The Queen's Castle Ep 1 - The Banquet - British Royal Documentary

[Music] windsor castle of all britain's royal palaces none is older larger or more loved this magnificent thousand-year-old fortress is no museum it's a vast living castle even though i've been here the year still part of the castle i've not been into home to the queen since childhood windsor is also the place from which the royal family take their name [Music] the queen's children and grandchildren have come to love this kingdom within a kingdom for the first time unprecedented access has been granted to the inner life of the castle this is an historic portrait of an entire year inside the royal domain [Music] so i sit here and he sits there when the queen and her government entertain world leaders on grand state occasions they come to windsor take it in quick and get back here this is where the royal family celebrate their most important occasions [Music] we'll meet the 300 people who live and work here this is this is just pure gold and discover what it is like to serve the monarch in her grandest home [Music] [Applause] at windsor crown and community live and work side by side [Music] [Music] we've lived here as in a home very much more so than everybody since perhaps queen victoria and i think that's what gives it its attraction and its strength there's a coherent community which starts with the fact that queen is here it would still go if she wasn't but it would be a completely different atmosphere above all the pomp the history and the grandeur everyone at windsor knows that this is the place the sovereign calls home [Music] a million people from all over the world visit the queen's castle every year the man in charge of keeping both the visitors and the residents happy is the castle superintendent major alan denman ex-welsh guards i lived in a lot of houses in the army and i've always named my house after my favorite football ground anfield but obviously when we came to windsor castle that i couldn't very well pop that outside the house so uh it sits in there we now obviously live in garter house i like to start off today with a good walk around the castle and just make sure everything's all right picking up any problems and putting it right one year into his new job at a castle nearly a thousand years old meiji denman is still something of a new boy you know some of my staff have been here sort of 30 odd years and you know a year there's nothing and you know 100 years in the life of the castle is nothing some people spend their entire working life at the castle annette wilkins started here in 1974 she's now the queen's housekeeper i think first and foremost it's a home and whose home it is that's most important to all of us the queen the sovereign and we're responsible for the whole of the castle within the castle state apartments private suites guest suites some offices and staff areas directly above the housekeepers corridor is the grand corridor it runs along the private wing in a corner of the 13-acre castle here lie the private quarters of the queen and her family at present we're preparing for the queen coming back on friday furniture is in the center because we're putting traffic wax on the floorboards the queen will come back here for most weekends of the year wherever her travels have taken her faith tabi's in her second year as a housemaid at windsor castle i was brought up in a very traditional british home in south africa and her majesty was always at our dinner table we had a portrait hanging on the wall and my mom was a great lover of the royal family and her majesty and from a tiny little girl i dream about serving the queen one day and here i am through more than 40 reigns windsor castle has been remodeled and extended many times but no monarch no war has had as much impact as a single light bulb one morning in 1992 a builder's lamp placed too close to a curtain sparked an inferno which swept through the grandest sections of the castle it took 16 hours to quell the flames apart from the queen no one knows windsor better than prince philip he's lived here for more than 50 years it was he who took overall charge of the great restoration the family keep a charred souvenir in pride of place i thought it was all fun a reminder of the because it finished it stopped here for at the end of this room before that's new and that's old and it and it came to about here that the whole place had to be redecorated anyway at the time of the fire these rooms had been stripped for maintenance work the the point was that of course there was nothing in here at the time of the fire the whole of the all the furniture was out all pictures and curtains and carpets and everything was out so we were able to put it all back again [Music] if windsor is home buckingham palace is the royal office here the royal household team have just started planning the grandest royal occasion of the year a special banquet for the french president jacques shirak thank you the evening is to celebrate a hundred years of the antarctic the enduring bond of friendship between britain and france it's to be held in november at windsor this is the guest list which has been approved by everyone the master and and the queen and the private secretaries this one is for the prime minister tony blair and his wife he's one of our regulars i probably let them dry for longer so i don't smudge them and i pile them up unsealed and then we have someone else check them all and they have to be checked twice before they can go out this is no ordinary state banquet the queen has approved a revolutionary plan les miserables the west end musical will be performed at the castle [Music] the master of the household vice admiral sir tom blackburn is responsible for all royal hospitality he is pondering one of the trickiest aspects of the banquet the seating plan when the queen came to the throne all state banquets were held at buckingham palace but then a certain prince resurrected an edwardian idea might guests not prefer to dine at windsor castle i initiated that idea there was absolute hell to paint it was just ye gods how we going to organize it and what are we going to do about the household camry uh where's the god