WESTMINSTER ABBEY - WHAT A STAR!

By Graham Young on Apr 30, 11 06:19 AM

THE BBC managed to miss the lifting of the veil, but hearty congratulations are still due to everyone involved in broadcasting the Royal Wedding from Westminster Abbey.

I think it's fair to say that if any of Hollywood's finest had produced and directed the event they could scarcely have done a better job with balding Matt Damon and a young Elizabeth Taylor in the leading roles.

Regardless of whether or not you are royalist, this was Britain at it's very, very best putting on a show which no other country could match.

It makes you wonder why, if we can do this, so many of our streets are full of litter and potholes.

And why it can be hard to get anyone to do a 'proper job' these days as our cone-infested motorways symbolise so readily.

Given the number of hours she'll end up wasting sitting in car, Miss Middleton should have insisted on having a traffic cone on her coat of arms until our nation's clogged arteries were fixed good and proper.

One of the people who will have been watching Catherine Elizabeth Middleton tying the knot most closely is Catherine Elise Blanchett.

Melbourne's finest has twice been nominated for best actress at the Oscars, both times for playing Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth (1999), and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2008).

She will be 42 on May 14 - which is still two years less than the 44-year reign of a queen who died in 1603 aged 69.

So there's plenty more to go at yet.

Both Elizabeth films were beautifully directed by Lahore-born Shekhar Kapur and you'd could feel his influence in the way the Royal Wedding was broadcast from such a great height within Westminster Abbey.

His next project, Paani, looks set to be a futuristic thriller about the battle for water.

But if I were a betting man, I'd suggest that the Royal Wedding 2011 will give both Shekhar and Cate (Blanchett!) the impetus to return to action with a third film about Elizabeth before the decade is out.

And that Cate will also then claim that elusive Best Actress Oscar her talent so richly deserves.

Until then, if you fancy a Day Out at Westminster Abbey, see my guide below, originally published in the Birmingham Mail on October 19, 2007 (www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-170052297.html)

DAYS OUT
GRAHAM YOUNG visits Westminster Abbey.
Birmingham Mail
October 19, 2007
(Please note: this content has not been updated)

HAVING served as the coronation church of 38 kings and queens for more than 1,000 years, Westminster Cathedral has always been a must see.
Recreated in Gothic style by Henry III in the 12th Century, more than 3,000 people are now buried there.
But now there's another, up-to-the-minute reason to go - Elizabeth The Golden Age, starring Cate Blanchett.
The lavish sequel is set to deliver history with the production quality of blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean and Gladiator.
Complete with an epic score, the screen is so alive with Elizabeth I's vitality that it appears to be as close as we can ever get to one of England's great queens.
Or is it?
Go to Westminster Abbey where she's buried and you'll certainly feel the spirit which fought the fundamentalist Catholicism sweeping across sixteenth century Europe.
She also refounded the Abbey in 1560 as the Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster, once more with a Dean and Chapter.
Constitutionally, the Abbey has not changed since.
Most churches come under the jurisdiction of a bishop, but this remains a special 'Royal Peculiar' church under Queen Elizabeth II, herself crowned here in 1953.
Born on September 7, 1533 and crowned on January 15, 1559, Elizabeth I died in Richmond on March 24, 1603.
Her coffin is tucked away in the North Aisle, above that of her half sister Queen Mary I (1516-1558).
A Latin inscription at their white-marble tomb erected by James I says: 'Partners both in throne and grave, here rest we two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one resurrection'.
According to Westminster Abbey's brilliant Official Guide, Elizabeth I's funeral included 'such a general sighing, groning, and weeping as the like hath not beene seene or knowne in the memory of man'.
George II (1693-1760) was the last monarch buried here, but royal funeral services like that of Diana: Princess of Wales (1997) and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (2002) are still held here.
In an age of cheap celebrity, it's incredible to feel the presence here of hundreds of other great names who've earned their place in history.
Take your pick from Winston Churchill to Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, William Pitt, Franklin D Roosevelt, David Livingstone, Thomas Telford,
Robert Stephenson, Sir Isaac Newton and Oliver Cromwell - not forgetting the tomb of the Unknown Warrior (November 11, 1920).
Over in Poets' Corner, there's more tombs and/or references to Geoffrey Chaucer, Robert Browning, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Gerard Manley Hopkins,
Alfred Tennyson, Lewis Carroll, Siegfried Sassoon, John Milton, William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, Sir John Betjeman, George
Frederick Handel, Charles Dickens, and of course, Stratford's very own William Shakespeare.
Other Abbey names with great Midland connections include Edgbaston-born The Rt Hon (Arthur) Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), the former Lord Mayor of
Birmingham turned Prime Minister who declared war on Nazi Germany in 1939; his father, Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914); Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934); Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882); Sir Adrian Cedric Boult (1889-1983); James Watt (1736-1819); Sir Frank Whittle (1907-1996) and Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).
The Abbey's material treasures include the oldest door in England. It's in the chapter house vestibule and dates back to 1050.
Best of all, the 1257 Coronation Chair, now housed in the ambulatory at the foot of the tomb of Henry V.
Since at least the days of Henry IV, only the Roman Catholic Queen Mary has not been crowned and anointed while sitting in what remains Britain's oldest piece of furniture still being used as intended.
Such is the Abbey's appeal, go early.
Even though we'd arrived in time for the 9.30am Saturday opening, there was a substantial queue.
Bizarrely, given today's increasingly cashless society, we were able to waltz straight in through another door after using a credit card to pay the standard £10 admission fee for adults (no booking fees here!).
Pamphlet guide in hand, we were off on England's most incredible 'celebrity' tourist trail.
+ Elizabeth The Golden Age will be reviewed in the Birmingham Mail on November 2 (2007).

FACTFILE
WESTMINSTER Abbey is open from 9.30am-3.45pm (last admission, closing one hour later) every weekday except Wednesday (last admission 7pm). Saturday last admission, 1.45pm. Worship only on Sunday, from Holy Communion (8am) to Evening Service (6.30pm).
Website: www.westminster-abbey.org
Telephone: 020 7222 5152
Photography and filming not permitted. There's a book store at the exit and a coffee shop in the north cloister.
+ Black anti-slave campaigner Olaudah Equiano, now a major exhibition at Birmingham's Gas Hall until January 2008, was baptised in the neighbouring St Margaret's Church as Gustavus Vassa in 1759.
+ For a full day in Westminster see also the Houses of Parliament (telephone 0870 906 3773 or visit www.keithprowse.com/uk) and the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms on King Charles Street (telephone 020 7930 6961 or visit www.iwm.org.uk/cabinet