Singin' in the rain

Olympic opening ceremonies, what's not to like? Quite a lot, actually.

They are usually overblown, overlong and at their best when, well, over. The Paris Games opening ceremony last night was no exception. It may have been a tour de force of the genre but, boy, did I want it to finish. In fact about halfway through would have been just fine. Obviously no one dared tell Thomas Jolly, the director, that less really can be more. I felt for my namesake, Jane Austen's Mr Bennett, "you have delighted us long enough".

Still, with a backdrop as stunning as the City of Lights (sadly looking rather drab in the teeming rain - though better than a wet weekend in Wigan I suppose) why wouldn't you want to make the most of it? It was a bold decision but must have been a logistical and security nightmare to pull off.  It sort of worked but severely outstayed its welcome - the showman's motto is 'always leave 'em wanting more'. If only!

It began well enough with a witty touch; the torch-bearer running into the Olympic stadium to find it - quelle surprise! - empty. But this was a classic anticlimactic misdirection before footballer Zinedine Zidane appeared to wrest the torch from the confused bearer and pass it on to none other than tennis ace Rafael Nadal. Yes, it was to be that sort of night.

Bringing the athletes up the River Seine on a flotilla of boats was a clever idea but perhaps a little too clever. Had they not watched the Queen's 2012 Diamond Jubilee river pageant on the Thames? Messing about on rivers is all good fun until it rains. At least it gave the bateaux mouches cruise companies plenty of scope for a bit of sneaky product placement. 

Not all the athletes were on these vessels, though; some of the smaller teams were crammed into small motor boats which gave the rather forlorn impression of a reenactment of the evacuation of Dunkirk, especially given the inclement weather and choppy water. (I pity the poor sod who had to do the risk assessment for that one - the Seine that is, not Dunkirk.)

The same applied to the (literally) breathtaking stunt of the urban-running hooded figure leaping across the mansards of the city with the torch. Imagine the lawsuit had he fallen. Quelle horreur! This enigmatic figure had started out as the boatman in the Catacombs so maybe he was intended as a latterday Charon, the spectre at the feast. If so it was hardly cheery, becoming positively grim as he later rode a skeletal horse up the Seine like a horseman of the apocalypse to deliver the Olympic flag to the Eiffel Tower. Maybe this is what the French call noir.  But I'm getting ahead of myself. Wa-a-ay ahead.

In between we had a bit of light relief with a saucy cabaret number featuring Lady Gaga with dancers and a lot of pink feather fans - ooh la la! (NB: not many flamingoes died in the making of this sequence.) And, yes, there was the obligatory can-can line up too (no cliché went unclinched) - again in shocking pink - I think the costume designer must have ODd on Barbie the movie. Either that or he had got himself a good deal on offcuts from the afterparty.

There followed another floating act featuring Juliette Armanet singing a touching version of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Imagine while struggling to stay upright in the heavy swell. She had obviously taken her Quells and was ably accompanied by classical pianist, Sofian Pamart, though why he was playing a flaming (as in burning) piano was beyond me. Health & Safety had at least insisted on a fire screen to protect him from incineration. Perhaps he could have encored with Jerry Lee Lewis' Goodness gracious, great balls of fire.

While a troupe of fashionistas paraded on a catwalk in various stages of undress and a cast of louche characters loitered on the banks of the Seine, like demi-mondaines as imagined by Disney, the storming of the Bastille was underway at La Conciergerie. In contrast to the mood set by Ms Armanet, a black Marianne, draped in the flag, was urging citizens to arms with a rousing chorus of the Marseillaise (eat your heart out, Marine Le Pen).

Meanwhile, there was some vertiginous Quasimodo-esque swinging from Notre Dame  - well, the scaffolding anyway. I cringed when the hooded figure entered the ruined cathedral with a naked flame. Try explaining away another fire to Monsieur le President - merde alors and quelle dommage! I'm not sure what all the figures swaying aloft on tall bendy poles was supposed to represent but, apart from looking extremely hazardous, it evoked nothing so much as Vlad the Impaler having a bad hair day.

