It’s bigger on the inside.
The Royal Family tapped into British pop culture once again as King Charles III emerged from Doctor Who’s TARDIS to officially open the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Charles and Queen Camilla stepped out of the famous blue police box during Thursday’s opening ceremony at the Hydro arena, giving the Games a suitably strange entrance before the sport got underway.
The ceremony began with a filmed sequence showing the TARDIS travelling around Scotland, stopping at Loch Ness, the Kelpies and Edinburgh Castle before heading to Balmoral Castle to collect the royal couple.
It then materialised inside the arena, landing in an onstage garden. Charles and Camilla emerged, walked down a ramp and took their places in the royal box.
Charles later formally declared the 23rd Commonwealth Games open in his role as head of the Commonwealth.
More than 3,000 athletes from 74 nations and territories will compete across 10 sports and six Para sports during the 11-day event.
The Doctor Who entrance also continued a slightly odd royal tradition of using major sporting ceremonies to lean into Britain’s biggest fictional characters.
At the 2012 London Olympics, Queen Elizabeth II appeared in a pre-recorded sketch alongside Daniel Craig’s James Bond, before stunt doubles seemingly parachuted into the stadium from a helicopter.
Charles’ version involved less skydiving and more time travel, but the basic idea remained the same: when Britain hosts a major sporting event, apparently somebody from the Royal Family has to make an entrance through a television franchise.
