is to perform his love song Perfect at the Jubilee Pageant in a special moving tribute to the and her late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh.
At the finale of the carnival procession through the streets of on Sunday, ahead of the National Anthem, the star will sing the hit romantic ballad as footage featuring images of the Queen and Philip fills the giant screens around the stage.
The singer and recent is also reportedly , alongside starry friends including Sandie Shaw, Marc Almond and Spandau Ballet’s Tony Hadley, along with soprano Lesley Garrett and Jools Holland.
Philip – the man the Queen described as her ‘strength and stay’ – was married to the monarch for 73 years and devoted decades of his life to royal duty.
He in April last year during the pandemic, leaving the Queen grieving for her lifelong confidant.
Other tributes to Philip will appear in the pageant celebrating 70 years on the throne for the monarch, with a Bollywood-inspired interpretation of the Queen and the duke’s wedding day.
A 20ft (six metre) wedding cake, housing a sound system playing classic Bollywood anthems and accompanied by 250 Bollywood dancers, will process down The Mall in a reimagining of their 1947 marriage celebration.
A representation of Philip’s beloved sailing boat Bluebottle will feature in the section devoted to the ‘Queen’s Favourites’, which will also include puppet corgis and horses.
The is the first major milestone the Queen has celebrated without Philip, who had been at her side during the ups and downs of her long reign.
It was Philip who broke the news to the 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth that her father had died, and she had acceded to the throne as Queen while they were away in Kenya on a tour.
He was the first layman to pay tender homage to the newly crowned monarch during her Coronation ceremony in 1953, and was there for her Silver and Golden Jubilees and when she became the longest reigning monarch in 2015.
At the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, Philip was with the Queen for the river pageant in extremely wet and windy conditions, joining a flotilla of 1,000 boats along the Thames.
But the next day he was admitted to hospital with a bladder infection and missed the Jubilee concert and service of thanksgiving.
In her most recent Christmas Day broadcast, the Queen poignantly reflected on a year of personal grief, saying there was ‘one familiar laugh missing’ as she acknowledged the death of her husband.
She gave a personal tribute to her ‘beloved Philip’ and remarked how his ‘mischievous, enquiring twinkle was as bright at the end as when I first set eyes on him’.
The Queen was a young princess when she first met dashing naval cadet Prince Philip of Greece in 1939, during a visit to the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth where he was studying.
They became secretly engaged in the summer of 1946 while they were staying at Balmoral.
Never-before-seen footage of the Queen, being shown in the on Sunday night, reveals the overjoyed princess proudly showing off her engagement ring in a home movie.
The official announcement was delayed until after Princess Elizabeth reached the age of 21 and returned from a royal tour of South Africa the following year.
The couple wed in November 1947 and a few years later settled into married life in Malta where Philip, a naval officer, was stationed, until the death of King George VI in 1952 saw Princess Elizabeth become Queen.
The Platinum Pageant airs on BBC One from 1pm on Sunday, June 5. The BBC’s Platinum Party at the Palace airs on BBC One from 7:30pm on Saturday, June 4.
