Pomp and pageantry to dazzle world

Tomorrow's service will feature fewer velvet cushions than in 1953 but we can still expect lots of visual treats

- Matthew Dennison

IT WILL not be, as Labour Party co-founder Keir Hardie castigated the coronation of George V in 1911, “an orgy for the display of wealth and senseless spending”. Instead, the Coronation tomorrow will be a religious service: Charles III will be crowned in the name of God in a ceremony dominated by prayer. In front of more than 2,000 invited guests and the eyes of a watching world, he will be formally invested with the royal powers he inherited on September 8 last year and undergo an act of personal transformation as ancient as monarchy in these islands.

For all its sacred significance, a coronation is also the most spectacular ceremony in the British repertoire, what Noel Coward once called “the English state ballet at its best”.