Royal family’s home movies of the Queen will be shared in new BBC documentary
Viewers will be be able to see rare private moments from Her Majesty’s life in a new TV programme.
Buckingham Palace and the BBC have announced that a very special 75-minute documentary will air later this month.
Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen will reveal unseen private home movies of The Queen as a young girl for the first time.
We’re told that it’ll tell “the real story of her life as a Princess – through her own eyes and in her own words from across her reign.”
Simon Young, the BBC’s Commissioning Editor for History commented: “We are honoured that The Queen has entrusted the BBC with such unprecedented access to her personal film collection.
“This documentary is an extraordinary glimpse into a deeply personal side of the Royal Family that is rarely seen, and it’s wonderful to be able to share it with the nation as we mark her Platinum Jubilee.”
The official synopsis reads: “Since the 1920s, the Royal Family have always filmed each other, but for decades hundreds of these reels of home-made recordings have been held privately by the Royal Collection in the vaults of the British Film Institute (BFI).
“Now, for this documentary, The Queen has granted the BBC unprecedented access to the footage, taking us inside Her Majesty’s life as never before through home movies shot by her, her parents, Prince Philip, and others.
“It reveals The Queen’s journey from earliest childhood, being pushed in a pram as a baby by her mother, to her Coronation at the age of just 27 in 1953, following the death of her father George VI in 1952.
“The documentary takes us behind the scenes of The Queen’s upbringing and reveals the warmth of her relationship with her parents. It captures the first extended visit of Prince Philip to Balmoral in 1946 while the couple’s engagement was still not public – a beaming Princess Elizabeth showing the camera her engagement ring. It shows Princess Elizabeth as a young mother, with The King and Queen as fond grandparents to Prince Charles and Princess Anne.
“Other rare moments include her grandfather George V (known to The Queen as ‘Grandpa England’) sailing with The Queen Mother off the Isle of Wight in 1931, footage of Princess Elizabeth with her uncle Prince George, The Duke of Kent, who tragically died in a plane crash in 1942 while on active service – and a poignant glimpse of the Royal Family at Balmoral in 1951, The King’s last visit there.”
The documentary’s makers went through over 400 reels of film, and listened to more than 300 of The Queen’s speeches, spanning over eight decades.
Newly rediscovered footage includes lost newsreel given to The Queen and behind the scenes recordings of state events that were privately commissioned by the Royal Family.
Claire Popplewell, Creative Director for BBC Studios Events Productions said: “As programme-makers who have previously worked closely with the Royal Household on ceremonial and celebratory broadcast events and programmes, the production team were under no illusion quite how special having access to this very personal archive was.
“Being able to draw upon the self-recorded history of a young Princess Elizabeth and her wider family – and allowing The Queen to tell us her own story – is the very heart of this film.”
Watch the trailer here:
This looks wonderful!
Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen will premiere in the UK on BBC One on Sunday 29th May.
It’ll also be available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
We’re not yet sure when or where it will debut in the US, but we’d expect it to end up on BritBox this summer.