As mandated by the Olympic Charter, the proceedings combined the ceremonial opening of this international sporting event (including welcoming speeches, hoisting of the flags and the parade of athletes) with an artistic spectacle to showcase the host nation's culture.

Two shorter sections drew particular comment, involving a filmed cameo appearance of the Queen with James Bond as her escort, and a live performance by the London Symphony Orchestra joined by comedian Rowan Atkinson.

On 12 June 2012 at a press conference, Boyle had promised a huge set of rural Britain, which was to include a village cricket team, farm animals, a model of Glastonbury Tor, as well as a maypole and a rain-producing cloud.

[47] Two full dress and technical rehearsals took place in the Olympic stadium, on 23 and 25 July, in front of an audience of 60,000 comprising volunteers, cast members' families, competition winners, and others connected to the Games.

Frank Turner performed three songs ("Sailor's Boots", "Wessex Boy" and "I Still Believe") on the model of Glastonbury Tor, joined by Emily Barker, Ben Marwood and Jim Lockey, as well as his regular backing band the Sleeping Souls.

[54] To the sound of "Surf Solar" by Fuck Buttons, it followed the River Thames from its source to the heart of London, juxtaposing images of contemporary British life with pastoral shots and flashes of scenes from the stadium.

The characters Ratty, Mole and Toad from The Wind in the Willows were briefly seen, as was a 'Monty Python hand' pointing towards London on umbrellas, and an InterCity 125 train passing the Olympic rings as crop circles in a field.

The soundtrack included clips from the theme tune of The South Bank Show, "London Calling" by The Clash, and the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" as the film followed the route of the band's infamous cruise down the River Thames during the Silver Jubilee.

It then switched to a sequence filmed outside the stadium shortly before the ceremony, superimposed with posters from previous Summer Olympics (all of them except 1900 Paris, 1936 Berlin, 1984 Los Angeles, and 1996 Atlanta), to a recording of "Map of the Problematique" by Muse.

As the last choir performance concluded, vintage London General Omnibus Company stagecoaches entered, carrying businessmen and early industrialists in Victorian dress and top hats, led by Kenneth Branagh as Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

After walking onto the Glastonbury Tor, Brunel delivered Caliban's "Be not afeard" speech, reflecting Boyle's introduction to the ceremony in the programme[58] and signifying an aspiration of new industry or a new era in Britain.

Seven smoking chimney stacks with accompanying steeplejacks rose from the ground, along with other industrial machinery: five beam engines, six looms, a crucible and a water wheel (one of the few items left from the rural scene).

[62][63] Volunteers paraded around the stadium representing some of the groups that had changed the face of Britain: the woman's suffrage movement, the Jarrow Crusade, the first Caribbean immigrants arriving in 1948 on board the Empire Windrush, a 1970s DJ float, the Nostalgia Steel Band, and the Beatles as they appeared on the cover of Sgt.

[55][64] A short film directed by Boyle and produced by the BBC, called Happy and Glorious (after a line in the national anthem), featured the character James Bond, played by then-Bond actor Daniel Craig, entering the front gate of Buckingham Palace in a London black cab.

His entrance (accompanied by an arrangement of Handel's "Arrival of the Queen of Sheba") is noticed by Brazilian children (a nod to Rio de Janeiro, which was to be the next summer Games host city) in the throne room.

The idea of the royal helicopter jump was first pitched by director Danny Boyle to Sebastian Coe, who loved it so much he took it to Edward Young, Private Secretary to the Queen, at Buckingham Palace in the summer of 2011.

"[67] For the scenes with the helicopter, the Queen was doubled by actress Julia McKenzie,[68] and for the parachute jump by BASE jumper and stuntman Gary Connery wearing a dress, hat, jewellery and with a handbag.

[74] Simon Rattle was then introduced to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Vangelis's "Chariots of Fire", as a tribute to the British film industry with Rowan Atkinson reprising his role as Mr. Bean, comically playing a repeated note on a synthesiser.

