Breaking barriers: Roger Bannister |
TONIGHT’S London 2012 Opening Ceremony gets underway at 9pm
in Great Britain – 10pm in South Africa – with Danny Boyle’s lavish £27m production shrouded in secrecy.
Despite numerous rehearsals each witnessed by 60,000 people, the great event – and the identity of the torch-lighter – has been kept under wraps with
those in the know proudly tweeting coded references with the hash-tag #keepthesurprise.
But utter secrecy cannot be ensured in the modern age of
social networking when gossip crosses oceans faster than it used to cross the
street. Especially when you have hundreds of nurses involved.
What we can say is that the ceremony will be packed with British
cultural references which will completely bemuse those in South Africa and
beyond.
There will be no jet-packed Ironman from Los Angeles 1984,
nor the wall-running Superman from Beijing, the superheroes on show feature
James Bond and Mary Poppins - though the visual effects from the superb South
African 2010 World Cup opening will come in to play.
The production will start with Boyle, something of an
anti-estblishment figure, dressing up the 65,000 capacity Stratford Stadium as
England’s “green and pleasant land”. The grass and oak tree, plus traditional
English rain clouds, are already in place. A 27-ton bell will get proceedings
underway just hours after Big Ben five miles away bonged for ages to herald the
games’ arrival.
We will see 12 horses, three cows, 70 sheep, three sheepdogs
and a horse-drawn plough if the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals doesn’t get involved. Despite rumours from New Zealand, the wooly,
four-legged types won’t actually be competing in the 30th edition of
the modern Olympiad.
The “green and pleasant bit” also features families having
picnics, milkmaids and, ironically considering it's not an Olympic event, a village cricket game with players in caps and braces.
All this will please the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge,
Prince Harry, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of
Cornwall not to mention another 120 world leaders including Michelle Obama, Americans' first lady.
We were expecting to see invasions from horn-helmeted
Scandinavian Vikings and Romans as Boyle takes us rapidly through a pastiche of
British history… culminating in the 17th Century Industrial
Revolution. All the while, expect to see pretty young things dancing around the
traditional pagan maypole with ribbons.
At one end of the stadium we’ll see an oak tree on a hill representing
the history Glastonbury Tor, at the other end, something from Last Night of the
Proms with musical backing featuring The Jam’s Going Underground and Vangelis’s
classic sporting anthem, Chariots of Fire.
The transition from medieval Shakespeare (some of the early
bits are based on a passage called Isles of Wonder from The Tempest) to
Frankensteinian dark Satanic mills will shake up the crowd as we hit modern
times, the bit the Conservatives in the current UK coalition government are
most worried about.
At this point, expect labouring weavers, miners, steel
workers and engineers backed by Lionel Bart’s Food Glorious Food, the Rolling
Stones’ Satisfaction, and the Sex Pistols’ Pretty Vacant. Yes, the Sex Pistols.
Punk rock, remember that?
The final segment revolves around two young girls going “out
on the town” for a traditional Saturday night together. An army of real
nurses – who have been rehearsing in a “Guantanamo-style” facility in dodgy
Dagenham down the road – will lead a celebration of Britain’s National Health
Service.
Then the iconic British references hit us hard and fast. Paul
McCartney will sing “Hey Jude”, the great Beatles hit from the 60s, then the equally ancient pop group Mud will blast out Tiger Feet.
Expect to hear Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the
late Amy Winehouse’s Valerie. And then witness “about 40” Mary Poppins figures,
using umbrellas for parachutes, drop in to take on Harry Potter’s evil enemy
Voldemort. Daniel Craig, who will be in the stadium, has pre-recorded a James
Bond sequence for the Olympics, though there are some who believe David Beckham
will leap out of the Bond-style helicopter live in the stadium.
The torch-lighting itself – which I believe will be carried
about by Sir Roger Bannister, the 83-year-old who first broke the four-minute
barrier for the mile in 1957 – involves a complex “fuse” mechanism which will burn a path along the hoardings to the
permanent flame, which will be housed on the rim of the stadium roof at
Stratford for the duration of both the Olympics and Paralympics for the next
month.
Bookmakers stopped taking bets on Bannister blazing his octogenarian
trail, though Queen Elizabeth II, King David of Los Angeles, decathlete Daley
Thompson and Britain’s most successful ever Olympian Sir Steve Redgrave are
also hovering hopefully with those boxes of very long matches.
And then, finally, the athletes enter. Caster Semenya will
carry the flag for South Africa and Maria Sharapova will lead Russia as the 205
nations and most of their 100,000 athletes are encouraged to move swiftly around
the track by a high-tempo march by Underworld, who featured on Boyle’s
Trainspotting soundtrack. They've been politely asked NOT to delay proceedings by over-use of smart phones. Greece will lead the nations in, then everyone will be in alphabetical order until the hosts, Great Britain, enter last.
And, apart from a couple of speeches from International Olympic
Committee president Jacques Rogge and London 2012 chairman Seb Coe, will be
that.
The real start of the Olympics, the winning of the first
goal medal, will take place tomorrow on The Mall, where the men’s roadrace ends
after 250km involving multiple climbs of Boxhill in Surrey. Among the
favourites? Mark Cavendish of Great Britain and Darryl Impey of South Africa,
both fresh from the Tour de France.
Let the Games begin!
Just to update after a fascinating opening night in Stratford: no single individual lit the flame, seven nominated youngsters did the business. Subsequent criticism from Conservative MP Aidan Burley and media mogul Rupert Murdoch suggested Danny Boyle's effort was "too politically correct" but to my mind the way Britain showed off its multiculturalism was the best bit.
ReplyDeleteOh, and first medal of the Games went to China in the 10m Air Rifle.