Spectators along London’s Horse Guards Parade watch live coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral via phone. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) LONDON — There have been royal blockbusters before, but never quite a show like this. Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral was an elaborately staged farewell production that had it all: elaborate costumes, bagpipes and bells, mounted soldiers, cannons and castles. The streets along the procession routes were packed with crowds, but the much larger audience was watching on television around the world. Many analysts said the funeral could turn out to be the most-watched event in history, with a large portion of the 7.7 billion people worldwide watching at least part of it. Those who designed it decades ago clearly had this audience in mind. An estimated 650 million people watched the first moon landing in 1969, a record at the time. More than 2 billion are believed to have attended Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997, but improved mobile phones and the internet have made it much easier to watch a major event today. Giant screens were set up in outdoor squares in cities across the country. Over 100 cinemas and churches showed big screen broadcasts of the BBC coverage. The Royal Shakespeare Company staged the funeral at its theater in Stratford-upon-Avon in central England. Since Covid, many churches have set up for Zoom funerals. On Monday, many people sat in pews at Holy Trinity in London’s Sloane Square, watching as the smell of incense filled the morning air. Pubs and restaurants that normally don’t have a TV, do for the funeral. At Motcombs, a Mediterranean restaurant not far from Buckingham Palace, people sipped coffee or champagne as they watched. “We thought some people might not be able to handle the crowds and need a place to watch,” said Ken Anderson, who said his son was the owner. When the police no longer allowed people to enter London’s Hyde Park, several thousand simply stood on an empty street near the Harrods department store and listened to hymns blared over loudspeakers. “I will never see anything like this again,” said Gillian Martin, an educator from Northern Ireland. British officials are betting that the massive effort to give the queen a proper send-off, the cost of which is still unknown, will bring in much more revenue than tourism. Japanese broadcaster NHK broadcast the funeral live, with simultaneous interpretation, and funeral was the third trending term on Japanese Twitter. In Hong Kong, hundreds of people watched the funeral on their phones and tablets, laid flowers and waved the Union Jack flag outside the British consulate. Hong Kong was a British colony for a century and a half until the city returned to Chinese rule in 1997. In Sydney, Graham Cousens, 56, was out with friends but said he had turned on his TV at home to record the funeral. “It’s such an important moment,” he said. “Not that I personally feel so much, but I can see what it means to the English.” Even Google blacked out its UK logo on Monday in honor of the Queen. Not everyone in central London was happy with the massive security presence, locked tube stations and blocked streets. “I can think of better things to spend all that money on. Sure, it’s great for tourism and flower sellers, but I’m not sure the Queen will be into this extravagance,” said Lily Haverford, 42, a teacher. “It’s pretty as a picture, but, in the end, what does it really mean?” he said. Many people interviewed around the world said it was a sight worth seeing. To prepare the scene, London’s landmarks were cleaned up. New rolls of turf were laid near Wellington Arch, where the coffin was carried in hearses for the 25-mile journey to the Queen’s final resting place in Windsor. Even this hearse was made for TV, with huge windows and interior lighting designed to give people the best possible view of Her Majesty’s coffin — but more importantly, to make it ‘pop’ on TV. “It must look good for TV,” said a busy gardener picking up “dead bits” from flower beds near Buckingham Palace ahead of the funeral. The music was loud, with military bands, bagpipes and drummers accompanying the Queen’s coffin. The players were impeccably dressed. The Grenadier Guards wore bright red tunics and their famous bearskin hats, while others were draped in ceremonial swan feathers. Beefeaters with their characteristic ruffled collars. King Charles III and Prince William, now first in line for the throne, in crisp military uniforms heavy with medals. Photos: Inside the factory that makes the royal uniforms In Bermuda, Kim Day, an expat involved in community theater who attended the funeral in a theater that performed it live, said Britain put on a “perfect show”. Jon Reynaga, a British film and television producer, said the live events are incredible. But he said the involvement of the military, years of government planning and the royal family behind it all, is unique. “Today they talked for hours about orbs, sceptres, symbolism – and people love it,” he said. Along the London procession route, with huge British flags, for a day it looked like everyone was an extra on a film set. Mourners in the streets locked arms and bowed their heads in a moment of silence. Some wore costumes with a royal theme. Many flowers were thrown, so much of it rained that the royal hearse driver had to sweep them away with the windshield wipers. “We take a lot of pride in doing things right,” said Jess Fox, 24, of York, England, who left her home at 4:45 a.m. to go to London. “The British feel very pleased and proud to see the role.” The funeral was the perfect bookend to the Queen’s seven-decade reign, which opened with the first-ever televised coronation and ended with the most-watched royal event ever. Many Britons bought televisions for the 1953 coronation and then dressed up in ties and dresses to watch. A BBC planning document stored in the National Archives showed that the network understood, even then, that it was broadcasting for the planet, not just the British. “All the BBC’s technical resources will be used to cover the Coronation for the world from dawn to midnight on June 2,” it said. There have been other blockbuster series in the royal catalogue, most notably with Princess Diana in the lead or supporting role. The radiant princess with the electric smile effectively brought the royal family into a brightly lit new world – the way color TV pushed aside black and white. First there was Diana’s “wedding of the century” in 1981 with then-Prince Charles, then her funeral 16 years later, then the weddings of celebrity sons William and the elegant Catherine, then Harry and Meghan — fittingly, finally , a real-life actress as a royal co-star. Speaking to a Washington Post reporter in 1994 at a dinner in Washington, Diana was asked how she felt walking down the aisle with the eyes of the world on her in her fairy-tale gown. “Oh God,” he said. “My dress was so wrinkled. all I could think was, “I need an iron.” “ And of course, the royal family has also been the subject of a veritable TV sensation, ‘The Crown’, which has blurred the lines between reality, fantasy and fandom. Here are the must-watch episodes of ‘The Crown’ to learn more about the queen Monday was all about Elizabeth and the final performance of her historic reign. British television networks carried the events throughout the day without commercial breaks. The BBC has taken some heat from critics who believe the state-funded network has gone too far in coverage. “It was sad when he first died,” said Brendan Hoffman, 50, as he sat in a bar in Sydney. “But this,” he said, gesturing to a large television showing the Queen’s hearse en route to Windsor Castle, was “mourning porn.” The funeral was planned with the kind of precision that would cheer a Broadway stage manager. The official schedule had the Queen’s coffin moving into Westminster Abbey at 10:44am. Not at 10:40, not at 10:45. William Shawcross, a royal biographer, said the planners would have calculated exactly how long the carriage would take to make the journey, rehearsing and counting every step by the 140 or so Royal Navy officers who carried it, down to the second. Late on Monday afternoon in Windsor, after a service at St George’s Chapel, the Lord Chamberlain broke his ceremonial wooden staff of office and placed it over the Queen’s coffin, symbolizing the end of her reign. As the Sovereign’s Piper played a lament, her coffin disappeared from view as it descended into the Royal Vault. And the curtain fell. Michael E. Miller in Sydney, Amanda Coletta in Bermuda, Julia Mio Inuma in Tokyo and Karina Tsui in Washington DC contributed to this report.
