The 2017 Broadcast

Location:  Buckingham Palace

Produced by:  Sky

Theme: 

Using the over-arching umbrella of 'home' as a framework, Elizabeth II covers a number of diverse topics.  The Queen remembers the victims of the terrorist attacks in London and Manchester and the Grenfell Tower fire which had occurred during 2017, recalling her meetings with survivors  Her Majesty pays tribute to her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, with whom she had celebrated seventy years of marriage the previous month and who had retired from public life earlier in the year.  The Queen also references her first televised Christmas broadcast, live from her Sandringham home sixty years earlier in 1957.  Elizabeth II looks ahead to 2018, saying she looks forward to welcoming 'new members' to her family, while she will host 'a different type of family' as Commonwealth leaders arrive in the UK for a summit.

Commentary:  

Production reverted to Sky News, who had last produced the memorable 2012 Broadcast.  Stylistically, the look is pretty similar to the ITN broadcasts of the previous two years, with the Queen seated alongside a desk, surrounded by family photographs and with a large flower arrangement in the fireplace.  The choice of room was the 1844 Room in Buckingham Palace, last seen in the first Sky-produced Broadcast of 2011.  This is the seventh consecutive Broadcast to be filmed at Buckingham Palace:  the Sky-BBC-ITN rota has now gone full-circle without moving beyond the 'default' location.  This is the fifth consecutive time that Her Majesty had delivered her message from a seated position after having stood for ten consecutive Broadcasts.  The 'seated' look seems far more natural now than it did when it returned in 2013.

Given the theme of 'home', there are even more family photographs than usual around the Queen:  wedding and 70th Anniversary portraits of the Queen and Prince Philip take pride of place along with photographs of her Cambridge great-grandchildren Prince George and Princess Charlotte.  Further out there is a photograph of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, marking the Duchess' 70th birthday and, at the far left of the camera view, an engagement portrait of Prince Harry and his fiancée, American actress  Meghan Markle.

The production opens with God Save the Queen performed by the Commonwealth Youth Orchestra and Choir.  The segment was recorded at the Guildhall in London. The camera then cuts to the front of Buckingham Palace in watery winter sunshine;  then a shot of the London skyline behind the Royal Standard flying from the Palace flagpole gives an impressive view before the Queen appears.  A few moments are played of the Queen's first televised Christmas Broadcast sixty years earlier (though not to the extent of the 50th anniversary in 2007).  Footage, which had been released at the time of the tragedy, is played of the Queen meeting victims and families of the Manchester bombing.  At the end of the production, the Commonwealth Youth Orchestra return to sing the carol It Came Upon A Midnight Clear;  this is interspersed with a montage of senior members of the royal family at work during the year, including the Duke of Edinburgh's final official engagement and the engagement photo call of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Many media outlets commented on the Queen's decision to 'welcome' Meghan Markle to the royal family by referring to 'new members' joining in 2018.  Of course, the oblique reference can also be extended to include the arrival of the third child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, due in April.

Notes:

Elizabeth II's Christmas Message was available on US television for the first time through the Britbox 'best of British' streaming service.

Elizabeth II is described as wearing an ivory white dress by Angela Kelly, which she had first worn for the Diamond Jubilee Thames River Pageant in 2012. The dress is 'threaded throughout with silk ribbon. Embroidered with gold, silver and ivory spots, the garment was embellished with Swarovski crystals and a silk organza frill.'

With an estimated 7.6 million viewers in the UK, the Queen topped the provisional Christmas Day ratings for the fourth consecutive year, beating competition from the Mrs Brown's Boys, Strictly Come Dancing and Doctor Who Christmas specials.

The Queen is not exactly one of her family's most notable public joke-tellers, but she makes particular use of humour in this Broadcast, albeit delivered in her customary 'deadpan' manner.  Regarding her 70th wedding anniversary, Her Majesty observes 'I don’t know that anyone had invented the term “platinum” for a seventieth wedding anniversary when I was born. You weren’t expected to be around that long.'  After the brief clip of her first televised message in 1957, the Queen, referring to herself in the 'third person', quips about her inevitably changed appearance: 'Six decades on, the presenter has ‘evolved’ somewhat, as has the technology she described.'

