2012 Olympiad Opening Ceremony

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!!!