Sir Tom Jones, Kylie Minogue and Sting are some of the musical stars who will perform at a Royal Albert Hall birthday concert for the Queen, the BBC has announced.
The Queen and members of the royal family will attend the event staged on her birthday – April 21 – part of a series of BBC broadcasts and programmes marking the monarch’s 92nd anniversary and her long association with the Commonwealth.
But the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are likely to miss the event, which will be featured live on BBC One and BBC Radio Two, as the due date for their third child is believed to be around this time.
Other artists who will perform include Craig David, Anne-Marie, Canadian singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes and South African male choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
The concert will come at the end of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) the Queen will be hosting in her role as head of the institution.
Charlotte Moore, director of BBC Content, said: “The Queen’s 92nd birthday will be celebrated live on BBC One with a stunning evening of music. BBC One will also explore the story of the Commonwealth through two single films presented by George Alagiah and Lenny Henry.”
In The Queen: Her Commonwealth Story, hosted by Alagiah, the Princess Royal talks about her own experiences of royal walkabouts and the Queen’s role in a male dominated world.
Actor and comic Sir Lenny presents an hour-long programme which examines the relationship between Britain, the Commonwealth and the 2.4 billion people from the family of nation’s 53 member states.
In Lenny Henry: The Commonwealth Kid, expected to be screened on April 2, the popular personality sets off on a tour of the Caribbean visiting the Bahamas, and his parent’s homeland of Jamaica, to hear what the Commonwealth means to the people who live in the region.
From street vendors to government officials and teachers to students, he will examine the special bond that exists between the people of the Caribbean and the UK, a microcosm of the wider relationship between all of the people of the Commonwealth.
Broadcaster Alagiah walks in the monarch’s footsteps in his programme, which will be screened on Monday, travelling the world, from Ghana to Australia and from India to South Africa, to explore some of the Queen’s significant Commonwealth moments.
The newsreader, who was born in the Commonwealth country of Sri Lanka, revealed at the start of the year that the cancer he had successfully fought a number of years ago had returned.
Alagiah said: “What we see in this film is the transformation of a young, diffident woman into a confident figure able to command the respect of leaders around the world.
“We discovered that as head of the Commonwealth she has far more room to manoeuvre – able to influence world events in a way she cannot at home.”