There was some social media speculation that, by referencing her first televised Christmas speech, the Queen was acknowledging that she watches the Nexflix series  The Crown, a fictionalised dramatisation of the early years of her reign.  The speech was recreated in series two, with Claire Foy playing the monarch.  Sorry to disappoint, but the Queen had paid even more attention to her first televised speech back in 2007, the fiftieth anniversary, when The Crown had not even been conceived!

Trivia:

We don't usually consider Her Majesty to be the 'presenter' of her annual ten minutes of television; if we did, Queen Elizabeth II would hold the British record as longest-serving presenter of a single television programme by some distance, eclipsing Sir Patrick Moore's impressive 55 years fronting The Sky At Night.

Intriguingly,  this was the first time since 1990 that the Queen had delivered her Message without spectacles.

Most of the photographs surrounding the Queen had already been publicly released.  The photograph of Prince George was taken by Chris Jackson to mark the prince's fourth birthday;  the portrait of Princess Charlotte was taken by her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge, to mark her second birthday;  the photo of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall was taken by Mario Testino in 2017 to mark the Duchess' 70th birthday;  the 70th wedding anniversary portrait of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh is one of a series taken by British photographer Matt Holyoak.

Some media suggested that Elizabeth II hinted in her Message that she intends to follow the Duke Of Edinburgh into 'retirement', on the somewhat tenuous grounds that she chose to pay tribute to her husband, who had stood down from public life in 2017.  Britain's Mail On Sunday had been pushing Regency rumours throughout the summer, standing by their source even after it became apparent that they were flogging a dead horse.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Mail Online who first picked up on Her Majesty's comments!

It emerged in the 2018 ITV documentary Queen of the World that the radio version of the 2017 broadcast had been gatecrashed by the sound of a chirping bird, forcing Her Majesty to re-record the speech from the beginning.

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The 1968 Broadcast

Location:  Buckingham Palace

Produced by:  BBC

Theme:  Elizabeth II discusses 'the brotherhood of man'.  Recalling that Christmas it the time when Christians celebrate the birth of Christ, the Prince Of Peace, the Queen talks of the importance of peace, friendship and co-operation.  Her Majesty states that the concept of 'the brotherhood of man' should not remain in the abstract: 'Each of us can put it into practice by treating one another with kindness and consideration at all times and in spite of every kind of provocation.'

Commentary:   This second colour Broadcast is described by Ingrid Seward as 'arguably one of [the Queen's] most political to date (The Queen's Speech, 2015).  At a time which saw early signs of problems in Northern Ireland and industrial unrest in many parts of the United Kingdom, it is not difficult to understand why the Queen thought it important to address serious matters.  Though she does it in her customary unifying and non-partisan way, raising these topics still required a considerable amount of delicacy.  British prime minister Harold Wilson, sensitive about the devaluation of the pound, took exception to a reference in the original draft to Britain's 'economic difficulties', which was later changed.  Similarly, when Her Majesty suggests that 'we should seek to support those international organisations which foster understanding between people and between nations', although well intentioned, such obliqueness runs the risk of being left open to political interpretations.

Buckingham Palace's Bow Room is used for the fifth and final consecutive time.  In the age of colour television, greater attention had to be paid to colour co-ordination and the avoidance of clashes;  also it is important that the Queen is not seen to be wearing the same colour for two consecutive years!  The Bow Room is given its most sumptuous make-over yet;  the drapes and carpet are different from the previous year, though the chairs and sofas are apparently the same.  The colour scheme gives the impression of a rather stylish, late 1960s west London flat rather than a royal palace; but the antique chairs and table - and of course the ornate gold edging on the walls - give the game away!

