experts comments on the Olympic ceremony
experts comments on the Olympic ceremony :from the use of music, dance, humour, choreography,the spectacle,& history,
Harvey Goldsmith: producer of both Live Aid and Live 8. His latest show, Forever Crazy, opens in London in September (www.forevercrazy.co.uk)
spectacle
‘ I don't think the experience at home will have matched the atmosphere in the stadium on Friday.
Danny Boyle had such a large cast, he turned the stadium into an epic movie set. It was a people’s event. It was certainly well rehearsed. Technically, the show was a triumph. As a pocket history of England, reminding the world that we started the industrial revolution, it really worked.
The structure is incredible, and the idea using aspiring athletes to light the Flame – all 200 different little flames
Harvey Goldsmith: producer of both Live Aid and Live 8. His latest show, Forever Crazy, opens in London in September (www.forevercrazy.co.uk)
spectacle
‘ I don't think the experience at home will have matched the atmosphere in the stadium on Friday.
Danny Boyle had such a large cast, he turned the stadium into an epic movie set. It was a people’s event. It was certainly well rehearsed. Technically, the show was a triumph. As a pocket history of England, reminding the world that we started the industrial revolution, it really worked.
The structure is incredible, and the idea using aspiring athletes to light the Flame – all 200 different little flames
Arlene Phillips :
Choreography
Danny Boyle’s interpretation was extremely theatrical – the most theatrical I have seen – with lots of story-telling, and that story-telling was in no way lost in a stadium. It really was a theatre of wonder.
But Danny Boyle’s show was a masterpiece. In terms of expressing what it is like to live in Britain today – and our rich past – it was superb.
David Quantick: has written for Harry Hill’s TV Burp, and is hosting The Blagger’s Guide to the Games on Radio 2, Thursdays at 9.30pm
Danny Boyle’s interpretation was extremely theatrical – the most theatrical I have seen – with lots of story-telling, and that story-telling was in no way lost in a stadium. It really was a theatre of wonder.
But Danny Boyle’s show was a masterpiece. In terms of expressing what it is like to live in Britain today – and our rich past – it was superb.
David Quantick: has written for Harry Hill’s TV Burp, and is hosting The Blagger’s Guide to the Games on Radio 2, Thursdays at 9.30pm
The humour
It is very hard to be funny in a stadium – ask any stand up. Harder still when your audience are multifarious and multinational.
Despite this, the event continued in a wonderful vein, full of imagination with very British humour. It was, all in all, an extremely British, and Britishly funny, Opening Ceremony. Even the Queen must have been tickled.
It is very hard to be funny in a stadium – ask any stand up. Harder still when your audience are multifarious and multinational.
Despite this, the event continued in a wonderful vein, full of imagination with very British humour. It was, all in all, an extremely British, and Britishly funny, Opening Ceremony. Even the Queen must have been tickled.
Mick Brown
The music
Not easy for Danny Boyle to plan a programme representing the ‘best of British’, from the agrarian to the technological age, that runs from the Eton Boating Song to Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Bonkers’, and that pushes all the right emotional buttons.
On balance, it was a breathless and brilliant ramble through the last 100 years of British music – more than 80 song fragments in as many minutes, excluding the generic anthemic-music-by-the-yard that accompanied many of the set pieces. Or, perhaps one should say more accurately, a breathless and amiable ramble through Danny Boyle’s record collection.
Prof Mary Beard: is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge
The music
Not easy for Danny Boyle to plan a programme representing the ‘best of British’, from the agrarian to the technological age, that runs from the Eton Boating Song to Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Bonkers’, and that pushes all the right emotional buttons.
On balance, it was a breathless and brilliant ramble through the last 100 years of British music – more than 80 song fragments in as many minutes, excluding the generic anthemic-music-by-the-yard that accompanied many of the set pieces. Or, perhaps one should say more accurately, a breathless and amiable ramble through Danny Boyle’s record collection.
Prof Mary Beard: is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge
The history
Strikingly, Danny Boyle actually showed us that we are proud to be British.
It recognised all kinds of things that people care about - from Amy Winehouse to CND marches – and it let them into the story as symbols that can stand for Britain, and have played their own part in shaping our history. It was a really alert reading of what matters to people in Britain today - from JK Rowling to the NHS - and because of that Boyle managed to inspire pride where finger-wagging governments have failed.
He was able to play with the great symbols of Britain in a way that was both ironic and supportive; that takes a special gift. There are many different sorts and styles of histories. This wasn't a competition with the Jubilee, which brought us pomp and majesty, this was something different: the people's story
Strikingly, Danny Boyle actually showed us that we are proud to be British.
It recognised all kinds of things that people care about - from Amy Winehouse to CND marches – and it let them into the story as symbols that can stand for Britain, and have played their own part in shaping our history. It was a really alert reading of what matters to people in Britain today - from JK Rowling to the NHS - and because of that Boyle managed to inspire pride where finger-wagging governments have failed.
He was able to play with the great symbols of Britain in a way that was both ironic and supportive; that takes a special gift. There are many different sorts and styles of histories. This wasn't a competition with the Jubilee, which brought us pomp and majesty, this was something different: the people's story
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