'Which Ever Pleased the Vulgar': Tourism-Related Media Representations of Royal Ceremonial

The British monarchy performs a major role in maintaining and personifying 'traditional' UK national identities and values. Members of the Royal Family repeatedly reflect and create national identity through a series of impressively stage-managed performances of ceremony and (invented) tradition. Pomp,pageantry and ceremonial are centrally identifying characteristics of British royalty on a scale that is not found elsewhere. Indeed, the performance of ceremonials may be seen as the chief function, almost the justification of the monarchy in the context of its declining political role in the UK. Royal performances as a major media phenomenon have been the subject of theoretical analysis in relation to, for example; textual and visual representations of royalty, the narratives of the monarchial 'soap-opera' and the development and portrayal of the celebrity / iconic characteristics of individual members of the royal family. Rather less research though seems to have focused on royal tourism-related media. Importantly, royal performances are regularly packaged and promoted for tourist consumption. Royal ceremonials, whether routine such as the 'trooping of the colour' or unique, for example the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002, provide particularly useful 'set-piece' events for exploitation by tourism agencies, and a range of print and visual media is produced for this purpose. This paper considers the performance aspects of royal ceremonial, their representations in tourism-related media and the ways in which tourists are encouraged to consume royal performances. It does so in historical perspective but with particular attention to the 2002 Queen's Golden Jubilee Year.