The Broadcast begins with images of busy London thoroughfares - Westminster and The Mall - in high summer.  Traffic moves busily by as the titles state grandly (albeit in a fashionably sickly yellow) in sequence - "London, 1968...A Christmas Message...To The Peoples of the Commonwealth..." and finally, as Big Ben, surrounded by trees in full leaf chimes 3 o'clock, "...Her Majesty the Queen".  Big Ben finishes its chimes;  Buckingham Palace appears (also surrounded by trees in full leaf, with traffic breezing by);  the camera cuts to the Queen.  It is a curious illusion as it is plain for all to see that the opening shots are anything but live;  it is hard to imagine central London on Christmas Day afternoon itself looking more different with its deserted roads, grey skies and bare trees.  The Palace made no pretence about the Broadcast being anything other than pre-recorded, but it does seem rather odd to give the impression that it was recorded months, rather than only a few days, in advance!

The Queen speaks the entirety of her message in camera view, uninterrupted in these early days of colour by interspersed footage.  The camera pans slowly in and out while she speaks before moving in for a dramatic close-up for her  closing remarks.  Her Majesty is clearly using an autocue, but glances at her script periodically to break the monotony.

At the end of the production, a rousing choral version of God Save the Queen is played while footage is shown of the royal family leaving the service at St George's Chapel, Windsor on Christmas Day the previous year.  As the anthem ends we are treated to some audio as the Dean of Windsor, Robin Woods, greets members of the family as they leave.  This could be a precursor of the landmark Royal Family documentary which would be shown the following year, although most of what we can hear is the ingratiating manner of the Dean (perhaps a prerequisite of the job when one is in charge of a royal peculiar):  'yes, I saw you were talking to...', the Dean says heartily to the Queen as Her Majesty gesticulates as though hailing a taxi.  'The Lord be with you...and in the New Year!' he says to the Queen Mother,  gripping her hand tightly as she descends the last few steps.  The programme ends with impressive long shots of Windsor Castle's Round Tower .

Notes:

The first draft of the part of the text that Harold Wilson's Government had objected to read: ' Every individual and every nation have their problems. Some are more pressing than others. Britain is not the only Commonwealth country contending with serious economic difficulties. Fortunately there are others who are enjoying better times, and this is certainly the moment for us all to do our utmost to help each other.'  This was later changed to: 'Every individual and every nation have problems, so there is all the more reason for us to do our utmost to show our concern for others.'

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1969 - No Broadcast

Elizabeth II's written Christmas message, 1969

Ironically, 1969 is one of the most famous years in the history of the Christmas Broadcast, for the simple fact that there wasn't one.  Few potted histories of the annual Message seem to get by without an honourable mention of this year.  It was the first time in more than thirty years that there had been no Royal Christmas Message aired on Christmas Day, and remains, to date, the only year of her reign in which Elizabeth II has not broadcast.

The Buckingham Palace postmen, already trying to cope with the extra the seasonal mail, must have been positively groaning under the strain of the extra sack loads from concerned subjects wondering what had gone wrong.  Then, a few days before Christmas, the redoubtable Mrs Mary Whitehouse of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, best remembered for her tireless efforts to purge our television screens of what actually was on rather than what wasn't, turned up at the gates of Buckingham Palace with a 20,000-strong petition comprising letters from members of the public 'regretting' the Queen's decision not to broadcast on Christmas Day.

Mary Whitehouse and friends with a very British protest;  December ,1969

The official reason for the absence of a Broadcast of any form in 1969 is that, given the presence of the Royal Family documentary that year (which was being repeated on Christmas Day), offering an intimate portrait of the Windsors at work and at play; and also the televised investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of  Wales, the Queen felt that the public had seen enough of her on television for one year.  Her Majesty had probably seen enough of film crews for one year, too.  It has also been put forward that the Broadcast may have been shelved as a sign of the Queen's displeasure at interference in the content of the previous year's speech from prime minister Harold Wilson.  Also, given concern about declining audience figures during the 1960s, it is also possible that the break was a way of "testing the water" as to whether people still wanted the annual Broadcast.

