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| At Buckingham Palace, a Dancing Guard Throws Decorum to the Wind | At Buckingham Palace, a Dancing Guard Throws Decorum to the Wind |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| The guards who stand sentry outside Buckingham Palace are the embodiment of decorum and regularity. Many British children have grown up with little dolls of them in their sentry boxes (I was one). Innumerable tourists over decades have watched them make their nobly pointless little marches to and fro between A and B. They are absurd, glorious, dependable, stiff-upper-lip, constant: They mean “There’ll always be an England.” | The guards who stand sentry outside Buckingham Palace are the embodiment of decorum and regularity. Many British children have grown up with little dolls of them in their sentry boxes (I was one). Innumerable tourists over decades have watched them make their nobly pointless little marches to and fro between A and B. They are absurd, glorious, dependable, stiff-upper-lip, constant: They mean “There’ll always be an England.” |
| Yet subversiveness has at last struck even these pillars of the establishment, or one of them. In late August, a clip was posted on YouTube of a guard tweaking the routine. During the three minutes and 23 seconds of footage, he is seen three times doing a few slow chaîné turns, and for this he has been hailed in British newspapers as the pirouetting guard. This feat alone — pirouettologists will note that he is a left-turner — makes him radical. | |
| But those turns also make him an adorable example of the absurdity that is so crucial in British humor. Keep watching the YouTube clip and you will see that this guard offers several other, subtler kinds of movement wit. Such is the formality of Guard behavior that it seems shocking when he simply bends to inspect a piece of gravel; but then he suddenly decelerates. It’s like the moment in Offenbach’s opera “The Tales of Hoffmann” when the doll soprano’s clockwork runs down, her voice descends, and she has to be wound up before she can resume singing. This guard, however, recovers his own clockwork in no time at all. | But those turns also make him an adorable example of the absurdity that is so crucial in British humor. Keep watching the YouTube clip and you will see that this guard offers several other, subtler kinds of movement wit. Such is the formality of Guard behavior that it seems shocking when he simply bends to inspect a piece of gravel; but then he suddenly decelerates. It’s like the moment in Offenbach’s opera “The Tales of Hoffmann” when the doll soprano’s clockwork runs down, her voice descends, and she has to be wound up before she can resume singing. This guard, however, recovers his own clockwork in no time at all. |
| One minute and 23 seconds in, after turning in front of his box, he extends an arm to hold the box’s edge. A boy’s voice — the YouTube clip is peppered with the giggles and flabbergasted comments of some English onlookers — says “Did he stroke his box?” Such things, as this child well knows, are simply never done. | One minute and 23 seconds in, after turning in front of his box, he extends an arm to hold the box’s edge. A boy’s voice — the YouTube clip is peppered with the giggles and flabbergasted comments of some English onlookers — says “Did he stroke his box?” Such things, as this child well knows, are simply never done. |
| But the priceless moment comes when he extends a front leg and holds it there for four full seconds. The to-and-fro march of the Buckingham Palace guards is full of little pauses anyway, but this marvelous performer has the dancer’s instinct of how to play with time, to prolong the passing moment. Because he does it within the ultra-solemn framework of the palace, the military action, and the time-honored ceremony, it becomes a stroke of astonishing humor. (One person in the audience applauds, and as the guard returns to his box he enlivens his gait with a newly jaunty little strut.) | But the priceless moment comes when he extends a front leg and holds it there for four full seconds. The to-and-fro march of the Buckingham Palace guards is full of little pauses anyway, but this marvelous performer has the dancer’s instinct of how to play with time, to prolong the passing moment. Because he does it within the ultra-solemn framework of the palace, the military action, and the time-honored ceremony, it becomes a stroke of astonishing humor. (One person in the audience applauds, and as the guard returns to his box he enlivens his gait with a newly jaunty little strut.) |
| The more you watch, the more enchanting the video becomes. There are other pauses, other variations of tempo. No wonder the British newspapers have been full of it. | The more you watch, the more enchanting the video becomes. There are other pauses, other variations of tempo. No wonder the British newspapers have been full of it. |
| A spokeswoman for the British Army, which oversees the guards, confirmed that the video was genuine, but discouraged speculation in the British news media that the jokester, who has not been identified, would be sent to a military jail. | A spokeswoman for the British Army, which oversees the guards, confirmed that the video was genuine, but discouraged speculation in the British news media that the jokester, who has not been identified, would be sent to a military jail. |
| “No decision has been made regarding disciplinary action, but it is highly unlikely that he would go to jail,” she said. More likely, he will be fined or lose certain privileges, or both, she said. | “No decision has been made regarding disciplinary action, but it is highly unlikely that he would go to jail,” she said. More likely, he will be fined or lose certain privileges, or both, she said. |
| It is to be hoped that the queen — whose working motto, according to the biographer Gyles Brandreth, is “go with the flow” — will be amused. Subversive play within the Guards at Buckingham Palace: Who’d have thunk it? | It is to be hoped that the queen — whose working motto, according to the biographer Gyles Brandreth, is “go with the flow” — will be amused. Subversive play within the Guards at Buckingham Palace: Who’d have thunk it? |