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Celebrities including Ant and Dec, Katy Perry, Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson are among a host of stars in attendance at the King’s coronation.

Around 2,300 guests were invited to Westminster Abbey, including world leaders, celebrities, UK politicians, foreign royalty, everyday heroes and the royal family.

Katy Perry
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Katy Perry
Ant and Dec
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Ant and Dec

Arriving bright and early, actor and comedian Stephen Fry was one of the first famous faces to arrive at the abbey.

I Kissed A Girl singer Katy Perry, who will perform at the coronation concert at Windsor Castle on Sunday, was one of the early US stars to arrive, wearing head-to-toe lilac.

TV royalty Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly were full of smiles as they mingled in the abbey. They are currently presenting I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, but have been invited in their capacity as goodwill ambassadors for the Princes Trust.

The Geordie duo have hosted the charity’s awards 10 times and are involved in a programme to make the media industry more accessible.

Actress Dame Emma Thompson, who is good friends with the King, arrived with her husband, actor Greg Wise, chatting to other guests as they took their seats.

The Oscar-winning star wore a bold red jacket, along with her damehood medal and insignia.

Watch and follow special coverage of the coronation

Emma Thompson and her husband Greg Wise arrive to attend Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla's coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey, in London, Britain May 6, 2023. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
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Dame Emma Thompson and her husband Greg Wise
Lionel Richie is among celebrity guests attending the King's coronation
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Singer Lionel Richie

Dame Judi Dench wore a pale lavender ensemble and brimmed hat, Downton Abbey star Dame Maggie Smith wore blue, while Australian singer Nick Cave wore a dark suit and tie.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, best known for hit musicals including The Phantom Of The Opera, Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar, was also there.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, his wife Lady Madeleine, and Labour leader Keir Starmer
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Andrew Lloyd Webber, his wife Lady Madeleine, and Labour leader Keir Starmer
Nick Cave and Rowan Williams arrive to attend Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla's coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey, in London, Britain May 6, 2023. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
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Nick Cave and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

The award-winning composer, who has written the coronation anthem, said writing the music acted as an “antidote” to his loss of his eldest son, Nicholas, in March.

Singer Lionel Richie, who will also perform at Sunday’s coronation concert, told Sky News: “This is not an everyday occurrence. I’m walking into history. This is the greatest show on earth right now. To have an invite to this is everything.”

Richie, 73, wore a top hat to mark the special occasion.

Ultimate guide to the coronation: How to watch, timings and procession route

Dame Joanna Lumley poses for a photograph as she arrives ahead of the coronation ceremony of King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Westminster Abbey, London. Picture date: Saturday May 6, 2023.
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Dame Joanna Lumley
Stephen Fry
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Stephen Fry

Dame Joanna Lumley, who will be commentating on the historic event for Sky News, said: “I’m so excited… saying God Save the King will be the most exciting bit. Hearing the choir, all the new songs, the old songs, will be ravishing. I’m also looking forward to seeing the Queen’s dress – it’s supposed to be spectacular!”

Other famous guests at the abbey include British Vogue’s editor-in-chief Edward Enninful, former Play School presenter Floella Benjamin, Stereophonics singer Kelly Jones, and director general of the BBC, Tim Davey.

Singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading was in the audience, as was First Lady of the United States Jill Biden, who came with her granddaughter Finnegan Biden.

US President Joe Biden did not attend, with Washington denying his absence was a snub after his four-day trip to Ireland last month.

 Vogue's Edward Enninful walking into the abbey with Katy Perry
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Vogue’s Edward Enninful walking into the abbey with Katy Perry
First Lady of the United States, Dr Jill Biden and her grand daughter Finnegan Biden (left) arriving at Westminster Abbey, central London, ahead of the coronation ceremony of King Charles III and Queen Camilla...Picture date: Saturday May 6, 2023. PA Photo. See PA story ROYAL Coronation. Photo credit should read: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire
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First Lady Jill Biden (R) and her granddaughter Finnegan Biden (L)

Spice Girl Melanie Brown was also spotted outside the abbey, chatting to press.

David and Victoria Beckham, Stella McCartney, Rowan Atkinson, Bear Grylls and magician Dynamo were also rumoured to be on the guest list.

The King will be crowned at Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of Canterbury during a coronation ceremony dating back centuries.

Joan Armatrading attends the Coronation of King Charles III
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Singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading
Baroness Floella Benjamin (right) arriving ahead of the coronation ceremony of King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Westminster Abbey, London. Picture date: Saturday May 6, 2023. Jane Barlow/Pool via REUTERS
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Baroness Floella Benjamin (R)

The King’s youngest son, Prince Harry, who stepped back from royal duties in March 2020 and moved to the US with his wife, Meghan, is also expected to attend.

The event is the military’s largest ceremonial operation since Queen Elizabeth II’s 1953 coronation, with 9,000 servicemen and women deployed and 7,000 of these performing ceremonial and supporting roles.

It’s a significantly slimmed-down event compared with the more than 8,000 guests at the Queen’s coronation 70 years ago.

