The Greatest Show on Earth

LONDON – A country once ruled by the continent’s mightiest kings, the root of the Industrial Revolution and home of playwright William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon the philosopher, James Bond and Harry Potter, will give the world a royal touch in launching the 30th Olympic Games Friday (Saturday in Manila) at the heart of the world’s biggest urban park.

Queen Elizabeth II, who celebrated her 60th jubilee as monarch, with Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, will declare the Games open at the close of a three-hour show before an expected cast of thousands – athletes and officials from 204 countries, from the humble nation of Nigeria in Africa to the emerging powers of the East and the established military and economic powers of the West – who have already gathered for the greatest show on earth.

Also on the guest list are US First Lady Michelle Obama and her daughters and a sprinkling of celebrity royalty.

At the strike of 9 local time, London will signal the start of ceremonies with the sound of a giant bell, the world’s largest harmonically-tuned ringing device weighing 46,000 kilos produced by the same company, the 422-year-old Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which constructed the 16-ton (35,200kg) Big Ben in 1856 and Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell in 1776.

The bell was crafted for a historic purpose but probably also with poetic reverence to the English philosopher-statesman, considered the “most powerful mind of modern times” who “rang the bell that called the wits together” and announced that Europe, in his time in the 19th century, had come of age.

In a show befitting a larger-than-life Broadway extravaganza, the rites of the 30th Games will be presented on a 15,000 square meter stage the size of 12 Olympic-size swimming pools. It has a flying system that can lift five elephants in a single swoop, can accommodate 12,596 props over 100 times a West End musical and boasts of a million-watt public address system whose maximum decibels can wake up the dead.

Despite efforts to keep the details of the show under wraps, eavesdroppers have leaked out information that provides glimpses of the grandeur of the night.

It is most likely that Daniel Craig, as secret agent James Bond, will perform through a stuntman who will parachute into the stadium to start the show, probably with the intro music of Ian Flemming’s films.

The opening scene reveals a meadow where real farmyard animals roam, reminding us of the green, green grass of Bucolic England before the emergence of the first locomotive which fostered trade and commerce, built cities and polluted the environment.

In the cast are 12 horses, three cows, two goats, 10 chickens, 10 ducks, nine geese, 70 sheep, and three sheep dogs. How these can perform according to the script is probably the artistic director Danny Boyle’s element of surprise.

According to the London Sunday Times, one section will feature characters from children’s fiction classics including “Alice in Wonderland” and “Peter Pan” – and a showdown between Lord Voldemort, the villain of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” books, and a horde of flying magical nannies based on Mary Poppins.

Boyle, a British film director, said music will play a key role, and has acquired the support of electronic duo Underworld, which has worked with him since his 1996 movie “Trainspotting.”

Music heard coming from the stadium in recent days ranges from “Jerusalem” to songs by The Beatles, The Who, the Sex Pistols, as well as Dizzee Rascal and Tinie Tempah, two homegrown stars forged in the gritty London environment that Boyle is celebrating.

A third act presents the new face of east London, where the Olympics is held. This place in East London was once an industrial wasteland of junks, filthy, contaminated soil and abandoned buildings – a 100-hectare ghost town or Smokey Mountain of sorts – which was transformed into the world’s greenest, biggest urban park in one of the biggest construction and regeneration programs ever undertaken in the UK’s post-war history.

The eavesdroppers say the show will depict the new parkland as a new, clean and green city, a creative heartland, which is now also home to many artists, designers and internet startups.

The final act features former Beatle Paul McCartney, who will lead the audience in a sing-along of “Hey Jude,” and will try to encourage a thousand voices to sing “take a sad song and make it better.”

The dramatis personae of the $42 million magnum opus whose title “Isles of Wonder” is inspired by Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, include 10,000 adult performers and 900 children aged 7-9 years and 11-13 chosen from the six host boroughs for a special sequence that celebrates Britain’s health care system.

Each of the four nations of the UK will be represented by their national flower – the rose of England, the thistle of Scotland, the daffodil of Wales and the flax from Northern Ireland.

Music from the Oscar winner “Chariots of Fire” will be a recurring theme throughout the Olympics, but Boyle promised his masterpiece will not delve merely on fantasy, camera tricks, history, concerts or virtual reality.

The reality show, the rumormongers insist, includes a real cloud which will be seeded so that rain will fall on the 80,000 seat, open stadium.

That makes Boyle’s creation as unpredictable as the London weather perhaps.

A second rehearsal of the grand show was open Wednesday (Thursday in Manila) to anybody who could cough up at least £75 (P5,200). A Philippine STAR columnist looking for a complimentary ticket was offered one at a scalper’s price while chef de mission Manny Lopez flatly turned down requests for tickets to the regular show.

“A single ticket is as rare as a drop of water in the desert,” he insisted.

The show will be beamed to over one billion households on five continents. Broadcast time in Manila is 2 a.m. Saturday via cable television.

OLYMPIC NOTES: The Olympic stadium took three years to build. It is reinforced by 10,000 tons of steel, making it 75 percent lighter than most other stadiums. Beijing’s Bird’s Nest, which staged the 2008 opening ceremonies, was made of 40,000 tons of steel which is twice stronger than ordinary steel…Eight thousand torchbearers traveled 8,000 miles (12,000km) to over 1,000 communities, villages, towns and cities to carry the Torch to its final destination in the Olympic Stadium where it will be lit to signal the start of the Games. The identity of the person honored to light the Olympic Flame remains a tightly-guarded secret.