Well, that was surreal wasn’t it? Though not matching the opening of Beijing 2008 in terms of size, scope and regimented impressiveness, it’s hard not to be impressed by the spectacle that Danny Boyle directed. Managing to capture the eccentricity of the British people perfectly – I followed it but I wonder what some countries made of the imagery displayed – the opening ceremony was a tour de force, and tour de farce, through the UK’s history.
I have to say that I was distinctly unimpressed by the first ten minutes of the ceremony and felt that it was going to be a disappointment. Though the set of Glastonbury Tor and cast of hundreds was well composed, the forced acting and strange dad-dancing seemed vaguely embarrassing, topped up with Kenneth Branagh as Isambard Kingdom Brunel walking around with a slightly self-satisfied smile, far outliving the actual person’s lifespan as he continued walking around far into the 1960s.
I think, and this counted for a lot of it, that the sheer spectacle of all the elements building up and bustling would have been better experienced actually there but the television coverage certainly helped with the detail. That’s not to say the BBC should be in line for another Jubilee Thames procession drubbing. Aside from the questionable commentating, their coverage was flawless, it was just something that couldn’t be captured on that scale without being there.
However, as the history of Britain moved into the industrial revolution, with huge smoke-spewing chimneys bursting out of the ground, I was captured by the spectacle and as a map of the Thames began to be created, matched by groups of dancers and the pixels in the crowd making some impressive lighting effects it hit it up a notch. There was something a little bit disconcerting about the stutter-y video segments that bridged the gap between sections, an effect that was a little uncomfortable to view, and there was something a little Eurovision about them.
The forging of the rings, with the use of fireworks – which continued throughout, scattered among the various performances – was a fantastic visual site.
But the ceremony was soon to forget all these slight stumbling blocks with a rather creepy montage of children’s books and a celebration of the NHS, with a large model of Harry Potter baddy Voldermort towering over the stadium with many monsters running about and other famous characters such as Chitty Chitty’s ‘The Child-catcher’ causing chaos, before being stopped by an army of Mary Poppins. Quite scary for an opening ceremony.
But it was what came up next that became the highlight of the ceremony for me. Against a backdrop of unanimously positive praise on Twitter – amongst lots of humour from commentators and much vitriole towards MP Aidan Burley who became the figure of hate last night as he made some very misjudged comments towards the multiculturalism of the, er, 204-country-inclusive Olympics – came some of the best scenes.
Only in Britain would our head of state agree to appear in a VT with Daniel Craig as James Bond that would then imply she has parachuted into the venue in an inspired piece of recorded and then live footage. I’ve found similar things in the past very distasteful, such as Tony Blair’s cringe-worthy appearance alongside Catherine Tate, and on paper this seems disrespectful, but was hilarious and kudos to the Queen for doing it. The only thing that annoyed me was that the scenes in the helicopter were clearly shot during the day but the ceremony was at night.
As well as this we got the hilarious Rowan Atkinson as Mr Bean giving us a small sketch as he performed along to ‘Chariots of Fire’ including a simple, but witty, VT that captured the popular worldwide character perfectly.
Chuck in a well made trip through the eras set against a love story (sadly it didn’t cover more realistic topics of knife crime and teenage pregnancy!) with a great range of music and dances over the ages, plus many movies and television series shown via large projections, plus a cheeky appearance by the sound of the TARDIS during Bohemian Rhapsody, which was a well made nod towards the David Tennant episode set at the opening ceremony, but sadly no TARDIS or Who actor was to be seen.
As for representation, it could be argued that the history was cherry-picked. For every celebration of our successes such as the internet – hello, Sir Tim Berners Lee, our industrial revolution and other acts, there was no mention of the less palatable parts of our history such as slavery and the empire and such like, but it’s understandable why these were avoided and in any case if this similar theme would have been done in China four years ago how much would that secretive and restricted state paint out of their history?
After this cavalcade of historical recreations we got the lengthy and, frankly, tedious walk-on by all 204 country teams, only made bearable by the now useful commentary from the BBC presenters – their earlier commentary was mostly unnecessary and intrusive – and the range of jokes on Twitter, courtesy of Danny Wallace and his followers who took the joke of the Fiji team coming onto the ‘Bee Gees’ and ran with it with some great further rhyming bands (Malaysia to Erasure, Kenya to Enya etc), the people that noticed that Trevor Nelson and Aidan Burley’s Wikipedia pages had been edited cheekily to reflect their issues on the night, and other witty comments.
Though the closing of the ceremony wasn’t as impressive as its first bit, the sight of people in bird-costumes on bikes and an ET moment of one flying, plus David Beckham’s appearance on a motorboat with the flame were good. Though a lot were disgruntled about the eventual choice of the cauldron-lighters – seven upcoming young athletes – I thought it worked well and the cauldron, made up of the 204 pots brought on by the compositing teams, moving smoothly to form one massive cauldron – was beautifully done and a fantastic design choice. It’s just a shame that Boyle didn’t learn from the lacklustre performance of Paul McCartney at the Jubilee Concert and kept in him closing it with ‘Hey Jude’ which, in his defence did get the crowd engaged and singing along, but his voice isn’t how it was.
Overall I think Danny Boyle made us proud to be British with his opening ceremony. Though it had its questionable moments with some dodgy dancing and a not particularly exciting opening ten minutes, it soon found its footing and brought us some impressive shifting landscapes, great comedy and inspired VTs that really captured the mood of the British. Throw in a great soundtrack from Underworld – bolstered by some excellent live segments from the haunting beautifully ‘Tubular Bells’ by Mike Oldfield, to a two-song set from the Arctic Monkeys and a great moment-capturing piece by the Two Door Cinema Club.
The elements with Mr Bean, Bond and the Queen are quite rightfully being talked about even twelve hours on. Though the parade of teams was long and boring – can someone install a travelator next year? – the rest captured the spirit of the country perfectly and celebrated everything great about the British, nailing the humour with everything from our TV shows to that Michael Fish incident, whilst not forgetting the moments of power and emotion such as the Suffragette movement, how lucky we are to have the NHS, and also memorials to those who fought and died in the world wars, and in more recent tragedies such as 7/7. The dancers with the sand was a subdued but perfectly captured moment.
To put a cliché out there, it was a night to make you feel proud to be British even if the ceremony did perhaps paint a more ideal picture of the kingdom than we really have, although it did make me appreciate what a great country this is to live in. It certainly captured the eccentricity though, and the we-don’t-care-what-people-think attitude.
I don’t think we could have asked for a better opening ceremony that, though not having the huge scale of the Beijing one, had much more heart, humour and surreal scenes as opposed to robotic brilliance, alongside so much great music and, as many have noted, scenes such as a lesbian kiss that would never, even been seen in other countries, creating something that, helped by its later showing, does make you feel like it was all a weird dream.
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