of honor going to be and how we get what where's the procession going to go where we go you know it's so easy if you do the same thing every time you know precisely what's going to happen at back in palace but you suddenly move it somewhere else you've got to rethink everything i mean i think everybody enjoyed it but it was sort of you guards or now what [Music] these days the winds are starved for old hands at state occasions they start planning six months in advance we'll be coming in through that door the food team are known as f branch in charge are andrew farkerson and mark flanagan they've just had the banquet menu approved by the queen they're confident that it will impress even the french [Music] the craftsmen of sea branch will be responsible for all the antique chairs sofas and tables required for a state occasion but for now they have smaller though equally important pieces to look after what we've got here is furniture from the dukes study this little sofa table the wood is kalamanda which is part of the ebony family and this is in the duke study under his library under his bookcase [Applause] they're here most weekends and we tend to go up during the week prior to them coming back on a friday to make sure everything is as it should be because as you can appreciate it's a home as well as a castle [Applause] another head of department is also preparing for the presidential visit lady roberts the royal librarian is curator of windsor's priceless collection of manuscripts and drawings she's assembling a special altar cordial exhibition [Applause] the queen has asked us to put out some things which will be of relevance to france in the crimson drawing room where it will be seen by the queen and the president and also by the other guests on that evening what i have to judge is how much we're trying to stress the relaxed nature of the visit and how much we're trying to stress the more formal nature of it this is one that i think we definitely want louis philippe being led by queen victoria into saint george's hall with this magnificent display of gold and silver plate i think we want these ones swapping around the team must pick a handful of pieces from the library's 300 000 books drawings and prints the material that we gather together for these displays is nearly all kept stored and accessible to visiting scholars and researchers here at windsor it's always an interesting challenge to provide a display for visiting foreign there are certainly some countries where we would find it quite difficult to give such deep and rich historical coverage but we've always got something this is a state occasion not a private one so the costs will be met from the civil list the funds the queen receives to cover her duties as head of state for all windsor's long experience of state occasions it's never had to squeeze a west end production in two les miserables does not travel light and that could be a problem four tons of stage equipment are being piled into the waterloo chamber except that's not what it's called anymore for one night only it has been diplomatically renamed production manager jerry donaldson is transforming this grandest of state rooms into a theater carefully lighting and sound are going to be hanging off this truss which hangs from the uh from the ceiling and the chandelier points in the ceiling then tomorrow the stage comes in sits underneath it and we've got some a backdrop to hang up as well the waterloo chamber is not just losing its name for a night also going are some of the generals who helped wellington defeat the french in 1815. it is for their own safety though rather than for any diplomacy that these old soldiers must come down from their noble perches yeah handling big campuses like this when you're taking them over balconies it's always worrying i'm seeing some laurence's coming down um they're uh they're considered too vulnerable in the position where they are to leave them there and we thought about covering them up but it seems easier though it doesn't look easier to actually take them completely away one two three [Music] enormous care must be taken when dropping national heroes over 20-foot balconies while some pictures go down others go up in the crimson drawing room lady roberts's new exhibition for tomorrow's guests is going into place it must be perfect from every angle because we're putting the display up in this wonderful room where there are mirrors behind the display the back of the display has to look at least respectable and this is double-sided sticky tape which um rini and i are preparing and it's a team effort this because you have to get the um the tension right we don't normally do this sort of work kneeling on the floor of the crimson drawing however hello castle superintendent can i help you for major alan denman this is the greatest challenge he's faced since arriving at windsor people have got to be fed gentlemen ushers to come in yeoman the guard staircase party duty electrician to sort out make sure we'll make sure he's on duty uh so you know not happening [Music] for now the 17th century queen's drawing room must double up as a warehouse these are the lances which have been taken down you can see who we got here i can never remember the names well there's pope pius which is obviously the most uh famous one major denman's prime concern however is what the theater crew are getting up to i knew it was going to be big but didn't going to be this big you know how many people will actually be still in that stage with the orchestra 25 piece orchestra and i think 41 in the cast quite a few no okay lots of lots of ex cast members of lehman like famous famous ones so no i haven't heard the michael ball i'm joking but there's one subject at windsor which nobody jokes about so we've got extinguishers in the back we've got a group of extinguishers in in the front ground festival we've got both foam and co2 so we're covering all the risks the 1992 fire was started by a spotlight and jerry's got 150 of them so i think because of the fire they obviously they get a little bit twitchy here about what we're doing because i think there it was a little bit bigger than the health and safety guy who i spoke to