'Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen' to Premiere as Part of the Jubilee Celebrations

Queen Elizabeth's platinum jubilee marking 70 years on the throne technically happened on Feb. 6, 2022, but like her April birthday, the national celebration is held in June. The official "Platinum Jubilee Weekend" officially runs from June 2-5 and will start with her usual birthday parade with the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, and more than 1200 officers and soldiers from the Household Division, all "Trooping the Color." There will be balcony appearances, pageants, flyovers, beacons lit, derbies, rock concerts, etc. There will also be a bunch of television specials released in the lead-up, including the new BBC documentary, Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen, arriving at the end of May.

Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen is not the first documentary to purport to draw back the curtain and show the royal family as it really is. The 1969 BBC documentary, The Royal Family, is famous for having aired precisely once and was then banned for decades because it was deemed too embarrassing by the Palace to show again. (One assumes The Unseen Queen will not be nearly so unseemly.) The film does promise to show things never seen before, including footage from reels that date back to the 1920s that the Palace and Her Majesty provided.

Considering the dates of the footage provided, it's not a surprise that the 75-minute presentation is said to focus on the early part of Elizabeth's life, back before the ubiquity of television. It is apparently pulled from either lost newsreels from the early part of the 20th century or state-sponsored behind-the-scenes footage of significant events that were never aired. Some moments include Prince Philip's 1946 visit to Balmoral Castle, which celebrated their engagement and was his first time seeing the place, and rare footage of King George VI with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.