LONDON, July 28, (Agencies): Top that Rio. With the words “Good Evening, Mr Bond”, Queen Elizabeth launched her acting career and set the bar at a new high for Olympic opening ceremonies.
Danny Boyle, director of the Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire”, always said he could not match the huge budget that “House of Flying Daggers” director Zhang Yimou was given to deliver Beijing’s spectacular opening in 2008.

Instead, he piled on the British icons — JK Rowling reading from Peter Pan, Mr Bean mocking “Chariots of Fire” and soccer star David Beckham sweeping up the River Thames in a speedboat with the Olympic torch. For good measure, he threw in a dollop of Shakespeare and Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins ringing the world’s largest tuned bell.

But undoubtedly Boyle’s greatest coup was persuading the Queen to make her film debut at Buckingham Palace with Daniel Craig as a suavely attired James Bond. Even the Queen’s corgis got to play cameo roles.

The coup de theatre was delivered with real flair, and matched the wow factor of the jet-propelled rocket man roaring into the stadium at the start of the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. Both Danny Boyle and Zhang Yimou, as befits fast-paced film directors, showed a sharp eye for the spectacular on a grand scale.

Beijing began memorably with 2008 drummers pounding out a hypnotic beat that rumbled across the Bird’s Nest stadium like thunder, their red drumsticks glowing in the dark.

Scene
Boyle went for a more softly softly approach with an idyllic English countryside scene that oozed nostalgia. He then stepped up the pace in a dark portrayal of the Industrial Revolution, with giant chimney stacks belching out smoke across the stadium to an equally insistent drum beat.

The Guardian newspaper called it “madcap, surreal and moving.” The Independent said the show boasted “beautiful pace and superb imagery.”

Music has always been a crucial ingredient in an Olympic opening ceremony.

Sydney went for Olivia Newton-John. In Barcelona, the strains of Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe belting out “Barcelona” were everywhere. In Los Angeles, 84 pianists in white tie and tails launched into George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” It was pure kitsch.

Boyle topped them with Beatle Paul McCartney singing the show out with “Hey Jude.”

Britain went for a joint approach to lighting the Olympic cauldron, with seven young athletes bearing torches.

It may have lacked the emotional punch of Muhammad Ali lighting the torch in Atlanta in 1996 — and the London organisers invited him back to accompany the Olympic flag into the stadium on Friday.

Ravaged by Parkinson’s and a pale shadow of the champion who once floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee, Ali cut a poignant figure who will linger long in the memory of viewers — along with the sight of Queen Elizabeth with corgis and Bond in tow.

Exuberant
The exuberant show that Britain put on for the world on Friday was the culmination of months of rainy rehearsals by thousands of volunteers.

For some of the 7,500 amateur performers, preparing for the opening ceremony of the London Olympics demanded long, late commutes and personal expense — but it has generated memories expected to last a lifetime.

“As soon as I found out in January that this is what I was going to be doing, I put my life on hold. ‘For those three months I’m not doing anything, I’m not going anywhere’,” said Patricia Henley, a university researcher based in London who played one of hundreds of nurses dancing around hospital beds.
She began rehearsing in mid-April in a segment designed by artistic director Danny Boyle to pay tribute to the staff of the National Health Service. In total she and her group spent almost 150 hours perfecting their routine.

“It’s been really demanding,” said Matt Andrews, a volunteer actor from Leytonstone in east London.
“At the beginning I had doubts about whether I should do it because of the time needed. But my wife was really encouraging and said ‘No, you must do it, you’ll regret it if you don’t.’ And she was absolutely right,” Andrews said.

High spirits and camaraderie were on display in the last few hours before the performers entered the Olympic park to don their make-up and costumes.

“I’ve made some really great friends here, lifelong friends, and that’s what sums up the Olympics. For me, it’s Britain being really inclusive — so many people coming together from all walks of life and putting on this show,” Andrews said.

At one wet rehearsal earlier this month, some of the volunteers distributed song sheets and broke into a modified chorus of the Irish ballad “Danny Boy” that they had planned, using a secret Facebook group, to express their appreciation for Boyle.

“If he’s not made Sir Danny Boyle after this, I swear I will eat my hat... and my neighbour’s hat. It’s just amazing,” said Henley.

Cost
For some, participating in the ceremony has cost more than just weekends and evenings. Pam Hollyman, who has worked in the NHS for 32 years, said she had been commuting from her home in Chichester, southwest of London, at a total cost of up to 400 pounds ($630).

“I’d spend that much on a holiday, but this was worth it,” she said.

Others said they knew of people who had travelled to rehearsals from as far as Belfast in Northern Ireland and the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.

As the pace of rehearsals has picked up, culminating in two marathon half-day practice runs at the stadium earlier this week, so has the strain of such a huge commitment.

“I have had to rely on my family to hold the fort. These last few weeks have been tough for them. But it was worth it, they came up to see the ceremony rehearsal and they were blown away,” said Jess Hillicks, who travelled two hours by train and tube to get to the park.

“I feel really privileged to have been part of it. It’s a once in a lifetime experience. To be on stage and be part of something so global, and yet so personal — with it being hosted in Great Britain — that’s what made it worth it for me.”

Meanwhile, It’s not a concert, Danny Boyle stressed. It’s about the athletes.

In a very real way, though, the director of the Olympic opening ceremony was wrong.
While sports are the heart of the Olympics, music — loud, bold, world-conquering British music, amplified in the most global of settings — was the booming beat Friday night.

One of Boyle’s stated aims was to showcase “the best of us” — and ever since the Beatles and the Rolling Stones appropriated American blues, country and rock and remade them into something new, the best of British has been music.

Music ran like a river through Boyle’s “Isles of Wonder” extravaganza, which depicted a Britain brutally wrenched from its rural past by industrialization and upheaval before being thrust into a fast, uncertain, exciting new world — all propelled by the throb of homegrown music.

It began gently, with Edward Elgar, the hymn “Jerusalem” and “Danny Boy” — but soon started to rock.
Olympic ceremonies often play it safe. But Boyle, who brought in the electronic duo Underworld as musical directors, gave his show a cheeky edge. The Sex Pistols, once the outrageous face of punk, were included with their song “Pretty Vacant.” Boyle even slipped in a few bars of the Pistols’ snarling “God Save the Queen” (“the fascist regime”) early on — although he respectfully did it before Queen Elizabeth II herself had entered the stadium.

Fashion designer Wayne Hemingway said including the Pistols was typical of Boyle’s “wit and guts.”