Copyright @elmurphs on Instagram
So now the world has seen the Opening Ceremony I am no longer obliged to #savethesurprise, hence the picture from rehearsal. I watched the ceremony on Friday with a few other people in Hyde Park (more on that later) and all the emotion and joy at how brilliant the ceremony was came flooding back again. During the rehearsal when the Industrial Age started to take shape and the first chimneys started to raise from the ground, in an almost cartoon style, my mouth dropped open and I had to text my mum immediately with the only words I could find: "this is incredible".
Because I only saw Friday's ceremony on the big screen at Hyde Park (on tip-toes, looking between heads) it was difficult to tell just how well the transmission of the ceremony had come across on screen compared to live. As far as I am aware it did seem to lose some of the subtleties, for example at the rehearsal the pastoral scene was in front of us quite a long time so every nuance could be seen (cricketers miming hitting the ball high into the air and then all gazing into the sky to see where it had disappeared to, a crowd of ladies with umbrellas being attacked by a swarm of bees....). The sheer sound and scale was also hard to transmit, especially the power of the drums during the Industrial Age, which reverberated round the stadium with earthly force. Having said this it was still an unbelievable spectacle. 'Danny Boy' near the beginning and the pause for the World Wars during the Industrial Age, with its shift in tempo and music, were both moments that are likely to make me well up however many times I watch it.
Of course they had saved some surprises for the final showing. For example we did not get to see the Queen/James Bond video clip, though when the helicopter hovered above us followed by the James Bond theme tune we had some inkling of what may happen, though not the full story! We also didn't get to see Emeli Sande's breathtaking performance of Abide With Me. Which is probably lucky as I would have definitely been sniffling into my sleeve.
At rehearsal we also had to practice lifting a huge sheet of blue material over our heads, being pulled down from the back row of the tier to the front, covering the stadium in a sea of blue, intending to imitate.....well, the sea. I don't suffer from claustrophobia but I think that had that blue material been above me and as far as the eye could see for a second longer I might have had a panic attack. And then they didn't even show that bit in the live show! Apparently it did feature in the build-up- but not worth it for the trauma!
I was very impressed with stadium too, I had an excellent view and I loved the handheld panels of lights that not only created some great lighting effects on the night but were fun to wave around. Though I was pretty sure that most of them would be broken within about a week.
One final thought about the transmission on Friday.....could the BBC not have offered a no-commentary option?! I understand that commentary is able to give context and information about what is being portrayed but I do think that during the live show/Isles of Wonder bit it detracted from the spectacle and made it hard for viewers to really get lost in the show, in the same way as we did live. And I think enough has been said about Trevor Nelson.....
So there we are, a week of nearly exploding with excitement but I did #savethesurprise!
Copyright @elmurphs on Instagram
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