earlier on was expecting but uh reassuring them that we actually do know what we're doing you know what i mean so i can understand it's quite a big sort of lump of steel we're hanging in there uh very nice hole here do you know what i mean so uh yeah but it does it does look quite overpowering doesn't it it's quite big for mark flanagan and his team the countdown has started in the kitchen having the food loving french to dinner adds extra pressure but the queen's chef has chosen impeccably british ingredients okay well this is the beef phillip for tomorrow's menu it's scottish aberdeen we went up and saw them earlier on in the year and uh so they've they've very kindly trimmed it all up for us so all i need to now do is cut it into the portion sauce british beef it may be but the wines will be french as is the man in charge of them robert large the yeoman of the cellars we have the uh the champagne for the toast which is going to be paul roger then we follow with the uh shasan morashe limazu which is going to be for the first course chassen marsha is the king of the burgundy region the second course anything with beef we chosen the chateau leoville puffere 1990 a very good krug 1982 for the pudding which is a magnum this time we're trying to actually get more krug 82 just in case and it wasn't possible to get any in the country okay so that's how rare they are at the end of a long day the drama has already begun in the waterloo chamber the set is wrong a little bit of a little bit of a disaster earlier on but uh we unfolded the back cloth for the first time and went to hang it up been specially printed however they've managed to print it the wrong way around the logos should be in the center and the paintings should be on the outside so a bit of a bit of a major sweat on when i found that out but i've managed to get another one tomorrow but i have to send somebody out to manchester to pick it up as soon as they finish rehearsal we'll get this one down get the new one up get all stretched and looking lovely so it's going well apart from that [Music] everything must be perfect long before the guests appear the queen returns from buckingham palace this afternoon at 5 p.m her meticulous pre-banquet inspection will begin we're using the green drawing room this evening for pre-dinner drinks also the crimson drawing room which i need now to just move a little bit more furniture to make some space as there is 136 guests we need plenty of room in the room so i'll move this sofa and then there's plenty of room also so they can see the display which royal collection have put out in connection with the french visit and it just gives them a bit more room makes it a little bit more spacious we're used to doing these now and hopefully it should run like clockwork um which it normally does um i'm just you know just hope everybody turns up on time and everybody's got a drink and if they've all got a drink and they're having dinner and they're all happy then i'm happy nowhere are preparations more scrupulous than in the private quarters where the most important guests will stay even the soap will have been personally approved by the queen for president shirak and his wife it will be the principal guest apartment known simply as suite 240 orderly chaos has ensued in the chamber formerly known as waterloo the queen will be particularly interested to see what has happened to one of her favorite staterooms but the show's producers led by sir cameron mcintosh have only just arrived for rehearsals everybody's turned up now so everybody's got an opinion about it you know we're a bit late but we actually orchestra didn't turn up we're supposed to be sitting in the orchestra now so they're a bit late it's midday and the press have a chance to interview the stars sir cameron mcintosh is delighted to be staging a revolutionary french musical in this royal setting i have to say i did immediately think of the irony of the evening that um this show of all shows would be taking place in this particular hall under the eyes of wellington who was it that chose uh les mis as the the most suitable musical to present i i suppose in in the spirit of the anton cordial it's going to offend everybody 2pm the queen is now on her way tony martin is the castle flagman it's his job to raise the royal standard the moment the queen is inside the ramparts he prepares to make his silent fanfare i'm just getting the state visit flag ready for manchester coming in it's approximately half past two and this will stay up until the state visits finished one of the largest flags it's 24 feet by 12 very large flag tony checks the queen's progress with the police at the castle gates well it's not changed again has it i was told out too i was told by my uh my boss that the queen was coming approximately half past two but now i've just phoned up and they've been for me that it's quite a past three now so we just have to wait up here until she arrives so it's going down and then coming back up again the grand table is nearly ready for inspection by the queen and all 952 pieces of cutlery and 816 glasses will be washed up by dawn glasses toasting glass with champagne white wine with the first course red wine with beef champagne with a sweet pork i'm simply measuring up using a rule of thumb so the knives and fork and all the cutlery in the plate exactly the same age away from the table this evening i will be a footman and i'll be remaining in the room with the guests and i'll be doing [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] various services from putting the hot plates in front of the guests serving vegetables doing the sauces after the banquet's actually finished the table will be stripped down each item such as the plates we have will be done by hand that's what just washing then it's rinsed and then it's actually buffed dry by hand um we also brush it as well sometimes wet sometimes dry to make sure there's no polish or residue left in any of the workings on the outside once we've then finished and they're fully dried they'll be counted usually into piles of 10 and then wrapped up in cling film to keep the air away from them to stop any tarnishing of the works the the essence is that