Children's Party at the Palace

The Children's Party at the Palace was an event organized by Peter Orton of Hit Entertainment and David Johnstone of DJI consult, held at Buckingham Palace Garden on 25 June 2006 in honour of the 80th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. The event, which had the theme British children's literature, was attended by 2,000 children and 1,000 adults[1] who were chosen through a national ballot.[2] On arrival, all guests received an purple hamper with snacks put together by Jamie Oliver.[3]

For the occasion, the palace grounds were transformed into scenes from children's books including places like the Hundred Acre Wood and 80 costumed characters and a model of the BFG sitting at a huge piano.[3] The grounds also had an author's corner where authors like J. K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, Eric Hill and Raymond Briggs read from their books and signed autographs.[4]

The Queen's Handbag

The main attraction of the party was a pantomime-style play called The Queen's Handbag, written by children's author and playwright David Wood and directed by Trevor Nunn,[5] which was performed on a stage resembling Buckingham Palace and broadcast live on both BBC One and the CBBC Channel.

In the play, the villains of children's literature are angry to find out none of them had been invited to the party, so they decide to ruin the party for the goodies too. After multiple failed attempts, one of them manages to steal the Queen's handbag. Without its contents, her reading glasses, the Queen won't be able to deliver her closing speech. So the Queen is forced to ask US archaeologist Indiana Jones's British brother Billy to find it for her. Multiple scenes of the play were pre-recorded and played on large video screens.

The play ended with an rendition of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" by the entire cast, led by the London company of the musical Mary Poppins. Throughout the programme, the audience was kept up to date about the status of the missing handbag with reports from both BBC News and Crimewatch. The use of a fake newsflash caused complaints to be made to the BBC.[6]

Cast

References

  1. ↑ "Kids win invite to palace party", Newsround report. (last updated 24 May 2006; accessed 13 July 2006)
  2. ↑ "Palace gets ready for kids' party", Newsround report. (last updated 23 June 2006; accessed 13 July 2006)
  3. 1 2 "Queen puts on huge party for kids", Newsround report. (last updated 25 June 2006; accessed 13 July 2006)
  4. ↑ "Sophie Dahl Talks Potter and JKR" from Mugglenet.com (posted 24 June 2006; accessed 13 July 2006)
  5. ↑ Stars and children to gather at Buckingham Palace for the party of lifetime (published 11 June 2006; accessed 13 July 2006)
  6. ↑ BBC NEWS | The Editors
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/19/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.