Waxwork of Queen is paraded along Blackpool promenade before being unveiled in Madame Tussauds

Madame Tussauds unveiled their new waxwork of the Queen in Blackpool today. 

The figure of the Queen, 95, can be seen dressed in a pink blazer and skirt suit and sporting her trademark pearl earrings, necklace and a floral diamond encrusted brooch with a pearl centrepiece.

The waxwork was escorted in a horse and carriage along the promenade as it made its way to Madame Tussauds today. 

It will replace the original waxwork created in 2012 to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, when it first appeared in Blackpool.  

The official unveiling ceremony began with a royal procession and a rendition of the National Anthem, as visitors flocked to see the uncanny image of the royal.

The original Queen waxwork was first installed in Blackpool in 2012 to celebrate the Queen’s 60-year reign, receiving a £150,000 makeover. 

While the monarch did not sit for the recreation, the royal did send over her measurements and approvals for different aspects of the sculpture.

At the time, artists at the London attraction based the model on her official Diamond Jubilee portrait.

The figure was the Queen’s 23rd waxwork since her first was created, which represented the then Princess Elizabeth as a two-year old in 1928.

It was placed in the royal area alongside her now late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh.

Next year the Queen will celebrate her Platinum Jubilee, marking the 70th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II on 6 February 1952.

According to reports, next year’s Platinum Jubilee pageant will be the ‘largest ever put on’.

The BBC recently reported that organisers say it will even top events held in 1897 for Queen Victoria’s diamond milestone.

Victoria & Albert Museum chairman Nicholas Coleridge, who is co-chairing the pageant, said 6,500 performers would take part in the final day of celebrations in June.

The BBC predicts that the jubilee events – marking the Queen’s 70 years on the throne – could attract a global audience of one billion, he added.

Festivities over the extended Bank Holiday weekend from Thursday, June 2 to Sunday, June 5 will include the Trooping The Colour, a ‘great lunch’ led by the Lord Mayor of London, ‘the Queen lighting bonfires’ and a BBC concert, Mr Coleridge said.

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Mr Coleridge focused on what the pageant – with a budget of between £10 million and £15 million – will involve.

He said: ‘It’s going to be the largest that’s ever put on, larger we think even than that that was put on for Queen Victoria in [1897].

‘That was pretty large, this is larger. It’s going to have 6,500 people taking part in it.’

Mr Coleridge said he hopes the pageant will ‘try and cheer up the country’ following the Covid pandemic.

He added: ‘At the same time, and massively importantly, we’re going to make sure whilst the Jubilee is based on London because it’s going to be a procession that goes around the parks, through Westminster, under Admiralty Arch, down the Mall, past Buckingham Palace and up past Constitution Hill, it’s not going to be London-centric.’

He went on: ‘We even have a giant map, making sure that we have people from every part of our country and indeed every part of the Commonwealth.

We’re going to have people from all 54 Commonwealth countries who are going to be taking part in this astounding parade.

‘We’re having all the creative industries in it – 17 different theatre groups have so far signed up to be in it, we’re having enormous sculptures the size of four-storey houses being dragged down the Mall, we’re having a mysterious celebrity singer that if I said it, the entire ‘Team Jubilee’ would be so angry with me that I’d probably never be able to go back into the office.

‘We’ve got royals, we’ve got golden coaches and at the heart of it, of course, we’ve got the Queen.’