Danny Boyle’s Neverland

Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony for the London 2012 olympics was a triumph. An absolute triumph. I would normally hesitate to lavish such uncritical praise in public, but the potential to get this wrong was so strong, such a whirlpool of possible failure, that to steer such a certain and confident course deserves nothing less than praise.

A week ago I lamented a games that seemed to have become to corporate, that had sold out, and become a parady of the values it claimed to represent. Last night Danny Boyle tore control of the event back from the politicians and the PR men, and reminded the country that the Games were still at least 93% ours.

Made in satanic mills

Response to the ceremony has been a bit mixed. The UK press called the show wondrous and compelling, most of the international press seemed to like it too, but perhaps for the wrong reasons, highlighting its quirky and self-deprecating nature. The US press seemed to find it all a bit perculiar, although from the sounds of it a terrible NBC presentation with inane commentary did a lot of damage. And of course in the UK MP Aidan Burley made himself appear like an obnoxious toad by bemoaning “all the multicultural crap” before getting the first gold medal of the games for back-pedalling furiously.

Perhaps the most thoughtful response was from Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist and social critic, who noted that the success was that a stadium extravaganza managed to tell a story “about individuals and humanity and true feelings; their passion, their hope, their struggle.”

Danny Boyle expressed this perfectly in his second act, showcasing the NHS – not as the unweildy imperfect system it naturally is, but as what it represents: a joint sense of value in human life, and a collective spirit that says that when we need it – and we will all eventually need it – we will care for and nurture one another.

And I think this personal truth is why people like Aidan Burley found the whole show so infuriating. Becuase it didnt pander to the UK’s ideas of what it was, or what it should be. Instead by focusing on real people and what they value, Danny Boyle expressed what the UK is. The tub-thumping little Englanders may not recognise it, but this is the marvelous place that we – in the broadest sense – have built together.

It was inventive, intelligent and articulate. William Blake wrote the draft script two hundred years ago, but it is Danny Boyle who has listened with an astute ear to what Britain has to say about itself today, and has steered his course accordingly.

Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning.

Update 15/8/2012 – Oh dear god, what a contrast the closing ceremony was. Superficial, inaccurate, and mediocre. Chris T-T calls it dangerously shit, and I cant help agreeing with him. Kim Gavin put together a lacklustre, weak-kneed and badly performed homage to stereotypes. Whereas Boyle was imaginative and honest, Gavin spoke only dull lies. The dailymash supposes that it was all the delusion of the most boring man in Britain, I can only wish to god we’d been allowed to watch the Blur concert instead. Awful.