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Is buying vinyl bad for the planet – and what can be done about it?

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Is buying vinyl bad for the planet - and what can be done about it?

Taylor Swift’s new album helped fuel the highest weekly vinyl sales in 30 years – but is our rediscovered love of owning records environmentally reckless?

PVC (poly vinyl chloride), the plastic from which records have traditionally been made, isn’t great for the planet, and concerns have also been raised over packaging as vinyl sales have risedn in recent years.

Rou Reynolds, frontman of chart-topping rock band Enter Shikari, believes leading artists need to shoulder some responsibility to “push forward” change.

“The bigger you are as an artist, the more influence you have, the more you can push things forward and accelerate progression,” he says.

Pic: Beth Garrabrant
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Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Society is leading the vinyl boom. Pic: Beth Garrabrant

In an interview with Billboard in March, Billie Eilish criticised how “wasteful it is” when “some of the biggest artists in the world” make “40 different vinyl packages”, each with “a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more”.

“Its reasonable criticism,” says Reynolds, “but I think it’ll basically dissipate as soon as it becomes the standard to use BioVinyl, for instance – that will really take away the possibility of criticism”.

Rather than make records out of regular PVC pellets, over the last few years it has become possible to use renewable sources such as cooking oil or wood pulp.

Enter Shikari at Slam Dunk Festival North in Leeds in 2023. Pic: Graham Finney/Cover Images via AP
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Enter Shikari’s Rou Reynolds, pictured on stage in 2023, says artists need to lead the way. Pic: Graham Finney/Cover Images via AP

“Traditional vinyl is an oil-based product,” Reynolds explains. “No one really wants to support the extraction of any more fossil fuels.”

Enter Shikari now insist all their records are made using BioVinyl, and Reynolds is optimistic that if more artists make demands about what their records are made from, it would become the new norm.

“A lot of independent artists, like myself, we can light these fires, then it spreads and before you know it, it will become the industry standard.”

‘The advances are incredible’

Karen Emmanuel, Key Production Group
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Karen Emanuel, chief executive of Key Production Group, has worked in the industry for 35 years

Leading voices within vinyl production want the music industry to listen.

“Along with the Vinyl Alliance and the Vinyl Records Manufacturers Association, we’re looking at the whole manufacturing chain,” says Karen Emanuel, chief executive of Key Production, the UK’s largest broker for physical music production.

“I’ve been in the business probably about 35 years and the advances that have been made, it’s incredible. A lot of the big plastics companies, for PVC they’ve found a way replacing the fossil fuel elements [which] could mean as much as a 90% reduction in the carbon footprint of the vinyl.”

The catch, at the moment, is the cost.

“It’s a bit more expensive to manufacture but if enough people manufacture with it then the price point will come down… it’s something that we’re really trying to push people towards.”

Would fans be happy to pay more for a greener product?

Lee Jeffries, from Sonic Wax, in Leicestershire
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Lee Jeffries, from Sonic Wax, in Leicestershire, owns the world’s most expensive Motown record. Pic: Sonic Wax

Lee Jefferies, the owner of Leicestershire-based vinyl pressing plant Sonic Wax Pressing, is such a big vinyl lover, he spent £100,000 buying the world’s most valuable Motown record.

“Ultimately everything works from retail back,” he says “And with retail prices already being quite high on vinyl it’s very hard for people to have the extra money to buy biodegradable vinyl.”

But a recent survey conducted by Key Production found more than two thirds (69%) of vinyl buyers indicated they would be encouraged to buy more if the records were made with a reduced environmental impact.

The findings also revealed that the vast majority, 77%, of regular vinyl customers are willing to pay a premium for reduced impact products, signalling a significant market demand for eco-friendly alternatives.

Is there a bigger problem?

Ultimately, either the consumer, artists or labels will have to shoulder the cost if vinyl is to be made more sustainably.

But while a big old hunk of PVC might feel like the least green option, are we getting ourselves in a spin when we should also be looking in another direction?

Figures from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) put global vinyl sales for last year at about 80 million – using the IMPALA indepdent music companies association’s music emissions calculator, that works out at producing around 156k tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Read more:
UK vinyl sales at highest level since 1990
Vinyl added to typical shopping basket used in inflation calculation

If you compare that to streaming, with Spotify alone – responsible for about a third of the market – its own estimates for its global carbon emissions were 280k tonnes last year, with vast amounts of electricity being used to power its data storage servers.

For Enter Shikari’s Reynolds, the potential to make vinyl greener is exciting.

“It has the same quality, the same appearance, you really wouldn’t notice the difference, which is incredible,” he says. “I think it speaks to, you know, a lot of the time people think that the transition society is about to go through, we think we’re going to lose luxuries… but I think this is just an example of why that’s not the case.

“You know, all it takes is some thought and some adaptation, and then some adoption… it’s super exciting.”

Perhaps now it’s time for the music industry to take note.

