After months of anticipation from normal folk and moaning about the cost from eejits who are never happy unless they’re moaning, it’s finally here. No, not the Second Coming but London 2012!
Friday night saw the Opening Ceremony of this year’s Olympic Games helmed by Oscar-winning film director, Danny Boyle and what a spectacle it was! At one stage I commented to a friend that it was like the television was on acid but being really really polite about it!
In the run up to the ceremony, we’d heard rumours of the use of livestock as well as the rather more traditional use of flashing images and strobe lighting and those rumours turned out to indeed be true. Looking more like a scene from Tolkien’s LOTR than an Edinburgh crack den, (a setting we may well more associate Boyle with after his 1996 hit, Trainspotting) it began. Kicking off with a few classical compositions (the names of which escape me, not being a fan of the genre), it fell to Sir Kenneth Branagh dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel delivering a speech from Shakespeare’s The Tempest to really rouse the crowd. Following on from this, there was a scene depicting the Industrial Revolution before staff from Great Ormond Street Hospital lead a dance routine with the obligatory gaggle of nippers which was a slightly drawn out way of bringing attention to the NHS.
After this, the ceremony rather descended into chaos, it was in part reminiscent of the closing credits scene from Boyle’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. However, this is by no way a criticism as we were treated to a string of hits to prop up more modern subjects like Social Networking and Text Messaging. The whole shebang culminated in a sombre yet brilliant performance of ‘Abide With Me’ from Emeli Sande before it was time to welcome the countries. This was a wee bit dull but was unavoidable and there was worse to come. After Team GB appeared last as the host country, there was a performance from Arctic Monkeys. I have absolutely no idea why but there you go. Given that Muse have done the official song for London 2012, it would have made more sense to me to have them performing but who am I to question Seb Coe and er, co?!
The lighting of the torch was a very impressive affair. David Beckham delivering the torch to Sir Steve Redgrave before half a dozen young athletes nominated by various Olympians lit the flame.
The evening drew to a close with a dreadful performance from a man who really needs to stay indoors now. Sir Paul McCartney. He can’t sing anymore and if I was him, I’d be looking for compensation from my surgeon!
Aside from a few ill-advised moments, Danny Boyle created an Opening Ceremony for the people, which was a triumphant success!
