London 2012 Olympics: Danny Boyle’s Shakespeare theme for £81m opening ceremony
- Hollywood director Danny Boyle chooses Shakespeare theme for £81m opening spectacular
- 27-ton bell inspired by Shakespeare will form the centrepiece of £27m opening ceremony
- Hundreds of NHS nurses and schoolchildren will be involved in event
- 20,000 performers will take part in Olympic and Paralympic opening and closing ceremonies
By Emily Andrews
Last updated at 1:43 AM on 28th January 2012
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games will feature a performance by hundreds of nurses, it was revealed yesterday.
Artistic director Danny Boyle – the Oscar-winning director behind Slumdog Millionaire – said he wanted to celebrate everything that was ‘unique and special’ to the British Isles…including the National Health Service.
Europe’s biggest bell will be specially made to ring in the start of London 2012.
Our turn next: Mark Foster of the Great Britain Olympic men’s swim team carries his country’s flag to lead out the delegation during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics
The 27-ton bell will be a feat of engineering and twice the weight of Big Ben.
Mr Boyle said the ceremony will be called ‘Isles of Wonders’ after a speech in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest.
More than anything, he said, he wanted it to be a ‘people’s Games’ and to try to capture the very particular, and sometimes peculiar, British sense of humour.
A sense of humour that has, at times, been tested by the spiralling budget for the Olympic ceremonies – last month it doubled to £81million.
At the vast rehearsal studios in East London Mr Boyle gave a small glimpse of what 80,000 spectators and millions of TV viewers can expect on July 27.
The biggest ringing bell in Europe has been commissioned and will hang at one end of the stadium.
It will ‘ring in’ the start of the Games and will be inscribed with Caliban’s line from The Tempest ‘Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises’.
Shakespeare, NHS and schoolchildren will be at the centre of the Olympic Opening Ceremony display, Danny Boyle, pictured, revealed today
The half-man, half-monster Caliban is devoted to the island on which he lives – and Mr Boyle hopes to mirror that pride and patriotism in the ceremony.
Indeed he seemed to be rather keen on monsters – he said that last year’s production of Frankenstein at the National Theatre had allowed him to practise lots of ideas.
So perhaps we’ll see lots of prosthetics, green paint and pantomime costumes alongside runners from Kenya and gymnasts from Russia.
Another theme will be the cleansing and recovery of poisoned land – after the Olympic park site was cleaned of all its industrial pollutants.
Greatest show on earth: The spectacular Opening Ceremony in Beijing in the Bird’s Nest Stadium four years ago
One certainty is that there’ll be lots of flying – and flowers. A flying system that can lift 25 tons, the equivalent of five elephants, has been installed in the main stadium to enable some impressive aerial acrobatics.
‘EMPLOYERS UNPREPARED FOR GAMES ABSENCES’
Most employers have not drawn up plans for dealing with an expected surge in staff absence during the Olympics, months before the Games start, according to a report today.
A survey of 1,000 office workers by recruitment consultants Badenoch & Clark showed that two-thirds were employed in companies yet to draft a plan.
Among those who have agreed procedures in place, some said annual leave will be given on a first-come, first-served basis, while a small percentage have told staff they will not be allowed to take a break while the Games are held.
Employers in London are among those most likely not to have told their staff about holiday plans when the sporting event is held in the capital.
Nicola Linkleter, managing director at Badenoch & Clark, said: ‘Given the immense interest the London Olympic Games will create among workers, this is poor planning that could lead to employee discontent, confusion or threadbare cover.’
And Sebastian Coe, chairman of London 2012, dropped another hint by saying whenever he popped down to see rehearsals he kept tripping over buckets of flowers.
So it will be noisy, acrobatic, colourful and floral. What else?
Well, the only other confirmed part was that nurses will have a starring role in one ‘sequence’ as the NHS is one of the things that is ‘unique about us…along with our sense of humour’.
Featuring with them will be some 900 children from the six Olympic host boroughs who have been auditioning in recent weeks.
