London 2012 organizers aren't giving much away about the handover ceremony at the close of the Beijing Olympics.
Rumors that David Beckham will appear in the eight-minute segment during which the Olympic flag is passed from Beijing to London have yet to be confirmed, and the only thing organizers let slip Monday was that the show will start to the soundtrack of "God Save The Queen," performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.
That may sound like a rather staid way of opening, even with the anthem being sung by 25 members of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain.
But 12 years after the handover from Atlanta to Sydney was marked with the appearance of kangaroos and prawns on bicycles, organizers are aware of the risk of ridicule and the difficulty of pleasing both an international audience and what could be a more cynical audience back in Britain.
"You cannot please all of the people all of the time," London 2012 head of ceremonies Martin Green said. "But I do believe in that old adage that the only bad thing is indifference. Love it or hate it, but talk about it. Don't just turn off the TV and make a cup of tea."
The Sydney show in Atlanta in 1996 was greeted with ridicule and embarrassment back home, but eventually had become so widely recognized and fondly spoken of that the kangaroos were brought back for the opening ceremony in 2000.
"You don't try and re-brand your nation in eight minutes," Green said. "You create something very visual, hopefully very memorable with a bit of ooh and a bit of ah."
Green and ceremony director Stephen Powell met with cinematographer and filmmaker Zhang Yimou, who is producing the opening and closing ceremonies in Beijing, to decide the format of the show.
Green said performers were practicing eight hours a day and cast members visited Wembley Stadium on Monday to get a feeling of the kind of venue they will be performing in when they step out at Beijing's Olympic Stadium on Aug. 24.
Wembley was chosen because its 90,000 capacity was the closest in the UK to the 91,000 at Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium, and the cast were allowed to walk out to the middle of the famous pitch, where they gathered excitedly for team photos.
Although they weren't allowed to wander far over the grass since it is being prepared for English football's season-opening Community Shield on Aug. 10, the 20 or so performers were then given a tour of the stands.
The idea was that, with some of the cast having never performed publicly before, they won't be intimidated. The Chinese handover show four years ago in Athens was dramatic enough to have already raised expectations.
"It was very Chinese, so what we've done is take the baton as it were and done something that's very, very British," said Powell, who has previously directed for the prestigious Royal National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company. "What we haven't done is try to do lots and lots of acrobatics and kung fu, because that would be daft."
But what British symbols will be present in the show? Bowler hats? Red double-decker buses? Fuzzy-hatted guards?
"The home audience is obviously going to be very, very different in terms of its reactions from people around the world. but if I'm not giving too much away, we don't have any inflatable beefeaters," Powell said.