that guests really would never have to ask for anything at the table so a crew it is always within reach without having to to to stretch across anybody and each individual guest will get a little dish with their own butter so that again nobody has to trouble anybody else in in feeling so they're embarrassed to ask for the butter because it's halfway across the table the perfectionism extends to the butter itself everyone will have their own dish each pat stamped with the crown break up a piece of butter try and keep them all the same size not too big and then place it on the paddles takes a while to get the neck nice ball then you dip the stamp in hot water you place the ball on the stump and then you there you go and apparently the queen used to do them when she was a little girl and the queen mother it's quite it can be quite therapeutic the duke of edinburgh has free and the queen does too from the top of the round tower there's still no sign of the queen [Music] it's nearly a gale force coming up and it's starting to rain so it's not too bad here we go defender smiths have just a few minutes left to line up all 136 chairs before the queen begins her pre-banquet rounds because we have the official length of stick from a back of chair to the table which i believe is about 27 inches that gives just enough area for people to if they once we put the chairs together it gives the people to come in and put the champagne in and things like that just to walk in and the guests enough room to stand in front when they're ready for their their dinner so uh this is actually this is that's what was there this is yeah we're hoping to get this in the olympics in london the stick and chair regretting it'll be a winner myself and mr turner might be just too old but i'm sure we can train up two whippersnappers to do stick and chair [Music] for korean country in the nick of time the new les miserables backdrop has arrived [Music] i'm just pleased it's here that's all i can see it's always all right honey in the end was already in the end in the cellars it's time to draw the corks on the chateau leoville cuafere on the banquet itself i myself will be looking after the service number nine which is the service of the majesty and president of shirak i would be quite pleased to actually speak french to presidential because i hardly speak french here i'm 100 sure that mr shirak will be very happy with the selection of one indeed state occasions can be a little nerve-wracking castle guests might require a little extra fortification in their rooms okay we got the uh the dry cherry here which is laina sherry and we've got some whiskey famous grass whiskey which is the favorite uh the favorite whiskey for the duke of edinburgh and we got golden gin so these three decanters is going to go into the suite of president shirak some people may say it's a mini bar first we call it sweet six months of planning diplomacy and hard work are coming to a climax now is the moment when everyone will know if they've got it right no one has attended more royal banquets than the queen her say is fine i wasn't sure about this [Music] quite a long time again i think it's all right looks lovely so i messed it here and he's successful [Music] the table has passed the queen's attention now turns to the set of les miserables she's keen to ensure that everyone can see properly but that's okay for the house you can see over the orchestra can we yes even after all these years her majesty is still impressed now that the queen has approved the arrangements all departments get their final briefings we just want to have a quick run through and make sure that everybody knows the dishes and the procedure that we're going to follow today this is going to turn into you know a conveyor belt for the want of a better term this is a small idea of what it's going to be you've got to imagine that this is only one side of the oval this is the finished dish half of the finished dish okay and we will have the same procedure again percentage of it pre-built entrees ready to come to this lineup okay don't forget we have about a minute a minute and a half for each flat and we have to push okay okay thank you very much [Music] it's a three-course meal which is slightly different from what we have a banquet it's it's a fish course a main course a suite the red light that means once you've got the plates and your food if you can all stand behind your service point where you're serving um in a line and then once i'm have once i'm happy then i will i will switch to the green light well then everybody will serve together thank you very much the pre-drinks are champagne and soft drinks only plus the drinks for the members of all families service number six mr mess special request you have princess royal who's having freshly squeezed orange juice only freshly squeezed oranges nothing else after the banquet mr road and mr ford the cures are done from the garter's room seaguars will be mr clasper mr smith is that olan okay see everyone okay thank you 7 30 at last the guests begin to arrive the royal family and the shiraks will be joined by the blairs leading french and british politicians and a selection of prominent french expats [Applause] [Music] but all is not well at the castle gates revolutionary fervor is stirring outside as well as in that's the protesters it's uh yeah it's more like football that's in a state occasion but yeah the presence of the prime minister several cabinet ministers and the world's media has drawn hundreds of pro-hunt supporters to windsor the eggs are flying and some vips are being delayed in the castle kitchens the queen chef mark flanagan is unaware of the chaos outside he's sticking to the agreed timetable you're gonna need to be here sorry stuart yeah you need to be here ready for me yeah really we're 15 minutes away from starting our assembly line and uh and and for us the main event is that's how close it is when now we're it's it's the nervy time [Music] a here hitch a deeply apologetic president has been delayed by 30 minutes the duke of edinburgh reassures the shirax that all is well [Music] instant george's hall steve marshall puts the final touches to the table in his customary