The day I dressed the Queen in beige, by Sir David Attenborough
Broadcaster tells of his ‘tricky’ encounter after hunting through the royal wardrobe before filming
ARTS CORRESPONDENT SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH has told how he rifled through the Queen’s wardrobe before dressing her in a “mushroom” outfit for her Christmas television broadcast.
Sir David, whose job it was to produce the televised Queen’s Christmas message, said he had insisted she must not wear a green dress, because it would clash with the wallpaper.
Instead, he deliberately picked out a beige-coloured “costume” in a colour described as “a friend to no lady”.
Speaking at the Radio Times Festival, the veteran broadcaster admitted that the entire encounter had been “tricky”.
In a 90-minute interview with Kirsty Young, Sir David said that in 1986 he had been invited to meet Bill Heseltine, the Queen’s private secretary, to plan the Christmas broadcast.
“It was tricky,” he told an audience. “We discussed what the Queen’s broadcast… might be.
“And then he said, ‘Well, what about the costume? What do you want her to wear?’ ”
Mr Heseltine went on to suggest Sir David “go and rifle through the wardrobe”.
“So I did,” said Sir David. “It was a room with green wallpaper so I dismissed all the green stuff. I picked out one that was mushroom.” Young, who presents Desert Island
Discs, joked: “That’s a friend to no lady.”
The Queen later arrived in a “small rickety lift” for the filming. Sir David said: “The Queen, in this dress, came out and she said, ‘Well I hope you ap- prove of my costume. What about what I normally wear?’
“I said, ‘Well… it was green, your Majesty, and the wallpaper of the room was green, so it would have clashed.’
“Bill Heseltine, trying to be helpful, said, ‘Well, of course we could have had the room decorated’. She said, ‘ Do you realise what that would have cost?’”
The presenter, who was awarded a place in the Radio Times Hall of Fame at the event, also spoke about his long career in broadcasting, including one occasion when he found himself apologising to an alpha male gorilla after it thought he was making eyes at his female mate.
“There was one occasion when I got very close to a female in a clearing,” he said. “The female was over there and I was here, she saw me and I saw her. Suddenly this male gorilla came up.”
Doing an impression of a male gorilla roaring, he joked he had raised his arms in surrender and told it: “No, I was just standing here.”
He also gave an insight into life at home with the Attenboroughs, once fearing he had malaria after returning from a trip and overheating in bed, unaware that his wife had bought an electric blanket.
‘Her private secretary suggested I rifle through her wardrobe, so I did. I picked out a mushroom outfit for the broadcast’