 THE London Olympics opening ceremony will be a grand spectacle, but will it be a surprise? In a word, no. Director Danny Boyle has revealed only selected details about the show, but since the performers started rehearsals in June at the Olympic Stadium, a trickle of details about the 27 million pound (US$42 million) opening ceremony has become a torrent. The ceremony’s theme is “Isles of Wonder,” inspired by William Shakespeare’s play about shipwrecked castaways, “The Tempest.” An actor is due to recite Caliban’s speech, the one that runs “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises.” Mark Rylance, who had been due to perform the lines, pulled out after the death of his stepdaughter. Kenneth Branagh is rumored to be his replacement. Despite Boyle’s enchanted-island inspiration, few expect the man who depicted Scottish heroin addicts in “Trainspotting” and Indian slum dwellers in “Slumdog Millionaire” to deliver a sanitized image of Britain.  It sounds more like Isles of Wonder and Woe with a big dash of British whimsy thrown in. The ceremony will open with the sound of a 27-ton bell, the largest harmonically tuned bell in the world, forged at London’s 442-year-old Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which made London’s Big Ben and Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell. Queen and Bond A prerecorded segment has been filmed inside Buckingham Palace, reportedly involving Queen Elizabeth II and Daniel Craig as secret agent James Bond. If rumor is to be believed, a stuntman dressed as 007 will parachute into the stadium to start the show. The opening sequence will evoke a pastoral idyll, the “green and pleasant land” described in William Blake’s poem “Jerusalem,” which has been set to music and is regarded as England’s unofficial national anthem. There’s a meadow, livestock, a farmer plowing his field, a cricket match and, in a nod to Britain’s plethora of rural summer music festivals, a mosh pit.  Boyle said the ceremony will depict Britain’s past, present and future for a global television audience estimated at 1 billion. Aerial photographs of the set for the second section of the show depict dark buildings and smokestacks with the River Thames running through it. This is the other side of the country described in “Jerusalem,” a land of “dark satanic mills.” Voldemort & Mary Poppins A third act will tackle the regeneration of east London, where the Olympics are taking place, as parkland and a creative heartland, home to many artists, designers and Internet startups. There will be vignettes drawing on British history, Boyle’s people-power version of it, including Depression-era jobless protesters and nurses performing a tribute to the National Health Service, founded in 1948 to provide free health care for all Britons and now a much fought-over national institution. Performers dressed as miners and factory workers have also been seen going into the stadium, and one set piece is a model of the Empire Windrush, a ship that brought hundreds of Caribbean migrants to Britain in 1948. According to the Sunday Times, one section will feature characters from children’s fiction classics including “Alice in Wonderland” and “Peter Pan” and a showdown between Voldemort, the villain of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” books, and a horde of flying magical nannies based on Mary Poppins. ‘Hey Jude’ Boyle has stressed that music will play a key role, with musical direction by electronic duo Underworld, who have worked with Boyle since his 1996 movie “Trainspotting.” Music heard coming from the stadium in recent days ranges from “Jerusalem” to songs by The Beatles, The Who, the Sex Pistols, and Vangelis’ theme from “Chariots of Fire.” There are also songs by newer acts, including Dizzee Rascal and Tinie Tempah, two homegrown stars forged in the gritty London environment that Boyle is celebrating. The final act will be former Beatle Paul McCartney, due to lead the audience in a sing-along of “Hey Jude,” with thousands of voices urging “take a sad song and make it better.” (SD-Agencies) | 