Elizabeth II and her children, Christmas 1968. From the documentary 'Royal Family'

 The Palace were clearly taken aback by the scale of the public response, so much so that at the beginning of her short written message, released from Windsor Castle on Christmas Day, Elizabeth II acknowledges the many messages she had received on the matter and offers a reassuring hint that the break is temporary, while assuring her subjects that 'my good wishes are no less warm and personal because they come to you in a different form.'

Notes:

The Royal Family documentary of 1969 is subject to a certain amount of collective cognitive dissonance from commentators.  It is regarded as both hugely successful and a mistake.  On the one hand, there was a significant popularity bounce for the monarchy and a massive amount of interest in the British royal family, who were portrayed as an ordinary, happy family.  However, therein lay the problem - the Windsors perhaps came across as too ordinary, thus risking the magic and mystique that monarchy depends upon as well as opening the family up to a scrutiny which it had hitherto unknown.  As a result, the programme has never been shown again in its entirety and remains locked away in a BBC vault on the Queen's instructions.   Nevertheless, the family must have enjoyed a rapport with the documentary's producer, Richard Cawston.  The following year Cawston was asked to take charge of the Christmas Broadcast, and continued as producer until his death in 1986.

The 1970 Broadcast

Location:  Buckingham Palace

Produced by:  BBC

Theme: The Queen devotes almost all of this message to discussion of the Commonwealth, in the bicentennial year of Captain Cook's discovery of Australia.  Elizabeth II recalls the many thousands of miles she had travelled during the year visiting Commonwealth countries such as Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand and Australia early in the year followed by Canada, the North-west Territories and Manitoba later on.  The Queen stresses the ties between the Commonwealth Countries and Britain.


Commentary:  After the hiatus of 1969, the Broadcast was back for the 1970s with a revamp.  Richard Cawston, who had been behind the successful 1969 documentary Royal Family, was drafted in as producer and wasted no time in bringing in production values which would equip Elizabeth II's annual message for the golden age of television.  Whereas in the 1960s the Christmas Message had been a televised speech, it would from this point be a polished television production.

The Broadcast centres on what had been a particularly well-travelled year for the Queen.  At the start of the production we see Her Majesty standing behind a large globe, addressing the camera about some of the many Commonwealth countries she had visited during the year.  Always keen to speak of her love of the Commonwealth, in this Message more than any other Elizabeth II focuses almost entirely on the 'family of nations'. As she speaks, film of the Queen from some of the year's tours is shown, including footage from Australia, New Zealand and Canada.  External footage had been shown in previous Broadcasts, of course, but from now on such sequences would increasingly form part of the annual production.

The later part of the production sees Elizabeth II speaking to camera from the desk of what contemporary publicity describes as her own sitting room at Buckingham Palace.  A little research does indeed seem to identify this as the Queen's Sitting Room previously used by Queen Mary and earlier still by Queen Victoria.  If this truly is Elizabeth II's private sitting room, then Her Majesty may have been persuaded to allow the cameras in as a result of a desire on the part of her subjects to get "up close and personal" with the Monarch and her family following the success of Royal Family.  Also, producer Richard Cawston may have striven for authenticity:  in the 1960s the Bow Room had been professionally arranged to give the appearance of a comfortable sitting room, but as a set-up it was demonstrably false.  It must be pointed out, however, that the Queen's Sitting Room has - to date- been used only on this one occasion.  Her Majesty must surely have found the presence of a television crew in her private apartments disruptive and the following year the far more suitable Regency Room would begin its long association with the Christmas Broadcast.

If there had been concern in Palace circles that audience figures for the Queen's Christmas Message had been in decline in the 1960s, then albeit unintentionally, perhaps the best publicity of all had been not to produce a Broadcast in 1969.  The production could no longer be taken for granted and would go on to become a cherished part of festive viewing throughout the 1970s and beyond.

Notes:

Despite the revamped production it is noticeable (and somewhat distracting) during the later part of the Broadcast that the Queen is not using an autocue (teleprompter).  Time and again, Elizabeth II glances at the script in front of her and at one point nearly stumbles on her words.  Looking back at the Broadcasts of the 1960s it would appear that Her Majesty had long since overcome her initial reservations and succumbed to the device, so the reasons for its apparent absence here are lost in time.

