Bond, Bean and Queen star in Games opening

希望之星

ondon has dazzled the world with an opening ceremony that has celebrated not only sport but the essence of Britain.

James Bond actor Daniel Craig and Queen Elizabeth stole the show, appearing together in a short film beamed to 60,000 spectators in the main stadium and a billion viewers around the world.

Director Danny Boyle, who won an Oscar for his film Slumdog Millionaire, traced a path through the history of the nation, needing three acts, a little over four hours and the help of hundreds of performers.

In the tongue-in-cheek film, Craig wears his trademark tuxedo and enters Buckingham Palace. The 86-year-old monarch with two corgis at her feet and in her cinematic debut, turns from a writing desk and says simply: "Good evening, Mr Bond."

The moment drew a huge cheer from the audience, not used to seeing Her Majesty play such an informal part in proceedings, and coincides with a resurgence in the Royal family's popularity following the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Doubles of Bond and the Queen parachuted from a helicopter above the stadium, built on the Olympic Park in a once derelict area of London's East End, then schoolchildren sang the national anthem and the Union flag was raised.

The surreal footage and stunt had been kept a closely guarded secret in the build-up to the ceremony, which also included speeches, the athletes' parade and the lighting of the Olympic cauldron.

Over the following 17 days, the drama of sporting contest takes hold the length and breadth of Britain as more than 16,000 athletes from 204 countries aim to achieve their ultimate dream - Olympic gold.

The ceremony prompted the normally hard-to-please English press to put aside its recent criticism and make declarations such as "The Greatest Show" (The Times), "Britain at its Best" (The Daily Express), "Blast Off" (The Daily Mail) and "Golden Wonder" (The Sun).

The crowd was just as impressed with social media filled with positive comments.

Cauldron lit

Basketballer Lauren Jackson led the Australian contingent at the Olympic flag ceremony which featured thousands of athletes representing 205 nations parading around the Olympic arena.

The biggest cheer was saved for last as four-time Olympic cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy led the Great Britain team into the stadium.

Hoy, 36, also carried the Union Jack at the closing ceremony in Beijing four years ago.

The show culminated with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron, formed by several dozen 'copper petals' rising to meet as one flame in the centre of the stadium.

David Beckham drove a speedboat down the Thames to deliver the flame to rowing legend Sir Steven Redgrave who ran it into the stadium.

A peloton of seven young athletes representing the future of British athletics then carried the torch in a final relay around the track to bring its cross-continental journey to its end.

They each approached a massive set of copper petals gathered in the arena's centrepiece, surrounded by each of the nation's athletes.

Opening ceremony in numbers

Pieces of confetti dropped: 7,000,000,000

Watts in the public address system: 1,000,000

Garments used: 57,000

Recycled water bottles used in costumes:40,000

Square metres of staging: 15,000

Size of volunteer cast: 7,500

Square metres of turf used: 7,346

Props: 6,500

Drummers: 965

Dancers from the state-run National Health Service: 600

Hospital beds: 320

Kilometres of cable linking the pixel screens:317

Rehearsals: 284

Days in torch relay: 70

Languages spoken by children taking part: 50

Sheep: 40

Umbrellas: 32

Horses: 12

Cows: 3

Source: AFP

Once lit, the petals rose and joined together to form the cauldron.

The performance also differed from previous opening ceremonies in the way it embraced television and music, which included live gigs from rapper Dizzie Rascal, folk singer Frank Turner, indie rockers Arctic Monkeys and a finale by Sir Paul McCartney, who led the stadium in a singalong to Hey Jude.

Lord Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee, said it was the greatest moment of his life.

"To my fellow countrymen I say thank you. Thank you for making all this possible," he said.

"In the next two weeks we shall show all that has made London one of the great cities in the world.

"The only city to have welcomed the Games three times, each time we have done it the world's faced turbulence and trouble and each time the Games have been a triumph."

IOC president Jacques Rogge paid tribute to the organisers and the nation saying its formulation of sporting rules and regulations and its introduction of sport to education made it "the birthplace of modern sport".