No details of performers were revealed – but again a hint that ‘everyone’ wants to take part. But we can expect the spectacular. And the unexpected.
Asked if the fear of technology going wrong had ensured they play safe, executive producer Stephen Daldry implied they would be pushing boundaries. He said: ‘The idea of jeopardy is one of the great fantastic tensions of the evening.’
Mr Boyle said only about a third of the budget would be spent on the opening ceremony, which was much less than the £65million the Chinese spent at Beijing 2008.
He said: ‘You are standing on the shoulders of giants when you do this kind of job. You cannot but live in the shadow of your predecessors.
Countdown: Sebastian Coe, Boris Johnson and David Cameron discuss the six-month countdown to the Olympic games in Davos yesterday
‘The spectacle of Beijing was just breathtaking. The sheer beauty of Athens is very inspiring but I have to say that Sydney has inspired us. It got the feel of a people’s Games right.
‘It is inevitable that people will compare us – and that is fine.
‘I think there is a sea change and we are lucky enough to be setting it. It will be spectacular but the reduction in scale is inevitable.’
London 2012 said it will release more details of the opening in the run-up to the Games to give people a flavour of what to expect.
Mr Boyle said he would have preferred to keep everything a ‘surprise’ but that was impossible when everyone ‘films everything on their mobiles’.
Estimates suggest the advertising spend during the ceremony, which will last three hours, could be worth £2billion globally.
‘LIKE 165 WEST END SHOWS AT THE SAME TIME’: FINAL PREPARATIONS FOR OLYMPIC OPENING AND CLOSING CEREMONIES
Staging the four showpiece opening and closing ceremonies for the London 2012 Games is ‘challenging, daunting but also incredibly exciting’, executive producer Stephen Daldry said today.
He described it as like putting on 165 West End shows at the same time.
Nurses, the biggest ringing bell in Europe inscribed with lines from Shakespeare, and children will be key features of the opening ceremony.
Here are some of the facts, figures and details behind the ceremonies.
For the Opening Ceremony there is:
- 15,000 square metres of staging – equivalent to 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
- A flying system that can lift 25 tonnes – that is the same as five elephants.
- There will be 12,956 props, which is more than 100 times more than used in a West End musical.
- A million-watt PA system using more than 500 speakers and 50 tonnes of associated sound gear – which is double the amount of speakers than on the main stage at Glastonbury.
- The design team have made enough scale model pieces to cover a 100m running track. Every performer has been represented by a plastic figurine.
- So far, 64 different supplier companies have been contracted to provide services and products.
- For all four opening and closing ceremonies there will be 25 containers full of scenery and props and 75 containers of costumes full of 23,000 costumes. Some cast members will wear more than one costume each.
- 15,000 volunteer cast across all four ceremonies. The people who have auditioned have been aged from 18 to 90 years old. They have come from across the UK and include people who watched the 1948 Games live, according to London 2012.
- A total of 12 hours of music working with an internationally renowned orchestra of around 60 musicians is part of the programme. Organisers will spend three months of recording time in the studio and spend 36 hours in dedicated drum tuition.
- The combined TV audiences for the four ceremonies is predicted to be more than four billion people. Sir Martin Sorrell has predicted that the equivalent airtime value of the four ceremonies will be worth between approximately £2bn and £5bn.
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Categories: News Tags: £81m, 2012, Boyle's, ceremony, Danny, London, Olympics, Opening, Shakespeare, Theme
New film claiming Shakespeare was a fraud sparks vigilante action as activists censor his name from signs in protest
- Playwright’s hometown targeted by protesters to show his influence on culture and society
- Director of Anonymous says there are many reasons to doubt the works of the Bard
- Scholars and celebrities get behind campaign to prove Shakespeare’s authenticity
By Claire Ellicott
Last updated at 3:39 AM on 26th October 2011
The conspiracy theories are as old as the plays themselves.