In the centre of the arena the sides of another house, three times larger, were used as screens to show clips from various TV programmes, music videos and films, including A Matter of Life and Death (June is named for its protagonist), as well as Gregory's Girl, Kes, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Snowman, The Wicker Man, Four Weddings and a Funeral, British soap operas Coronation Street and EastEnders, Spanish TV show Cuéntame cómo pasó, and Boyle's own Trainspotting on the top and the inside of the house on the bottom.

An extended dance sequence followed, with songs including "My Generation" by The Who, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones, "My Boy Lollipop" sung by Millie Small, "All Day and All of the Night" by the Kinks, "She Loves You" by the Beatles (with footage of the band performing the song), "Trampled Under Foot" by Led Zeppelin, "Starman" by David Bowie, "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen (during which the sound of the TARDIS from Doctor Who could be heard), "Pretty Vacant" by the Sex Pistols (during which dancers on power jumpers wearing large heads with Mohawk hairstyles performed a pogo dance, and the lyrics to the song were spelt out in LED lights around the stadium), "Blue Monday" by New Order, "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood (during which Frankie, asked by June for his name, replied by revealing one of the band's "Frankie say..." T-shirts), "Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)" by Soul II Soul, "Step On" by Happy Mondays, "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Eurythmics, "Firestarter" by The Prodigy, and "Born Slippy .NUXX" by Underworld, ending with the cast singing "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" as Frankie and June walked towards each other.

A live performance of "Bonkers" by Dizzee Rascal (who grew up in the host borough of Tower Hamlets)[79] followed, along with a further sequence in which all the cast (and Britain's Got Talent dancing duo Signature) attend a party at June's house whilst Amy Winehouse's "Valerie", Muse's "Uprising", and Tinie Tempah's "Pass Out" played.

[93] The teenagers made a lap of the stadium, each carrying the torch in turn, while Alex Trimble, lead singer of Two Door Cinema Club, performed "Caliban's Dream"[94] with the Dockhead Choir, Only Men Aloud, Elizabeth Roberts, and Esme Smith.

[99][100] A flurry of spectacular fireworks accompanied by Pink Floyd's song "Eclipse" was supported by images of memorable Olympic victories shown on the big screens, with the stadium pixels showing Jesse Owens running.

These were favourably reviewed; in The Guardian, Michael Hann wrote "Underworld ... had a bit of a triumph: the builds and fades they learned in the world of dance music lent the sometimes overwhelming visual spectacle a sense of structure".

Steel Band: Nostalgia plus additional singers Music by: Arctic Monkeys The main loading of the stadium started on 10 May and took ten weeks of what was the wettest summer for a hundred years, posing considerable challenges.

[64] At the climax of 'Pandemonium', in the Olympic ring forging scene, amber lights lit in sequence created the illusion of a 30-metre (98 ft) molten steel river, with pyrotechnic smoke and dry ice as steam.

[140] Commentators for the BBC were Huw Edwards, Hazel Irvine and Trevor Nelson, the latter criticised by Andy Dawson of the Daily Mirror as floundering "like a ventriloquist's dummy pumped full of low-grade ketamine".

[151] More significant criticism was levelled at NBC for cutting to a Ryan Seacrest interview with Michael Phelps during the 'memorial wall' tribute including commemoration of the victims of the 7/7 London bombings, which was seen as disrespectful and insensitive.

"[161] Two weeks after the ceremony Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian wrote that "Boyle's spectacular, so beautifully executed and ingeniously conceived it lingers in the mind even as the closing draws near, stood apart from its predecessors thanks not only to its humour and eccentricity, but also because it had something to say.

French sports newspaper L'Équipe wrote that it "took the classic from such events and had fun with them" whilst Le Parisien said it "was magnificent, inventive and offbeat drawing heavily on the roots of British identity".