So, that was Danny Boyle’s
Olympiad Opening Ceremony- a spectacle, indeed.
In parts a Cecil B. DeMille extravaganza with casts of thousands milling
about – sheep, bairns ‘n’beds, nurses, whacky dancers ….oh and some indefinable,
floating white blobs.
There were excerpts which were genuinely
stunning: the Olympic flame being ignited, the firework display, Dame Evelyn
Glennie drumming her socks off and Emeli Sande’s haunting ‘Abide With Me’ –
truly wonderful. The Arctic Monkeys did a great set – yay! – but did Sir Paul
have really duff sound equipment or is
his voice that reedy and piping?
Now I know that at such events the Basil
Fawlty ‘Don’t Mention the War’ policy holds but glimpses of the poppy, as well
as of the Suffragettes and the Pearly Kings and Queens were so irritatingly
brief and elliptic that they must have puzzled most non-Brits. If they’re
in, then give them the significance they deserve.
The Industrial Revolution was done to death
- there was a nod in the direction of Technology, but couldn’t there
have been a more imaginative representation than simply having Tim Berners-Lee
sitting at a pc? And what of the Science domain? DNA structure research and the
cloning of Dear Dolly didn’t get a look in. There was overkill on the show-biz /entertainment
side – and best not to say anything about the Mr Has-Bean scenes!
But, to paraphrase part of the Londonderry
Air, ‘Oh Danny Boyle, the pipes, the pipes….. where were they?’ Not a single
bag-piper, harpist, penny-whistler; there was skipping round the Maypole but no
Morris or Highland dancing. And there was a time when our National Health
Service was well worthy of praise, but now, as Britain is negotiating with
foreign, private medical services to pick up its surgery backlog, that seems no
longer the case.
I did feel the ceremony was over-egged with political
correctness: we don’t honour someone by putting them in the spotlight when they
are well past their prime. It is best to afford them the dignity of our remembering
them at the peak of their careers, as they were in their greatness. I don’t
know why Mohammed Ali was there and he didn’t even seem to know where he
was – so, what was the point? Chutzzpah put it beautifully in a twitter:
‘I think it needed a few more
white people to be truly multi-cultural.’
So, I’m really looking forward to
the Closing Ceremony- we simply have to have an ‘Auld Lang Syne’ tribute, okay?
Boyle’s opening ceremony had a
tremendous positive aspect, however: it reminded me just how globally
accessible, nationally all-embracing and culturally cohesive the 2004 Opening
Ceremony was – go Greeks!!!
