Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee: The United Kingdom is all geared up to celebrate 70 years of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Several events, involving members of the royal family, will mark the celebrations to be held over four days from Thursday, June 2 to Sunday, June 5. The events include Trooping the Colour, the Platinum beacons, a Service of Thanksgiving, a Platinum Jubilee pageant parading down the Mall to Buckingham Palace in London and a star-studded concert.
The Platinum Jubilee pageant, which will involve more than 10,000 people from across the UK and the Commonwealth nations and is expected to be seen by 1 billion people around the world, will feature a special Bollywood-themed presentation, ‘The Wedding Party’. Designed by Ajay Chhabra, a second-generation British Indian with Fijian heritage who runs a dance company in London, the segment will highlight how Queen Elizabeth II, “united generations of Commonwealth citizens from places as far flung as Fiji”, through her 70 years on the throne, The Associated Press reported.
And the centerpiece of the performance by the dancers from Nutkhut on Sunday will be Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s 1947 wedding cake, the report said.
It was a four-tier, 9-foot-tall cake that the royal couple cut at their wedding 75 years ago, and it was called “the 10,000-mile cake” because the ingredients used in it — from sugar and dried fruit to rum and brandy — were sourced from all corners of the Commonwealth.
“We’re not recreating the 1947 wedding of the queen, but creating a sort of homage to it, with all the people and all the diversity that Britain has produced,” Chhabra was quoted as saying in the AP report.
Bollywood-Themed Extravaganza
Chhabra’s segment will have more than 200 performers donning vibrant saris dancing to Bollywood tunes around a 20-foot version of the wedding cake, the report said, adding that the moving cake will be powered by an electric vehicle that will stay hidden. The top tier of the cake will feature a rendition of the queen’s corgis holding aloft a crown.
‘The Wedding Party’ will feature dancers aged 9 to 79, all with Commonwealth heritage. “All those young people ... they don’t see the world or ‘being British’ the way we did, or our parents did,” Chhabra told AP.
The Platinum Jubilee pageant is being called the “people’s pageant”, the report said, adding that the organisers are emphasising on how the common people are connected “through time, to each other, and to the queen”.
Chhabra explained how he personally feels this “connection”.
“When I look at my mum’s foundation story, she was 9 years old when the queen came to Fiji during her tour of the South Pacific in 1953. You know, her and all of her school friends were waving flags to welcome her,” he told AP.
Chhabra said his 9-year-old daughter will now have a similar story to tell as she will be part of the pageant.
Apart from the Bollywood-themed segment, the Sunday finale of the four-day festive weekend will see many colorful acts, including a military showcase that will open the spectacle, which will be followed by a procession featuring a medley of carnival music. There will be three-storey-high beasts, stunt cyclists, Scottish bagpipers and maypole dancers, among others, describing in their own ways the queen’s 70-year reign.
After travelling a 3-kilometre route, the pageant will culminate in front of Buckingham Palace, where singers Ed Sheeran, Shirley Bassey and Cliff Richard will be among the celebrity artistes presenting a concert.