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Dabney Coleman, actor who starred in Boardwalk Empire and 9 to 5, dies

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Dabney Coleman, actor who starred in Boardwalk Empire and 9 to 5, dies

Lily Tomlin, Morgan Fairchild and Ben Stiller have led tributes to “one-of-a-kind” actor Dabney Coleman following his death aged 92.

Coleman made his career playing comedic villains, mean-spirited bosses and villains in films including 9 to 5 and Tootsie, as well as playing Commodore Louis Kaestner in Boardwalk Empire.

Lily Tomlin, who starred alongside him in 9 To 5 with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton, said: “We just loved him.”

In her post to X, the actress shared a photo of her character Violet Newstead dressed in a Snow White costume beside a tense-looking Coleman as her egotistical boss Franklin Hart Jr.

Morgan Fairchild, who starred in Falcon Crest and Friends, described Coleman as a “great one”.

“So very sorry to hear of the death of the wonderful #DabneyColeman”, she wrote on X alongside a black and white photo of them together.

“We went out for a bit in the ’80s and I adored him. This town has lost one of a kind!”

Coleman “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely” in his Santa Monica home on Thursday, his daughter said in a statement on Friday on behalf of the family.

“My father crafted his time here on Earth with a curious mind, a generous heart and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humour that tickled the funny bone of humanity”, she said.

“As he lived, he moved through this final act of his life with elegance, excellence and mastery.”

Actor Dabney Coleman in Los Angeles in 1989. Pic: AP
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Coleman in 1989. Pic: AP

Ben Stiller, Zoolander and Meet The Parents actor, praised Coleman for paving the way for character actors.

“The great Dabney Coleman literally created, or defined, really – in a uniquely singular way – an archetype as a character actor.

“He was so good at what he did it’s hard to imagine movies and television of the last 40 years without him.”

Dabney Coleman with Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda in 1980 Credit: Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch/IPX
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Coleman with Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda in 1980 Credit: Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch/IPX

Read more from Sky News:
Presenter says she was assaulted by Rolf Harris on Blue Peter
Girls Aloud kick off reunion tour dedicated to late bandmate

Coleman starred in a number of films and TV series in the 1960s, then made his breakthrough as a corrupt mayor in the satirical soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, in 1976.

His film credits include a computer scientist in WarGames, Tom Hanks’ father in You’ve Got Mail and a chief firefighter in The Towering Inferno.

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He won a best actor Golden Globe for The Slap Maxwell Story and an Emmy for best supporting actor in Peter Levin’s 1987 legal drama Sworn To Silence.

Coleman also won two Screen Actors Guild Awards as part of the cast of crime drama Boardwalk Empire and received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his starring role in the NBC sitcom Buffalo Bill.

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Yvette Fielding says she was assaulted by Rolf Harris on Blue Peter and left alone with Jimmy Savile

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Yvette Fielding says she was assaulted by Rolf Harris on Blue Peter and left alone with Jimmy Savile

Blue Peter’s youngest ever presenter has claimed disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris sexually assaulted her when she was a teenage host of the children’s show.

Yvette Fielding, who joined the long-running BBC programme aged 18, told the Sun newspaper how the paedophile predator squeezed and patted her bottom after finding herself alone with him in a TV studio.

The now 55-year-old also recalled an uncomfortable experience with “grotesque” Jimmy Savile, who was later revealed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.

Fielding has questioned the role of the BBC in allowing their behaviour, arguing people in the industry “must have known”.

Fielding in 1987. Pic: John Gooch/Shutterstock
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Fielding joined Blue Peter in 1987. Pic: John Gooch/Shutterstock

She became a Blue Peter presenter in 1987 and left five years later, going on to host a string of BBC programmes including The Heaven And Earth Show, The General and City Hospital.

Recounting the incident with Harris, she said: “It was very confusing and shocking – just bizarre to think Rolf Harris was squeezing and patting my bottom and I am standing there, thinking ‘I don’t know what to do’.

“Other people in the industry must have known what he was like and you left me alone in the studio with him.

“That shouldn’t have happened. I must have been 18 or 19.

“I think a lot of them did know.”

Yvette Fielding. Pic: PA
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The presenter says the Harris incident ‘shouldn’t have happened’. Pic: PA

Read more on Sky News:
Video appears to show Sean Combs assaulting singer in 2016

Anne Robinson confirms relationship with Queen’s ex-husband

Harris was a household favourite for decades before his dramatic downfall after being convicted of a string of indecent assaults against young girls.

Stripped of his honours, he died of neck cancer and old age in May last year, aged 93.

Jimmy Savile pictured in 2004
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Jimmy Savile was ‘grotesque’. Pic: PA

He was also known to be associated with Savile, who managed to conceal his crimes until after his death in 2011.

On her meeting with the late depraved DJ, Fielding told the Sun: “He took my hand and started stroking it. ‘Look into my eyes’, he said, ‘And tell me what you’re thinking’.”

“He was grotesque,” she added.

“I just don’t understand why the BBC allowed him to get away with that for as long as he did.”

Savile worked for much of his career at the BBC presenting programmes including Top Of The Pops and Jim’ll Fix It.

The BBC has been contacted for comment.

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