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JAMES BOND
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JAMES BOND
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On Sunday June 5, 2022 - 007
celebrated The Queen and 70 years of exceptional service to her country by
taking part in The Platinum Jubilee Pageant. Ten iconic
Bond vehicles joined Act II of The People’s Pageant in a
once-in-a-lifetime procession. |
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Taking part in the parade were the beloved Aston Martin DB5, which starred in eight films: Goldfinger, Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale, Skyfall, Spectre and No Time To Die driven by Special Effects Supremo Chris Corbould, the Triumph Scrambler motorbike seen recently in No Time To Die ridden by world champion bike rider Paul Edmondson, who completed the film’s spectacular stunt jump. Moneypenny’s Land Rover Defender from Skyfall driven by one of the world’s leading female stunt drivers Jess Hawkins, and the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud from A View To A Kill driven by Academy Award winning director & stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong. The Rolls-Royce was owned by James Bond Producer Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli and bears the distinctive number plate CUB 1. |
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Other vehicles featured included the Aston Martin DB10 seen in Spectre, with three-time British World Rally Champion Mark Higgins behind the wheel, and the Jaguar XKR from Die Another Day driven by Stunt Coordinator Gary Powell. |
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Completing the array of iconic cars in the 007 line-up were the Aston Martin V12 Vanquish from Die Another Day; a Land Rover Series III from No Time To Die, the Rolls-Royce Phantom III from Goldfinger; a Lotus Esprit S1 seen in The Spy Who Loved Me - and the Aston Martin V8 from both The Living Daylights and, more recently, No Time To Die. |
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The People's Pageant
Act II: THE TIME OF OUR LIVES With a showcase of youth culture, popular music, dance styles, changing fashion and all the trends, fads and crazes that defined the times. It was a nostalgic demonstration of transforming society and took spectators on an epic journey through time, iconic British moments and extraordinary change and progress. Open-topped double decker buses, styled and wrapped in graphics depicting the icons, trends, personalities and news of the times formed the central feature highlighting each decade. These buses were like a set of scrapbooks curated to capture our collective experience and the zeitgeist of the times and carried 150 ‘national treasures’ including TV personalities, musicians, chefs, sportspeople, designers, and artists who have helped shape British culture of the last 70 years. |
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Also included as part of the parade celebrating the decade of the 1960s were four Daleks from the popular BBC-TV series Doctor Who (which celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2023). The Daleks first appeared at the end of The Dead Planet, the opening episode of the second serial broadcast on BBC1 on December 21, 1963 (and the fifth episode of the first season). At the same time From Russia With Love (1963) was still breaking box-office records in cinemas across the UK. A second Dalek story hit British TV screens a year later, and The Dalek Invasion of Earth once again gripped the nation from November 21 - December 26, 1964. Featuring the Daleks taking over London, the series averaged 12-million viewers for each of its six episodes. School playgrounds across the nation later echoed with their now iconic catchphrase “Ex-ter-min-ate!”. |
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During the same period in late 1964 British stage and screenwriter John Hopkins was polishing Richard Maibaum's script for Thunderball, which would become the fourth James Bond film. Hopkins originally included a reference acknowledging the popularity of the Daleks in the brief scene in Miss Moneypenny's office between Sean Connery and Lois Maxwell. The line remained in the shooting script and was originally spoken by Sean Connery on set. However, it was thought that such an obscure reference would be meaningless to audiences outside the UK, as Doctor Who had yet to be broadcast widely overseas, and the joke would certainly be lost on an American audience. The line “The Daleks have taken over!” was re-dubbed by Sean Connery in post-production, and in the finished film he says “Somebody's probably lost a dog”. |
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The popularity of the Daleks continued to grow, and the release of two big-screen Technicolor film adaptations of the first two Dalek stories in 1965 and 1966, starring Peter Cushing as Doctor Who, brought the alien invaders to a larger international audience. The Daleks remained a mainstay of the BBC-TV series throughout its original 26-year run, and again when the series was resurrected in March 2005. |
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Together with James Bond, Doctor Who was featured as part of the collage of images celebrating the seven decades of The Queen's reign, seen on the London buses as part of the People's Pageant. William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton can be seen on the 1960s bus; whilst ‘NuWho’ actors Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant are seen (along with Daniel Craig on the Casino Royale poster) on the back of the 2000s bus. Ironically Christopher Eccleston and Daniel Craig had also appeared together in the seminal 1996 BBC-TV series Our Friends In The North, and they both went on to re-launch the Doctor Who and James Bond series to great success in 2005/6. Former James Bond Timothy Dalton also memorably joined the cast of Doctor Who for the two-part Christmas Special in 2009, which marked the final regular appearance of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, and introduced Matt Smith as the Eleventh incarnation of the time-travelling character. Selected photographs used with the kind permission of Gary Powell |
