BANGLADESH NEWS
The eyes of the whole world will be fixated firmly on London tonight and the organising committee of the 30th Olympiad could hardly have picked a better man to whom they could hand the keys to direct the much-vaunted 'greatest show on earth'.
On early evidence (courtesy of two rehearsal screenings) Danny Boyle's three-act magnum opus, marvellously titled the 'Isle of Wonder' is a winner that will enthral audiences for the best part of its three-hour duration which starts at 2am Bangladesh time.
For most sports, opening ceremonies are a chore; a necessary distraction before people get down to the real business. For the Olympics, this is markedly different. Opening ceremonies often set the tone for rest of the Games -- consider Beijing's remarkable pyro-techniques that doubled as coming out party in 2008, consider too a shaking Muhammad Ali lighting the torch in Atlanta 1996, or the archer of fire in Barcelona in 1992. All of these are moments frozen into the collective psyche courtesy of a flashbulb memory -- wondrous, charming, and endlessly recallable.
London's challenge was to create something similar and so they turned to Boyle who is not only a master director, but, most crucially, versatile.
How else does one direct successfully, films as widely different as the rags to riches Slumdog Millionaire, the apocalyptic 28 Days Later and the dark comedy that is Trainspotting?
Perhaps it is this quality above all that had originally endeared him to the organisers. Who better to do a three-act mash-up of Britain's long and storied history? Who better to encompass the Queen, James Bond, Mary Poppins, the Beatles, the NHS, the green fields and quirky humour that characterise the British than Boyle himself?
For all successful shows, the key element is surprise. And Boyle has strived hard to maintain this surprise through the months spent in preparation and through the innovative plea in his two rehearsal shows at the Olympic Park on Monday and Wednesday. He asked the audience to 'save the surprise' and wrote personal e-mails to volunteers to keep mum.
But as always, some details seep through the cracks and the narrative that has emerged of the opening ceremony so far paints it in an eminently positive light.
The whole ceremony is based on William Shakespeare's brilliant play, The Tempest. The title in particular is borrowed from a stirring speech made by the native Caliban to his master Prospero. "Be not afraid," says Caliban, "for the isle is full of noises. Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not."
It is expected that the Isle in this case is Great Britain.
But Shakespeare is just the tip of the iceberg, as Boyle takes the viewers in a journey across Britain in three acts, the first depicting the lush green past of rural Britain complete with live animals, cricket games and horse drawn carts. The second act moves on to the dark days of Britain's Industrial Revolution, best highlighted in the Dickensian novels of those times. Boyle bases his version on a William Blakepoem, which refers to those “Dark Satanic Mills” as the root cause of the decaying of human relationship. The final act of Boyle's work will look at the Post-War transformation of Britain into the tolerant, multi-cultural society that it has become today with references expected to be as wide-ranging as the NHS and the Beatles. Fittingly then, Sir Paul McCartney will provide the coup de grace.
Britain's heaving past will be illustrated with choreographed danced moves and a dizzying array of stunts, the chief of which is expected to be James Bond abseiling into the stadium from a helicopter during the first act.
The opening ceremony will be followed by the traditional elements of the Olympic openings including pigeons, oaths and the athletes' march of 204 nations, which is expected to take about 90 minutes and is scored by Underworld, long associates of Boyle.
For now though, there are a few nervous hours of anticipation remaining until the show officially begins with this 27-million-pound extravaganza which will involve 15,000 performers, 25,000 costumes and an audience in the range of 4 billion -- 60 per cent of the world's population.
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