Queen Camilla is coming to TV screens across the nation this year in a forthcoming documentary exploring a lifelong passion of hers. The royal revealed on 25 March that she is set to star in a new BBC project that will delve into her and her late father Bruce Shand’s shared love of books.
Camilla announced the film during Wednesday’s Clarence House reception, which celebrated the fifth anniversary of her literary charity, The Queen’s Reading Room book club.
“I’m also delighted to announce that we have partnered with the BBC and Blink Films for a major new documentary that will showcase the life-transforming power of books – my father’s and my own experience included – for which the cameras are filming here today,” she told attendees, which included A-list actors Stanley Tucci and Sigourney Weaver, presenter Richard Osman, and award-winning novelist Sir Ben Okri.
Royal fans won’t have to wait too long for the documentary, with the film set to screen this autumn. The film, which will mark the National Year of Reading 2026 and be produced in partnership with The Open University, will delve into Camilla’s longtime passion for reading, going back to her childhood with her late father Bruce Shand, who was a decorated British army officer and passed away at the age of 89 in June 2006.
Camilla is expected to share memories of her late father and how his literary passion, which he passed on to her, was strengthened from his experience of being held at a German prisoner of war camp during World War II. The royal previously described her father as “probably the best-read man I’ve come across anywhere”.
Camilla’s reading initiative
Camilla has been a long-time advocate for literacy and first launched her online book club, The Queen’s Reading Room, during lockdown in January 2021. The initiative was then formally registered as a charity in February 2023 to promote reading across the UK, and has gone on to have a festival, podcast, and The Queen’s Reading Room Medal, which held its inaugural reception on 25 March.
© Getty ImagesDuring her speech at the reception, Camilla explained her charity was launched to share her “lifelong conviction that books make life better”. The royal and her husband, King Charles, met with the medal finalists who were recognised for championing reading in communities across the UK.
Author Selina Brown was named the National Reading Hero for her work founding the Black British Book Festival while Liz Waterland received the first Local Reading Hero medal for her volunteering contributions.
Camilla’s late father inspired her
© Getty ImagesCamilla’s late father instilled a love of reading in her and her siblings from a young age. “I think it certainly came from my father, he was probably the best-read man I’ve come across, anywhere. I mean, he devoured books,” Camilla said of her father’s early influence in a 2021 video for her online book club.
“And so he read to us, as children. He chose the books and we listened,” she said.
“And I think… the love of books was ingrained in us, because, you know, it was there from such an early age.” The royal previously described her father as a “brilliant storyteller” who “read to us each night and transported us into different worlds”.
Along with being an avid reader, Bruce wrote about his harrowing war experiences in a book published in 1990.
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