Olympics Opening Ceremony Was A Total Triumph

Has there been a better opening ceremony than London 2012 put on last night?

There may have been more grandiose occasions to launch Olympic Games of the past. This one cost £27m, £45m less than China spent on theirs four years ago.

Regardless of cost, London's was a total triumph, simple as that, from the moment that Bradley Wiggins rang the 27 ton bell at around 9pm, right the way through to Sir Paul McCartney ending Hey Jude ith the words 'Welcome to London'.

If the Games of the 30th Olympiad are half as good as what we saw in Stratford last night, then we have some show to look forward to this next couple of weeks.

It was beautifully choreographed by the Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle, and at times - thanks principally to Rowan Atkinson, Daniel Craig and Her Majesty The Queen - it was hilarious.

Perhaps it being quite so quintessentially British, it may have been a little befuddling for the many millions watching elsewhere in the world - but it would be churlish in the extreme to suggest that took anything away from the overall spectacle.

After all, Mr Bean is global, and who, from Afghanistan to Zambia, could not laugh at the British monarch, dressed in pink, apparently leaping out of a helicopter.

It was the way that those moments leapt out of the 'Isles of Wonder' lecture that made this ceremony a particular delight.

We saw a beautifully potted history of Britain from the time of the industrial revolution with soaring chimneys, punctuated by two world wars with a poppy and a sudden silence as its symbols.

Britain's recovery was illustrated through foundrymen working molten metal into what turned out to be the Olympic rings, raised eventually above heads as they showered sparks. As a piece of theatre it was breathtaking.

Hard on its heels came the video send-up. James Bond - actor Daniel Craig - arrived at Buckingham Palace, the Queen's beloved corgies at his feet.

We held our breath. We knew the woman in front of him, sitting with her back to the actor, could not possibly turn out to be Her Majesty. But it was. It really was.

"Good evening Mr Bond," said the Queen, not the faintest suggestion in her countenance that this was anything out of the ordinary.

"I'll say it again. 'GOOD EVENING, MR BOND'," said the Queen.

She was dressed in pink, as she would be at the opening ceremony.

And she appeared to go with Bond. To a helicopter, to fly across London to Stratford's new Olympic Stadium, and waved at by a statue of Winston Churchill.

What we would see then was The Queen disembark from the helicopter under a Union flag parachute, with Bond following behind.

Once more, breathtaking. And, as if by magic, she arrived - in the pink dress - at the ceremony to be introduced to the IOC president Jacques Rogge. Brilliant. Totally brilliant.

That high-minded stuffiness that usually goes hand in hand with these events was punctured. Anybody could enjoy this.

Even a tribute to the NHS - nurses and patients gyrating energetically around beds - was entertaining, before Harry Potter author JK Rowling had us spiralling through children's literature. Lord Voldemort. The Child Catcher of Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang fame. Mary Poppins.

Then, that theme forever now fastened to the Olympic movement, the one from Chariots of Fire, but with a twist. And the twist was the addition of Rowan Atkinson in Mr Bean guise - for no particular reason other than that it was plain funny, and that is reason enough surely.

That repetitive backnote in Vangelis's music is played by a bored-looking Atkinson on a keyboard.

We're then transported via video to Atkinson gooning among those Paris-bound athletes of the 1920s - Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams - in the opening scene of the film, as they run on the beach. Frivolous but fantastically funny.

The parade of athletes from 204 competing countries was notable for a couple of moments in particular.

London Mayor Boris Johnson and the Duchess of Cornwall appeared be getting along like a house on fire, and were clearly tickled by one gentleman's reaction to seeing the German team.

The other notable was the gold-trimmed Elvis jackets worn by Britain's parading athletes. The best you could say is that they ARE different.

Nobody could really argue that the lighting of the cauldron by seven promising young athletes nominated by as many British Olympians wasn't a good idea, since it appeals so much to those who've preached legacy down the last seven years since the bid was won in Singapore.

It may, however, have come as a disappointment to those who had joined a national debate - and perhaps placed bets in the process - on who would light the flame to burn over the stadium these next two weeks.

But this was a ceremony that whetted the appetite. All Team GB needs to follow hard on its heels in a win in today's Olympic cycling road race. And then the Games can really begin.