Was Shakespeare responsible for the greatest love – and revenge – stories ever told? Or was he merely the ‘barely literate frontman’ dreamt up to conceal the author’s true identity?
Whatever the truth, members of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust have taken the newest threat to the Bard’s reputation very seriously.
Scroll down to watch a trailer of the film Anonymous
Shakespeare’s name is being temporarily removed from pub and street signs to support a campaign against Hollywood film Anonymous, which claims the Bard did not write the material attributed to him
Yesterday, they removed and covered up his name from street and pub signs in a campaign against a new film seeking to portray the Bard as a cover for the Earl of Oxford.
Activists from the charity covered nine road signs, 16 pub signs and a large memorial in the playwright’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, in a bid to show what the country would be like without its greatest literary export.
The ‘guerrilla protest’ coincided with the premiere of the new Hollywood blockbuster ‘Anonymous’, which campaigners said was an attempt to ‘rewrite English culture’.
A portrait of William Shakespeare – but did the Earl of Oxford really write his plays for him?
The film, by Independence Day director Roland Emmerich, claims Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford – not William Shakespeare – wrote the plays.
Featuring a glittering cast including Rafe Spall as the Bard, Rhys Ifans as the Earl of Oxford and Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Elizabeth I, the film carries the tagline ‘Was Shakespeare a fraud?’
But the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust said it wanted to highlight the damaging impact of the ‘conspiracy theory’ in claiming Shakespeare was the ‘barely literate frontman for the Earl of Oxford’.
Protesters at the Gower Shakespeare Memorial in Stratford town centre yesterday used a cherry picker to drape a massive 98ft by 98ft (30m) white sheet over a statue of the playwright.
They also covered street and pub signs displaying the writer’s name with black tape.
Amy O’Toole, who organised the protests, said: ‘We really want to highlight the issue that William Shakespeare was the true author of his work.
‘Hundreds of people are getting behind us and we have Shakespeare pubs up and down the country from Brighton to Edinburgh getting involved.
Mark Hesher of the Shakespeare Inn, Welford on Avon, temporarily removes the Bard’s name from pub and street signs
Rafe Spall plays William Shakespeare in Anonymous (left) while Rhys Ifans portrays the Earl of Oxford (right)
‘It’s great to create a talking point around the Bard but ultimately we want to dispel these myths.’
Dr Paul Edmondson, head of knowledge and research at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, said: ‘This film flies in the face of a mass of historical fact.
‘There is a risk that people who have never questioned the authorship of Shakespeare’s works could be hoodwinked.
‘Shakespeare is at the core of England’s cultural and historical DNA, and he is certainly our most famous export.
Stephen Fry believes that William Shakespeare, a countryman, was the true author and has rubbished the film’s claims
‘Today’s activity barely scratches the surface, but we hope it will remind people of the enormous legacy we owe to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.’
However, Roland Emmerich, who also directed disaster movie ‘2012’, said: ‘To me there are many reasons to doubt the traditional attribution of the works of William Shakespeare to the man from Stratford.
‘The points that strike me most are his signatures – all poorly executed and hardly a sign of true penmanship.
‘His detailed will that famously mentioned his second ‘best bed’ but failed to mention that the man from Stratford had a literary career
‘And why did nobody notice the great poet’s death in 1616, which was followed by complete silence? Also his two daughters were illiterate.’
Scholars and celebrities, including the Prince of Wales and Stephen Fry, have also got behind the Trust’s campaign to prove Shakespeare’s authenticity.
The Prince of Wales claimed Shakespeare must have been of significant standing to know so much about his royal characters.
He said: ‘Shakespeare’s company performed before Queen Elizabeth three or four times a year and at least three times as often for King James.
‘It seems certain that Shakespeare and his king must have known each other well.’
Stephen Fry said: ‘There seems to be absolutely no doubt to anybody who reads Shakespeare and is familiar with the text that these are the works of a countryman.
‘This is a man who knows about kites and fields and is certainly not the work of an aristocrat. It just doesn’t ring true in any sense’
