To mark 70 years on the throne, street parties, bank holidays, a live concert and more will be thrown in Her Majesty's honour.
Buckingham Palace has announced plans to mark the Queen's Jubilee with 10 days of huge celebrations between January and July.
The 95-year-old monarch is set to open up her private estate to visitors, musicians and artists to perform, as well as inviting members of the public to design a special Queen Elizabeth II pudding.
Whilst there will be more details to follow in the lead-up to the Jubilee in June, here is every event announced so far:
January
As of today, the Platinum Pudding Competition will begin its search for a winner. It was announced this morning that Buckingham Palace is searching for the perfect pudding to celebrate the platinum celebration. Entries will be judged by the likes of culinary legend and national treasure, Dame Mary Berry.
Dame Mary Berry will judge and find a Platinum Pudding worthy for the Queen. / Image: Eden Project Communities
The competition will follow in the footsteps of the British staple of coronation chicken, a dish created by Le Cordon Bleu to celebrate the Queen's coronation banquet in 1953.
May
Between the 12 and 15 May, the Platinum Jubilee Celebration will commence, where over 1,000 performers and an additional 500 horses will take part in a 90-minute show in honour of Her Majesty. The performance will take the audience through the Queen's reign as well as looking back on year's gone by- right from Elizabeth I to the present day.
Queen Elizabeth II in 1957 during her royal tour in Ottawa. / Image: Rosemary Gilliat Eaton / Library and Archives Canada (Flickr)
June
Both Sandringham and Balmoral will be open for residents and visitors to enjoy the Queen's birthday celebrations across the Bank Holiday and on Thursday 2 June, The Queen's Birthday Parade (Trooping the Colour) will consist of over 1,200 officers from the Household Division. The colour will trooped on Horse Guards Parade by the 1st Battalion and Irish Guards.
The Queen's Coronation in 1953. / Image: Canada. Department of National Defence. Library and Archives Canada (Flickr)
On Friday 3 June, a Service of Thanksgiving will be held at St Paul's Cathedral to honour the Queen's reign, and the UK will join other UK territories, Channel Islands and more to light a beacon to mark the occasion. In London, the Principal Beacon will be lit in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
On Saturday 4 June, the Big Jubilee Lunch will be held. Street parties are already being planned across the UK and neighbours are expected to come together to mark the occasion.
Street Parties will be held in Her Majesty's honour. / Image: Royal UK
There will be performanced in London to tell the story of the Queen's reign through a pageant that will include a 'River of Hope', a section that will see over 200 silk flags flow through The Mall to replicate a moving river.
Both Thursday 2 June and Friday 3 June will be classed as bank holidays to give the public chance to celebrate the jubilee with Queen and the rest of the country.
July
During the month of July, there will be three displays to mark the Queen's accession to the throne, the Coronation and Jubilees will be displayed at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace.
The Queen usually celebrates the anniversary in private, so this string of celebrations will be quite the change a quiet celebration at Sandringham. However, at present it is not clear which events Her Majesty will attend or participate in after missing out on multiple public events in the past year due to doctors orders.
Multi award-winning musical Hadestown is heading out on tour next year, and of course it’ll be stopping off in Leeds.
The Tony and Grammy Award-winning production is currently playing its third smash-hit year in London’s West End, but once 2027 rolls around, Hadestown is embarking on its first-ever tour of the UK and Ireland, and tickets are officially set to go on general sale next Friday.
If you’re unfamiliar with this modern-day classic, Hadestown takes you on an unforgettable journey to the underworld and back, intertwining two mythic love stories – that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone.
Image – Marc Brenner (Supplied)
Described as being a ‘deeply resonant’ and ‘defiantly hopeful’ theatrical experience, audiences are invited to imagine how the world could be.
Having been seen by over six million people, streamed by nearly a billion, and adored by fans around the world, critics have called this record-breaking musical ’the most exhilarating ride’… and once you watch it for yourself, it’s not hard to see why.
Hadestown will be taking to the stage at the Lowry in the Leeds Grand Theatre next March arriving in the city on Tuesday 23 March and running through until Thursday 27 March 2027.
Image – Marc Brenner (Supplied)
Other northern cities the production will be visiting on its upcoming tour include Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, Liverpool, Hull, and Chester, while there’s many other major locations on the list before it closes in Sunderland in mid-November 2027.
While the production is touring, the critically acclaimed West End run will still continue at London’s Lyric Theatre, more than eight years after its sold-out debut at the National Theatre in 2018.
Tickets officially go on general sale from 10am next Friday 12 June and can be booked on the Leeds Grand Theatre website online here.
Louis Theroux completes full line-up for Leeds International Festival of Ideas 2026
Clementine Hall
Leeds International Festival of Ideas today reveals the full line-up for its sixth edition.
Louis Theroux, Elizabeth Day, Chris Packham CBE, Roman Kemp, Vicky Pattison, James O’Brien, Dame Evelyn Glennie and Megan McKenna are among the amazing names heading to Leeds Playhouse in October for a five-day, ten-event programme.
Louis Theroux, one of the most distinctive broadcasters of our time, will open the festival on Tuesday 6 October with an intimate fireside chat at Leeds Playhouse’s Quarry stage.
The chat will cover four decades of social commentary, from far-right militias to Scientologists, porn stars to convicted criminals, the rich, the broken, and the misunderstood in one night, in Leeds,
Images: Supplied
Tim Minchin will then close proceedings on Saturday 10 October with a career-spanning conversation taking in Matilda the Musical, three decades of songwriting, and Minchin’s refreshingly clear-eyed views on living a creative life.
Across the week, hosts Samira Ahmed, Chris Packham, Miranda Sawyer, Joe Tidy, Laura Hamilton, Amy Irons, Harriet Rose, Jamil Qureshi, Dr Hannah French and Larry Budd will lead a programme of panel discussions tackling the questions defining the moment: the future of the planet, belonging in modern Britain, the legacy of the 90s, the future of parenthood, suicide and masculinity, social media, failure, and what it means to live a creative life.
Martin Dickson, Festival Director, said: "Getting Louis Theroux to Leeds is a real moment for this festival and this city. He's one of the defining broadcasters of his generation, and the kind of name LIFI has been building towards for four years.
"But this is a programme with serious depth beyond the headline — Tim Minchin, Elizabeth Day, Chris Packham, Samira Ahmed, Miranda Sawyer, five days of conversation you genuinely cannot get anywhere else in the country. LIFI has always been about bringing the brightest minds to Leeds and giving the city a stage that punches above its weight. LIFI26 does exactly that."
Tickets go on sale to priority subscribers on Thursday 4 June, with general sale opening next Wednesday 10 June. Sign up to be a priority subscriber here.
Sophie Smith -
10th January 2022 
