Queen tries her hand as camera assistant on crime drama as ITV marks anniversary

The Queen tried her hand at being a camera assistant when she took charge of the clapperboard on the set of an ITV crime drama.

Camilla was welcomed to the set of Trigger Point, which was being filmed on location at Brent Cross Civic Centre in north-west London, where she met Dame Carolyn McCall, the chief executive of ITV, and Trigger Point’s executive producer Jed Mercurio.

Meeting actress Vicky McClure, who was kitted out as her character Lana Washington, an explosives officer in the Metropolitan Police, the Queen asked her what it was like to wear the bomb suits.

“It’s very safe and warm,” McClure told Camilla.

“I have watched some of the first series,” the Queen told McClure, who is also an executive producer on the show.

“I think it’s brilliant.”

The Queen was invited to the set and later to meet some of ITV’s biggest names at a reception to mark the broadcaster’s 70th year.

Camilla commended ITV and said she is its “greatest fan”.

“As your greatest fan, I’d like to say a very, very happy 70th birthday to all of you,” she told a room full of ITV broadcasters, reality stars and executives.

“I’m a little bit older and I do remember ITV starting on those very early televisions.

“But I do remember the excitement of suddenly having another channel to watch, and how you’ve gone from there, how much you’ve appealed to the nation, it’s absolutely brilliant.

“So I hope for the next 70 years you’ll go on getting bigger and better.”

Earlier, Paul Biddiss, military adviser on the set, showed Camilla the bomb suits, including a 30lb one.

“Some of the suits Vicky has worn have been 70lbs,” he said.

“You feel a bit like Mr Soft,” McClure joked.

The Queen was then taken into a production tent to watch the team in action while a scene was filmed.

McClure was seen running out of a bomb disposal vehicle and up some stairs before a director shouted “bang”.

Mark Robinson, a video special effects supervisor on set, told Camilla about how special effects would be added to the scene afterwards, including a bomb exploding on a balcony.

“It’s without a bang,” the Queen said.

“I was all ready for the bang.”

Camilla was visibly impressed by McClure’s acting and said: “She’s not only got that appallingly heavy suit on but also that backpack as well.”

With Mercurio, the Queen tried her hand at using the clapperboard.

As she snapped the clapper sticks shut, Camilla said: “Trigger Point, take one.”

She then met stars behind and in front of the cameras at ITV, including Brenda Blethyn, who starred in crime drama series Vera as Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope, and Monica Dolan, who played Jo Hamilton in Mr Bates Vs The Post Office.

Love Island star-turned-documentary maker Olivia Attwood told Camilla: “The wonderful team at ITV have looked after me for the last five years.”

Ellie Simmonds, retired Paralympic swimmer, told the Queen about her documentary Finding My Secret, covering her attempts to find her birth mother because she was adopted as a child.

Camilla met journalists at ITV, including Mary Nightingale, the broadcaster’s longest serving news presenter, and Charlene White.

Nightingale said she and the Queen chatted about the busy news agenda and how it has changed in the 35 years since she started.

“We were discussing as well how ITV News always tries to have a positive story at the end of the bulletin, just to lift people,” Nightingale said.

“And she said ‘Yes, I think that’s so important to have something positive, because otherwise it’s just all too depressing.’

“She’s (Camilla) very warm and interested and gives the impression that she’s engaged and actually watches the programme. It’s very nice.”

She met broadcasters on ITV’s daytime shows, including Good Morning Britain’s Susanna Reid, Lorraine Kelly, Dr Hilary Jones, Christine Lampard and Dermot O’Leary.

Seb Hutchinson, a commentator for women’s football, said he told the Queen about his role.

“She said the rise of the women’s game has been great to see and to see these faces you wouldn’t have known maybe a decade or so ago,” Hutchinson said.

After meeting everyone, the Queen cut a clapperboard-shaped cake and Dame Carolyn gave a speech to mark ITV’s 70th year after the broadcaster, the UK’s first commercial TV network, was launched in September 1955.

In a speech, the ITV chief executive commended the royal for her recent documentary Behind Closed Doors, in which Camilla spoke to survivors of domestic abuse.

“The documentary clearly showed your own commitment, your personal commitment, to raising awareness in your words of this heinous crime,” Dame Carolyn said.

The Queen earlier spoke to Eden Taylor-Draper and James Chase, actors who were in a domestic abuse storyline in Emmerdale.

Taylor-Draper said the Queen told her she had not seen Emmerdale before but began watching it to see the domestic abuse story unfold.

“We are incredibly proud of the strong relationship we have with the royal family,” Dame Carolyn said.