4th June 2012 was a concert to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (70 years of being monarch), broadcast live by the BBC. Across the BBC and Sky News it averaged 15m views and peaked at around 17m. It was eventually 2012’s 6th most watched show/event.
Arranged by Gary Barlow the concert was in front of Buckingham Palace, with stage and seating built around the Queen Victoria Memorial.
Alamy have 4 pages worth of pictures of the performers – but clearly gave up on trying to label the images with any names. The Daily Mail went more for pictures of the Mall / fireworks / crowd etc.
Jimmy was a presenter (introducing Lang Lang) and was expected to fill a couple of minutes while the stage was re-arranged. In this video, taken from the crowd, you can hear the punchline of a joke he told where he said everyone backstage was nervous about the etiquette – which is when he delivered the immortal line, towards the Queen and other Royals, “just call me Mr Carr”.
He went on, at the after party, to try to set up Cheryl Cole with Prince Harry (to embarrass her) and, later in the evening, had a tap on his shoulder and turned around to see Prince William holding out his hand and, with what Jimmy referred to as a callback to the joke, said “Mr Carr”.
Jimmy retells all of this (much better than I have) in this One Show interview in 2021.
In this Pete and Sebastian podcast he again tells the story of performing at the Jubilee and repeats the Mr Carr joke. But also goes on to tell how him and Ed Sheeran being on stage (for the end of the show) with Stevie Wonder playing harmonica. I’ve heard him tell that one better as apparently Stevie had said he “didn’t know the song” and Jimmy had quipped back “it’s on the teleprompter”. I’ve heard him say before that Stevie responded with “motherf**ker” – but he tones it down slightly on this podcast and I’m not sure Pete /Sebastian caught the joke. Link above starts at the story – give it a listen.
Also he mentioned Rod Stewart was there – but that was at the Platinum Jubilee show (so many events, so many stories – must be hard to keep track).
In this Alamy pic you can see Gary Barlow leading on the Queen and, peeping out between them, Jimmy and Ed. Clearly not joined by Stevie yet, who had to be guided out.
When everyone was lined up backstage, to meet the Queen, the start of this short ITV News clip, shows Peter Kay standing between Ed and Jimmy, telling the Queen about his Beefeater outfit.
Stills from this brief meeting showed Jimmy with a rather intense gaze, towards the Queen – which doesn’t look so bad in the video. This image was picked up on again in 2016 and mauled around in Photoshop.
Performers and presenters included the following (in no particular order, just as I found the names, within stories)
- Jimmy Carr
- Robbie Williams
- Ed Sheeran
- Peter Kay
- Stevie Wonder
- Rob Brydon
- Elton John
- Paul McCartney
- Lee Mack
- Lang Lang
- Alfie Boe
- Jools Holland
- Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Kylie Minogue
- Cliff Richard
- Miranda Hart
- Annie Lennox
- Tom Jones
- Grace Jones
- Lenny Henry
- Cheryl Cole
- Shirley Bassey
- Madness
- Will.I.am
- Jessie J
- JLS
- Rolf Harris
Updated 2026-01-16: Jimmy telling the Stevie Wonder story
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