After all this, frankly I'd lost the will to live. By this point (forgive the pun) being impaled would have been a blessing but, no, there was more to come - much, much more. Interminable scenes around the Eiffel Tower - including a frou-frou light show making it more like the Trifle Tower - and even more interminable speeches, ensued. At least someone had had the foresight to look at the weather forecast and provide umbrellas for the dignitaries so that there was no reprise of a Rishi Sunak moment for Emanuel Macron. But this all turned out to be another cunning distraction. If we were expecting the Olympic flame to be ignited on the Tower so we could all get on with our lives we were being fooled.

Cut to the Louvre where a succession of portly politicians, trying (and failing) to look sporty in shorts, were jostling to lay hands on the torch for their moment of fame (to be featured on forthcoming election leaflets no doubt). They were en route to the Tuileries Gardens to light the cauldron. Et voila! Here was the big reveal at last, a huge tethered balloon! Surely not? Mais oui! The moment we'd all be waiting (and waiting) for had finally attived as Teddy Riner and Marie-José Pérec (don't ask me) lit the fire which allowed the balloon to ascend into the louring skies. How they keep it alight for a fortnight now it's up there I have no idea but luckily that's not my problem. I'm sure the Montgolfier brothers would have been proud.

Finally (and what a finale) it was back to the Tower for the coup de théàtre, Céline Dion standing at the rail of the premier étage, like Kate Winslet on the prow of the Titanic, in excellent voice after a long illness and wearing a shimmering white bead-encrusted Dior gown. She was accompanied on a very wet grand piano (I wouldn't want to pick up the tab for French polishing that) as she belted out an emotional rendition of Edith Piaf's famous showstopper, L'hymne à l'amour.

Now that's what I call a torch song!


Popular posts from this blog

Looking to Africa - long read

As I sit here on an island just off the coast of North-West Africa I can't help pondering the future of that vast and seemingly unknowable continent, so near and yet so far. I'm writing this in Tenerife, one of the eight Canary Islands forming an archipelago off the coast of Morocco and Western Sahara - tantilisingly close and yet a world away from the 'mainland' of continental Africa. As an Autonomous Community of Spain, the Canaries form an outpost of the European Union (EU). Yet, despite their proximity to Africa, their outlook, politically, culturally and economically, is resolutely European. Africa may as well be Mars, though only a narrow gulf of the Atlantic Ocean separates these offshore islands from their continent. I say resolutely European but that resolve may, little by little, be weakening. There is a growing sentiment, especially, though not exclusively, amongst young Canarians, that they have been sold a pup. True, the economy is superficially buoyant, du
Read more

On old age

"The fact is that when I come to think it over, I find that there are four reasons for old age being thought unhappy: First, that it withdraws us from active employments; second, that it enfeebles the body; third, that it deprives us of nearly all physical pleasures; fourth, that it is the next step to death."  Writing his essay,  De Senectute (On Old Age), in 44 BCE, Marcus Tullius Cicero went on to refute these four supposed reasons in characteristically robust and forthright manner. Cicero wasn't one to sit about moping in his own old age; he remained actively engaged in the political life of the Republic whose survival, in the face of tyranny, he championed so fiercely.  Cicero was nine years younger than I am now when he met his untimely end yet he considered himself already an old man; or, rather, his society judged him to be so. His second point about age enfeebling is more germane. Physical decline had not yet impacted him but, six years on from my retirement, I
Read more

Born to rule

When, ten days ago, I posted my piece about the manipulated image of Catherine, Princess of Wales, and her children (see Snap Judgment) I didn't know of her cancer treatment. Had I known, I would have adopted a gentler, though I hope no less critical, tone. But I didn't know, and nor did any of us outside the immediate royal circle, which rather goes to strengthen the case against the monarchy. For Kate and her family the diagnosis of cancer (as yet unspecified) will have been a devastating blow, as will the chemotherapy she is currently undergoing. On a human level, of course I sympathise and extend my best wishes for a full recovery as, indeed, I did at the time of her father-in-law's diagnosis. It is particularly cruel, then, that on top of all this she has been obliged to record a video statement to reassure the public. As if she didn't have enough to contend with already. But such is the unpalatable obligation placed upon any royal personage - noblesse oblige. Whic
Read more