Another jubilee for Sir Cliff as stars align for People’s Pageant
HE PARTIED at the Palace for the Golden Jubilee and sang a medley of his greatest hits for the Diamond.
So as the Queen celebrates her record-breaking Platinum Jubilee, it would surely not be a party without Sir Cliff Richard.
Sir Cliff, 81, is to take a starring role in the “People’s Pageant” for the fourth jubilee of his long career, riding an open-topped double decker bus through the streets of London as an icon of his era.
He will be joined by celebrities including Jeremy Irons and Gary Lineker, with pop star Ed Sheeran delivering a musical tribute in front of Buckingham Palace. Organisers of the pageant, which will form the grand finale of the Jubilee weekend on Sunday, June 5, have signed up 100 “national treasures” to honour the Queen. The show will also feature Basil Brush and a pack of corgi puppets.
They estimate 10,000 people will be performing in the pageant, with applications still open, and up to a billion watching around the world.
The £15million People’s Pageant has been designed to show “appreciation, affection and respect” for the Queen after 70 years on the throne, said pageant master Adrian Evans, promising it would be the “most magnificent of all” her jubilees. Members of the Royal family – including, organisers hope, the Queen – are expected to appear on the Palace balcony.
The event will culminate with the crowd outside Buckingham Palace singing the national anthem and watching a “surprise” performance in honour of Her Majesty.
The procession will cover a two-mile route echoing the Queen’s Coronation, with a military parade of 1,750 people and 200 horses, as well as more than 6,000 volunteers, performers and key workers, and 2,500 members of the public joining in with the dancing.
It will be a celebration of a multi-cultural society, organisers said, with “real people telling their own stories” from participants who travelled on Windrush to Bollywood-style dancers representing the Queen’s wedding to Prince Philip.
Other celebrities confirmed to be taking part throughout the day include Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, paralympian Kadeena Cox, gardener Alan Titchmarsh, chef Heston Blumenthal, comedians Bill Bailey and Rosie Jones, and stylist Gok Wan.
Organisers described them as the “TV personalities, musicians, actors, sportspeople, designers, artists who have helped shape Britain’s cultural scene over the last 70 years” including “Lambeth walkers, jivers, hippies, teddy boys, mods, glam rockers, punks, new romantics, ravers, Britpoppers, junglists and breakbeaters”.
Sir Cliff said: “It’s going to be a wonderful celebration, it will be spectacular.”