Queen's Platinum Jubilee: Reign to be marked at street pageant

Marching bands, troops and veterans and a giant dragon puppet will all feature in a spectacular street pageant for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee next June.

The parade on The Mall near Buckingham Palace will cap four days of events marking the Queen's 70-year reign.

Participants will come from across the UK and Commonwealth.

Organisers said the pageant's budget of between £10m and £15m will be privately funded through corporate partners, businesses and individuals.

Ahead of the Platinum Jubilee Weekend, the Queen and members of the Royal Family will travel around the UK attending a range of events to mark the milestone.

The details of the three-act pageant on Sunday 5 June were unveiled after an announcement on the wider celebrations was made earlier this month.

The Queen will be 96 at the time of the Platinum Jubilee events.

Every decade of her reign, which began on 6 February 1952, will be celebrated at the pageant.

Trapeze artists and acrobats will feature as well as street theatre - with a specially-written fairy story There Once Is A Queen by author Sir Michael Morpurgo brought to life throughout the day.

Details of the pageant's finale are being kept secret for now.

Nicholas Coleridge, co-chairman of the pageant, said the Platinum Jubilee weekend will be "something of a reopening ceremony for the United Kingdom, following a period of uncertainty and hardship".

"Through the fusion of ceremonial and pageantry with razzmatazz and festival, we intend to create a spectacle that is at once energising and memorable and a fitting tribute," he said.

Pageant master Adrian Evans said there would be a "sprinkling" of the late Duke of Edinburgh's presence in the programme, including a carnival-style imagination of the coronation.

The Platinum Jubilee Weekend will see the late May Spring Bank Holiday moved to 2 June, with an additional Bank Holiday created on 3 June.