"These Games will leave a lasting positive legacy outlasting the closing ceremony," he said.

He also praised the entire Olympic movement for a milestone that had been achieved.

"For the first time all the teams have female athletes and this is a major boost for gender equality," he said.

'Celebration of generosity'

Throughout the ceremony, a grassy knoll stood at the end of the stadium topped by a tree, directly opposite a 23-tonne bell, which Bradley Wiggins, Britain's winner of this year's Tour de France, rang to kick off proceedings.

In front of each was a "mosh pit" of people conjuring the spirit of the Glastonbury music festival and Last Night of the Proms classical concert.

Among the crowd were celebrities, ordinary Londoners, visitors from abroad and dignitaries including presidents, prime ministers and European royalty.

Boyle's colourful and sometimes chaotic vision aimed to create a kaleidoscope of what it means to be British, an approach that was expected to appeal to the home audience but leave many foreign viewers scratching their heads at times.

We hope the feeling of the show is a celebration of generosity. There's no better expression of that than these volunteers.

Opening ceremony director Danny Boyle

Boyle paid tribute to the 10,000 volunteers, cast and crew taking part in the ceremony.

"We hope the feeling of the show is a celebration of generosity," he said.

"There's no better expression of that than these volunteers."

With the cauldron lit and Games officially open, Sir Paul McCartney closed out the evening with a rousing rendition of The Beatles' staple Hey Jude.

Rural idyll

The ceremony, inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest and backed by rousing music from across the centuries, began with a playful recreation of an English rural idyll with grassy meadows, fences, hedges, a water mill, maypoles and a cottage.

A cast including shepherdesses, sheep, geese, dogs and a village cricket team filled the stage during the one-hour prologue to the show that included a dramatic, low-level fly-past by the jets of the Royal Air Force's Red Arrows stunt team.

After "England's green and pleasant land" came the "dark Satanic mills" of William Blake's famous poem.

Titled "Pandemonium", the next phase saw the grass brutally uprooted and fences torn down to be replaced by a blackened landscape of looms and foundries that conjured the Industrial Revolution.

To the deafening beat of hundreds of drummers, giant chimneys rose from the ground and began to belch smoke as a small army of volunteers, dressed as 19th century factory workers, forged one of the five Olympic rings.

The giant orb was raised to the sky to join the four others, letting off a fountain of sparks and drawing gasps from many in the audience.

All around, especially designed "pixel" light boxes installed next to every seat accompanied each scene with giant images of waves, flags and words.

In the second of three "acts", Boyle paid homage to the National Health Service, an emotive subject in Britain where people hold the right to free health care close to their hearts.

'Electric atmosphere'

Hundreds of dancing and roller-skating nurses and doctors pushed beds on to the now empty stage, and when the beds were illuminated, they spelled "GOSH" for the cherished Great Ormond Street children's hospital in London.

"The atmosphere was electric coming out into the stadium - like we could take over the world with our beds!" said Rachel Dobbin, a speech and language therapist from London who performed as a nurse in the ceremony.

"I want to do it again, even in spite of all the rainy rehearsals!"

Giant representations of famous villains from English literature, including JM Barrie's Captain Hook, JK Rowling's Voldemort and Ian Fleming's Childcatcher, rose from their beds.

They were quickly vanquished by dozens of Mary Poppins characters descending from cables criss-crossing the stadium roof, carrying brightly illuminated umbrellas.

The only city to have welcomed the Games three times, each time we have done it the world's faced turbulence and trouble and each time the Games have been a triumph.

London Olympics chief Sebastian Coe

Comedian Rowan Atkinson, adopting the globally recognised character of mischievous Mr Bean, brought the house down as he joined the London Symphony Orchestra playing a single note throughout the score to Olympic film Chariots Of Fire.

The final act, starring hundreds of young nightclubbing dancers, was a breathless journey through popular British culture over the last five decades, featuring music from everyone from the Sex Pistols to Queen and the Jam to the Who.

Soccer player and A-list celebrity David Beckham played a cameo role, filmed steering a boat that sped along the River Thames with the Olympic torch on board.