A right royal opportunity?

Whether you're a royalist or a republican, nobody can seriously disagree that the royal wedding was brilliantly staged.

With any event involving that number of people and locations, there's always the chance of a glitch. But this was an immaculate operation in the international spotlight.

It was interesting to hear the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, say it was a dry run for the Olympics.

I'm not absolutely sure that's what William and Catherine saw as the primary purpose of the event.

But it is true that the royal wedding is a pointer to the kind of attention Britain will have for much of 2012 - including the Diamond Jubilee celebrations the month before the Games.

Ceremonial pomp accompanied last week's royal wedding. Picture: AP

The wedding was a distillation of what the world thinks this country does well: marching bands, guardsmen in scarlet tunics and the ages-old ceremonial in Westminster Abbey.

I recall a conversation in Beijing with an American television producer who recommended that London's opening ceremony should simply be a combination of that with some of the great rock music we've produced in the last half-century.

Judging by their comments on Facebook, senior figures at Locog were among those impressed by what we saw last Friday.

But there's always been a strain of thought that the Olympic Opening Ceremony should be about the the UK's present and its future rather than the past.

I wrote about this and the diverging political ideas underpinning it a couple of years ago in The Spectator: "to exaggerate only a little, the visions extend from excited East End kiddies running towards the cameras accompanied by a pirate radio club mix -- showing the nation we might become -- to re-enacting Trooping the Colour and floating a battleship up the Thames as a statement about our glorious heritage."

At the time, I recommended that the answer to this was to find a creative director who would impose their own vision on the ceremony.

Well, that's what happened. But while the royal wedding is fresh in everyone's mind, we'd be keen to hear your views.

Should we stop obsessing about Beijing's gargantuan ceremony and instead learn the lessons closer to home from last week's events? And is this a time to celebrate heritage or explore our potential?

The Olympics opening ceremony is now only 14 months away, and it's already been discussed at the very top.

This is something prime ministers and mayors see as representing our country and our capital city to another huge global audience. Before the die is finally cast, let us know what you'd like to contribute to their thinking.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/rogermosey/2011/05/a_right_royal_opportunity.html

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