The Children's Party at the Palace was an event organised by Peter Orton of

Hit Entertainment HIT Entertainment Limited (stylised as HiT) was a British-American entertainment company founded in 1982 as Henson International Television, the international distribution arm of The Jim Henson Company, by Jim Henson, Peter Orton, and Sophie Turn ...

and David Johnstone of DJI consult, held in the Garden at Buckingham Palace on 25 June 2006 in honour of the 80th birthday of

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

. The event, which had the theme of British children's literature, was attended by 2,000 children and 1,000 adults"Kids win invite to palace party"
Newsround report. (last updated 24 May 2006; Retrieved 13 July 2006) who were chosen through a national

ballot A ballot is a device used to cast votes in an election and may be found as a piece of paper or a small ball used in voting. It was originally a small ball (see blackballing) used to record decisions made by voters in Italy around the 16th cent ...

."Palace gets ready for kids' party"
Newsround report. (last updated 23 June 2006; Retrieved 13 July 2006) On arrival, all guests received a purple hamper with snacks put together by Jamie Oliver."Queen puts on huge party for kids"
Newsround report. (last updated 25 June 2006; Retrieved 13 July 2006) For the occasion, the palace grounds were transformed into scenes from children's books, including places like the Hundred Acre Wood, with 80 costumed characters and a model of the BFG sitting at a huge piano. The grounds also had an authors' corner, where authors like J. K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, Eric Hill and Raymond Briggs read from their books and signed autographs."Sophie Dahl Talks Potter and JKR"
from Mugglenet.com (posted 24 June 2006; Retrieved 13 July 2006)

''The Queen's Handbag''

The main attraction of the party was a

pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment, generally combining gender-crossing actors and topical humour with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or ...

-style play called ''The Queen's Handbag'', written by children's author and playwright David Wood and directed by Trevor Nunn,Stars and children to gather at Buckingham Palace for the party of lifetime
(published 11 June 2006; Retrieved 13 July 2006) which was performed on a stage resembling Buckingham Palace and broadcast live on both

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

and the CBBC Channel. In the play, the villains of children's literature are angry to find out none of them have been invited to the party, so they decide to ruin the party for the goodies too. After multiple failed attempts, one of them manages to steal the Queen's handbag. Without its contents (her reading glasses) the Queen won't be able to deliver her closing speech. Multiple scenes of the play, including a scene starring

Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven Fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...

and his friends at Hogwarts that was filmed during production of the ''Order of the Phoenix'' film, were pre-recorded and played on large video screens."Potter stars cast in Queen's play"
Newsround report. (last updated 13 June 2006; Retrieved 13 July 2006) The play ended with a rendition of " Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" by the entire cast, led by the London company of the musical ''

Mary Poppins Mary Poppins may refer to: * Mary Poppins (character), a nanny with magical powers * Mary Poppins (franchise), based on the fictional nanny ** Mary Poppins (book series), ''Mary Poppins'' (book series), the original 1934–1988 children's fanta ...

''. Throughout the programme, the audience was kept up to date about the status of the missing handbag with reports from both

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

and

Crimewatch ''Crimewatch'' (formerly ''Crimewatch UK'') is a British television programme produced by the BBC, that reconstructs major unsolved crimes in order to gain information from the public which may assist in solving the case. The programme was or ...

. The use of a fake newsflash caused complaints to be made to the BBC.

Cast

References

{{reflist 2006 in London 2006 plays June 2006 in the United Kingdom Elizabeth II Monarchy of the United Kingdom Parties Buckingham Palace The BFG Angelina Ballerina