Location: Buckingham Palace
Produced by: BBC
Theme:
Elizabeth II references the Christmas story, linking the birth of Jesus with the importance of faith and what it can achieve. Her Majesty also discusses her travels during the year, mentioning her visits to Commonwealth countries in Africa and Asia. The Queen ends with a message of hope to the younger generation, encouraging them to use their energies positively: 'It is natural that the younger generation should lose patience with their elders, for their seeming failure to bring some order and security to the world. But things will not get any better if young people merely express themselves by indifference or by revulsion against what they regard as an out-of-date order of things.'
Elizabeth II references the Christmas story, linking the birth of Jesus with the importance of faith and what it can achieve. Her Majesty also discusses her travels during the year, mentioning her visits to Commonwealth countries in Africa and Asia. The Queen ends with a message of hope to the younger generation, encouraging them to use their energies positively: 'It is natural that the younger generation should lose patience with their elders, for their seeming failure to bring some order and security to the world. But things will not get any better if young people merely express themselves by indifference or by revulsion against what they regard as an out-of-date order of things.'
Commentary:
1961 marked the second pre-recorded Christmas broadcast and by this time many viewers would have cottoned on to the fact that Her Majesty was no longer speaking live. The prospect of declining audiences loomed as a problem for producers, and although the Queen herself, in the prime of life, looks stunning in a splendid evening gown complete with enormous shoulder bow, everything else about this production seems wrong.
The state rooms of Buckingham Palace look magnificent when seen in person, but they simply did not transfer themselves well to the grainy television technology of the day. Filmed in the 1844 Room, the 'effect' seems even more austere than the previous year. Worse, the Queen is seated behind an enormous desk, inviting a visual cliché that would inspire many a satirical spoof down the years. Elizabeth II was in danger of appearing the very detached, remote figure that she had been keen to avoid in her first televised Christmas message from Sandringham four years earlier; the viewer had been transported from the live, cosy intimacy of Sandringham to a pre-canned speech from a huge room in Buckingham Palace. The 1844 Room would not be seen again in a Christmas Broadcast until 2007, by which time viewers could enjoy the colourful grandeur of Buckingham Palace in high definition wide screen; it would be returned to in 2011 and 2017.
As the decade of protest movements ground into gear, Elizabeth II's subtle warning to the younger generation is interesting. 1961 was a long way from 1968, but it is clear that the Monarch had detected a growing undercurrent of unrest. The implication is that Elizabeth II is no hippie!
Notes:
The line ""Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing" that the Queen quotes is from the carol It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, written in 1849 by American poet Edmund Sears with accompanying tune by Richard Storrs Willis.
Trivia:
This is one of very few Broadcasts in which Elizabeth II does not wear a brooch.
Full text here
As the decade of protest movements ground into gear, Elizabeth II's subtle warning to the younger generation is interesting. 1961 was a long way from 1968, but it is clear that the Monarch had detected a growing undercurrent of unrest. The implication is that Elizabeth II is no hippie!
Notes:
The line ""Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing" that the Queen quotes is from the carol It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, written in 1849 by American poet Edmund Sears with accompanying tune by Richard Storrs Willis.
Trivia:
This is one of very few Broadcasts in which Elizabeth II does not wear a brooch.
Full text here
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