Throughout this Broadcast Elizabeth II wears the New Zealand Fern Brooch, presented to Her Majesty in Auckland on Christmas Day 1953, during her Commonwealth world tour.

Trivia: 

This is the only Broadcast in which the Queen wears a single strand pearl necklace.

Elizabeth II has at least three known desks at Buckingham Palace where she has been photographed or filmed at work at various points during her reign:  in the Regency Room, the Queen's Audience Chamber and here, the Queen's Sitting Room.  It seems that the Queen's Sitting Room is by far the most private and least seen of the three, indeed the Queen does not appear to have been pictured here since this Broadcast.

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The 1971 Broadcast

Location:  Buckingham Palace

Produced by:  BBC

Theme:  Elizabeth II talks about the importance of family, with a particular emphasis on children and the future.  As part of her theme of blending the the past and the future with the present, during the Broadcast Her Majesty looks at a photograph album with her two younger children, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward.  The Queen expresses her belief that peace on earth can be found through the message of Christmas.

Commentary:  In 1958, in her second (and last) live television Christmas broadcast, Elizabeth II politely acknowledged, but declined, public requests for her young children Prince Charles and Princes Anne to appear in the Broadcast.  After giving the matter some thought, the Queen and Prince Philip had felt that an appearance on live television would be too much of an ordeal and (given the unpredictability of small children) too much of a risk for two so young.  By 1971 things were different;  the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh were far more experienced, not just as monarch and consort but as parents.  The two younger princes had enjoyed a more relaxed family upbringing than their older siblings; also, the age of pre-recording meant that editing was possible and with the trusted Richard Cawston in charge of production, the Queen and her husband felt confident enough to allow princes Andrew and Edward to take part in a Broadcast.

Prince Andrew (then aged eleven) and Prince Edward (then seven) are undeniably the stars of the production, in what has become one of the iconic sequences in the history of Elizabeth II's Christmas broadcasts.  Smartly-dressed and impeccably well-behaved, the two boys do occasionally appear a little underwhelmed by proceedings.  The Queen sits with her two younger children on the Regency Room sofa, a photograph album in front of them.  Her Majesty briefly addresses the camera before she schools her sons in a little family history, a subject on which they seem a little shaky:  they fail to identify their great-grandparents King George V and Queen Mary, while in another photograph they even misidentify their young mother as Princess Anne - Andrew should really have known this stuff by then!  The boys become more attentive when they see a picture of their mother 'life-saving':  'You didn't know I could do that?' asks the Queen.

Once the segment with the young princes is over, the Queen delivers the rest of her speech from behind her desk in the Regency Room.  This would be the default setting for the next four Broadcasts.  The desk is situated in what is still pretty much its usual place today, though  in the late 1980s and early 1990s it would be moved around as David Attenborough experimented with his 'Christmassy' sets.

The Regency Room of Buckingham Palace had been used as the location for a Broadcast once before, in 1962, though this year would begin its long twenty year dominance as the 'default' location of the annual production.  The Queen's private sitting room, used the previous year, was never going to be a viable long-term option as a recording venue;  it would have been disruptive for the Queen and restrictive for the production team.  The Regency Room seemed like a perfect solution;  not strictly speaking part of the royal family's private apartments, yet not as public or imposingly grand as Buckingham Palace's more well-known state rooms, it is described as a 'comfortable green-coloured ground-floor sitting room, dominated by Strochling's portrait of Princess Sophia, [normally] a place for royal drinks.'  The Regency Room would provide a cosy 'at home with the Queen' feel, allowing the production team to experiment creatively and test for lighting and sound without getting too much in the way of the Monarch and her family.

Elizabeth II's camera style seems notably more relaxed and self-assured than the previous year;  Her Majesty's confidence as a television performer would improve as the decade progressed, perhaps helped by the familiar presence of Richard Cawston.  In this broadcast the Queen at last seems at home with the autocue/teleprompter:  although a paper script was in front of her (and would remain as a stand-by for a few more years) she does not refer to it at all.

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