King Charles and Queen Camilla arrive at the Commonwealth Games ceremony... in a TARDIS

By REBECCA ENGLISH, ROYAL EDITOR and GETHIN HICKS, REPORTER Published: 20:08, 23 July 2026 | Updated: 20:29, 23 July 2026 It’s apparently as Scottish as Tunnock's Tea Cakes, Nessie and Edinburgh Castle. And if there was a little puzzlement over the decision to have the King and Queen arrive to open tonight's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in the TARDIS, everyone was just going along with the flow. In fact, palace aides were keen to stress, there was very good reason to feature the travelling time machine made famous by the BBC’s Doctor Who as an ‘icon of Scotland’: the long-running series has featured many Scottish ‘Doctors’ (namely Sylvester McCoy, David Tennant, Peter Capaldi and Ncuti Gatwa); it is based on a police box designed by Scottish architect Gilbert Mackenzie; moreover Glasgow boasts more surviving original UK police boxes than any other city. Oh, and for the real ‘Whovian’ nerds, The Doctor holds a degree in medicine from the University of Glasgow (as well as another from the Prydonian Academy on his home plant of Gallifrey). A three and a half minute film shown at the start of the opening ceremony at the Hydro Arena showed the TARDIS going on a journey around Scotland, operated by national treasure Sir Chris Hoy and Scottish actor Greg McHugh. The pair were seen walking through Glasgow when the phone on one of the city’s landmark police boxes started ringing, prompting the men to answer. A conversation with ‘the palace’ followed about ways in which to hurriedly get Their Majesties from Balmoral, the Royal Family’s private Aberdeenshire home, to Glasgow in time for the ceremony. After arguing about which one of them was qualified to ‘drive’, they stepped into the contraption and took off - much to the confusion of the Seventh Doctor, McCoy, who had apparently parked it there. King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived at the Commonwealth Games in a TARDIS The King gazed out into the crowd after stepping out of the phone box from Doctor Who Charles and Camilla were later greeted by Scottish cyclist Sir Chris Hoy The King and Queen were led to the Royal Box, where they took a seat next to Andy Burnham Camilla and Burnham appeared in good spirits as the ceremony at the OVO Hydro Arena got underway During a chaotic journey though time and space, the TARDIS materialised at a number of famous landmarks - including Loch Ness, Edinburgh Castle, The Kelpies in Falkirk, the University of Glasgow, the Victorian Glenfinnan Viaduct and a Jurassic period Highlands - before finally alighting at Balmoral Castle. Thanks to the marvels of technological wizardry, two figures were then briefly glimpsed in the shadows boarding the Time Machine. To the sounds of the legendary Doctor Who soundtrack, the TARDIS was then seen approaching the arena before the stage lit up and it landed, with the King and Queen stepping out with a cheery wave. Charles, wearing a navy suit and a pink tie, was followed by Camilla, wearing a vibrant blue dress. The royal couple then walked along the stage, followed by kilt-clad Hoy and McHugh, before taking their seats alongside Prime Minister Andy Burnham in the Royal Box.  Camilla and the newly-inducted Labour leader appeared in good spirits as they were filmed enjoying conversation as the ceremony got underway.  ‘Hopefully there was no travel sickness,’ a royal insider said knowingly in reference to Queen Camilla's well-known lack of enthusiasm for flying at the best of times, let alone in a spinning extraterrestrial Time Machine.  Charles and Camilla arrived in Glasgow earlier today, with the King set to read aloud a message later tonight which he placed inside his Baton back in March 2025. That Baton has since to travelled to each of the 75 Commonwealth Nations over the course of 500 days. This summer marks the second time that the Commonwealth Games have been held in Scotland, after the nation stepped in to take over hosting duties from the state of Victoria in Australia. Organisers in the southern hemisphere pulled out in July 2023, citing spiralling costs, a little more than a year after agreeing to host. Victoria's auditor general had dubbed the Games a 'waste of taxpayer money with no discernible benefit'.  The spectacle in Glasgow will, therefore, be scaled down due to the significant lack of preparation time.   The number of events being held has plunged from 20 to just 10 (including cycling, swimming and basketball), and although 3,000 athletes from 74 nations and territories will take part, this is 2,000 fewer than normal. No new stadiums have been built as running costs have been slashed from the close to £800 million spent in Birmingham four years ago, to £160 million now. And, for the first time since 1954, the BBC will not be airing the games after TNT Sports splashed out £5million to secure the rights. Live coverage will be on HBO Max at a cost of £4.99, although daily highlights can be seen on Channel 5. The athletics events will be held in the significantly smaller Scotstoun Stadium, which holds just over 10,000 people and tickets sales are said to have been generally sluggish.   Organisers were said to have been hoping for a late surge in sales as recently as this morning, when seats worth between £45 and £95 for tonight's opening ceremony were yet to have been snapped up.  It was 12 years ago that Glasgow last hosted the Commonwealth Games. The opening ceremony that summer was held at the 60,000-capacity Celtic Park and featured Rod Stewart, Ewan McGregor and John Barrowman.  This year's venue for the opener, at Glasgow's OVO Hydro, is significantly smaller, holding a little more than 14,000 people.  Only 500,000 tickets have been made available for the 11-day event, down from the 1.2million which went on sale in 2014.