99, the singer Ed Sheeran will
perform his song Perfect towards the
end of the pageant, as footage of the
Queen and Prince Philip is shown on
screens.
A giant model replica of their wedding
cake will also appear in a part of the pag-
eant celebrating their marriage.
In the pageant’s finale the “national
treasures”will join Sheeran, a gospel
choir and the Band of Her Majesty’s Royal
Marines onstage to lead the crowds in the
National Anthem.
@RoyaNikkhahDigital Queen takes ride back in time
At today’s finale of the jubilee, high-tech
magic will conjure up an image of the
young Elizabeth riding to her coronation
in a golden coach, writes Roya Nikkhah
SUNDAY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE
The
pageant
will be
staged
in four
acts