Frank Brangwyn

The opening and closing ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics have transformed the Olympic stadium from an arena of sport into an amphitheatre of pageantry and display telling stories of British national identity. There is a striking precedent for these events in the Pageant of Empire staged at the old Wembley or Empire Stadium in 1924 by the pageant master Frank Lascelles. Demolished in 2003, the old Wembley Stadium is best known as a venue for sporting events including the 1948 Olympics and especially football. Built in 1923 for the British Empire Exhibition the following year with a capacity of over 100,000 and covering over 10 acres, its design was intentionally vast and imposing with distinctive twin towers. It was originally intended to be demolished after the exhibition closed.  The pageant was part part of the exhibition, one of a programme of music festivals and sporting events that continued until the opening of the football season. Originating in 1905, by the time the pageant was staged at Wembley, historical pageants were a well-established form of popular entertainment in Britain, the British Empire and the United States with their own conventions and several individuals made a living as full-time pageant masters. Lascelles was one of the most prolific and his imperial triumphs earned him the epithet 'the man who staged the empire'.

This paper considers the ways in which the vast space of Wembley Stadium was used in the Pageant of Empire by Lascelles and his collaborators. The pageant had a cast of over 15,000 volunteer ‘pageanteers’, including visitors from the Dominions and Colonies, an assortment of exotic animals, music by Edward Elgar and scenery by the artist craftsman Frank Brangwyn. The pageant was Lascelles’ most ambitious and complex undertaking. It was staged over a period of 5 weeks in three parts with each one on a separate day. It told the story of the founding of the British Empire from John Cabot in 1496 via London, Newfoundland, Canada, South Africa, India, New Zealand and Australia, ending with a finale of Empire. Both pageanteers and audience were active participants in the spectacle of the pageant, re-imagining the stadium through different times and places.