footwear acquired on a plane they are british airway socks andrew farkerson must now liaise between the kitchens the serving staff and the queen it would be wrong if i wasn't a bit nervous just making sure that we can combine the requirements of mark to make it look as wonderful as possible with the requirements of the queen to have it in front of her when she wants it in front of her basically so um it's it's a fine line and as you know chefs never want to send their food until the last possible second because the longer it stays in a hot cupboard the the the less appetizing it looks so mark's pulling from one end and you know we're pulling from the other and i'm the guy that sort of is keeping an eye on everything and hoping it's gonna work outside the mob haven't managed to storm the gates but they are still holding up the traffic [Music] delays upstairs no delays downstairs news of the evening's hold ups still hasn't reached the kitchens let's go come on let's go out let's go [Music] more according to mark's precise schedule the guests should now be seated and listening to speeches except they aren't they're only just making their way through to dinner [Music] 8 15 and right on time marks hit his deadline the first course is on its way to the banquet unfortunately not everyone is so punctual master just came in and said that you were running 10 to 15 minutes behind schedule which is slightly unfortunate because mark's got everything ready to go on time so um we'll just have to go with it i also understand the president came in late so it just has this knock-on effect we're now sort of slightly you know we've cooked it and it's ready to go so one hopes just doesn't spoil too much [Music] so 20 minutes late what a laugh that is it does make you feel a little sort of uh i don't know disappointed that the fish is not going to be as as perfect as i wanted it the crew is going to go a little soggy the guests are finally taking their places i think i'm along here mrs blair helps the prime minister find his seat he's placed between the french minister of defense michelle alio marie and the fashion designer nicole fine president chirac sits between the queen and a professor of french from nottingham university mr president iraq [Music] i recall with great pleasure on my visit to france last april and i am pleased to have the opportunity to welcome you both mark has reworked his timings the second course will not go the way of the first you've got plenty of time now slow down and make it perfect yeah there's not enough in here there's not enough in there i would ask you to rise and drink a toast to the president and people of france [Music] eures [Music] [Music] you received [Music] john you need to make sure i don't no no holes in the service sir see that's gone to that yeah you can't say that the president thanks his host says [Music] with the toasts over it's finally time to eat the lights are switched to green dishes [Music] for us getting it in as quickly as possible giving this quite delay so it's been it's been there for a little bit and it's been ready for a little bit too long maybe [Music] the first course is on the table andrew is back in the kitchen to oversee the beef and the queen prefers her beef to be slightly better cooked so we try and make sure that she has the one that is and we've identified she's very good at identifying which is normally for her and this one is a little parsley on the top so that means that she knows exactly which one's for her she's very happy for everybody else to have her their meat done perhaps slightly rarer but she her son prefers it to be well done so we do that her party the main course is served even now every vegetable is still being scrutinized next one you take is the one you're serving okay where's the other boy let's give it to him take it in quick and get back here [Music] you back again okay only pudding remains [Applause] it's done now can't do anymore just fingers crossed the guests finish their dinner quite unaware that a further delay has afflicted the other end of their evening one set of revolutionaries has held up another the cast of les miserables still in costume from their first performance of the evening have been delayed our route from the west end are you happy yeah nearly 10 minutes late yeah i know we'll as soon as we get everybody in we're going straight up and then in the state apartments the evening is progressing seamlessly with the formal presentation of gifts the queen gives the president a silver plate engraved with the words anton cordial in return she receives a serve of bars and a scarf from madame shirachi as the guests make their way through to the newly christened music room everyone agrees that mark's dinner has been superb so i i mean you know i've been living in england now for quite a while so i can cope with the english cuisine very very well and i think you do have some very very good cook and the cookie was excellent it's a camera macintosh's guest would you follow me please michael ball undergoes last minute adjustments to his makeup cookies we can please folks thank you quick as we can okay thanks very much ladies and gentlemen thank you this show is not starting without the real leading lady [Applause] [Music] at the end of the day [Music] oh yeah this is what five six months worth of planning at least gone into this uh nice to see i don't have any children other than my boys so i've just this is like having a baby for me [Music] [Applause] [Music] state banquets always demand the highest standards whoever the guests tonight the staff have risen to the occasion the plan worked well everything sort of came together and any little mistakes that were there you know weren't seen on the night a century of friendship between britain and france has been marked with a banquet fit for a queen [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] collars most of which have just been valued at about a quarter of a million pounds each you

Channel: British Documentary

Views: 261,306

Rating: 4.8408747 out of 5

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Id: MDO1r5CrWfg

Length: 50min 56sec (3056 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021