"Look up at the stars, and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at." - Prof Stephen Hawking
Just a couple of weeks since the main event (the Olympics) closed, and we were treated to another gloriously melodramatic opening ceremony last night, as the Paralympics came to town - in a big way (or, given its scientific theme, "Big Bang" maybe?)!
Not content to be the "poor relation", Jenny Sealey and Bradley Hemmings' event was never intended to be held up in comparison to
Danny Boyle's opening extravaganza (nor even
Kim Gavin's closing one), but the stops were all pulled out for what the organisers have been proudly promoting as the biggest Paralympics ever held.
Flying wheelchairs, explosions, giant umbrellas, giant books, giant navigational and scientific instruments, music by Orbital, Steven Hawking explaining the history of scientific discovery, what seemed like thousands of dancers, disabled and non-disabled - including a flaming whirling dervish - all brilliantly choreographed, with Sir Ian ("Serena") McKellen as Prospero (and Miranda, played by Nicola Miles-Wildin) holding the whole thing together, leading the bedazzled audience through the discoveries and ideas that contribute to "Enlightenment" (as interpreted, in keeping with one of the themes running through the previous two events, in the form of Shakespeare's
Tempest). What more could you want?
I didn't watch the whole thing; I came in after the athletes were safely ensconced in the arena and the speeches were on, and in time for Her Majesty to open the shebang. Apparently I didn't miss a helluva lot except Prof Hawking accompanied by Rihanna (on tape), so that's OK.
Best bits of what I did see? The fabulous punky techno version of Ian Dury's anthem
Spasticus Autisticus (as performed by a Dury-looky-likey in a wheelchair with his band from Graeae Theatre Company, including actor and ceremony host
Mat Fraser on drums); the much-anticipated "apple moment" signifying the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, where the whole 60,000-strong audience was encouraged to bite an apple at the same time (what a crunch!); Prof Hawking wearing the same illuminated "clubbing specs" with lights on as the DJs; the fact that just about all the main players (featuring Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson and five other previous gold medallists) including Miranda and Caliban (but not "Serena") were airborne on strings at various stages of the action; the massive inflatable copy of the Alison Lapper statue that once stood in Trafalgar Square; the beautiful segue between opera singer Elin Manahan Thomas singing Handel and pianist Birdy with Antony & the Johnsons'
Bird Gehrl; the re-lighting of that magnificent cauldron (the centrepiece of the Olympics); the gold, the glitter and the pyrotechnics.
Best of all was the arrival of the Paralympic flame - carried by wounded ex-Marine and future Paralympic hopeful Joe Townsend all the way down from the top of the gargantuan "Orbit" tower outside into the stadium,
on a zip wire suspended hundreds of feet above the audience! Spectacular.
All this, topped off with a grand finale - before the enormous fireworks display - featuring the lovely Beverley Knight singing the anthem for dispossessed minorities of all flavours (gays, trannies, now disabled people) -
I Am What I Am! It was indeed an excellent show...
Paralympics website
