Head of ceremonies admits he and Danny Boyle were surprised when monarch agreed to be involved in James Bond spoof
The Olympics organisers considered using Helen Mirren to act as a double for the Queen in the opening ceremony's the spoof James Bond sequence if the monarch had declined their invitation to participate.
Martin Green, head of ceremonies for the Olympics ceremonies said, he and the director Danny Boyle were surprised the Queen agreed to do it and they had originally planned to use a body double.
The duo discussed using the actor – who played the Queen in the film of the same name – if the royal family agreed to allowing them to film in Buckingham Palace. "We did talk about Helen Mirren," said Green at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival.
"Danny and I went to see her private secretary. We showed him in storyboard form what we wanted to do. He took it away to show to the Queen and the answer came back 'yes'.
"At the time we thought we were going to do it with a body double. And the big surprise came was when we said 'We need to address the sensitive subject of a body double' and they said 'Why? She's going to do it,'" Green told the delegates at the event.
Speaking for the first time about the ceremony, Green said the opening ceremony took two years to plan and their mission was to create "a live Danny Boyle film". Asked whether anything had gone wrong on the night which drew more than 27 million TV viewers, he replied "No".
He rejected the assertion that it was too leftwing, as claimed by some critics including Tory MP Aidan Burley who tweeted on the night that it was "multicultural crap", adding that the thinking behind the event was a "great celebration of our institutions".
He was less unequivocal about the closing ceremony and betrayed some frustration over George Michael's much-criticised decision to use his spot on the night to showcase his new single White Light.
Martin refused to give a straight answer to the question about why the singer was allowed to showcase a new song, saying the star felt "passionately" about performing it and that he was "really glad to see George in the show".
He revealed that the opening ceremony for the Paralympics on Wednesday will be very different, featuring classical music, opera and science sequences inspired by the competitors' life stories.
The BBC's head of Olympics coverage, Roger Mosey, denied that the corporation was wrong not to have bid more for the Paralympics, which will be shown by Channel 4, saying it was good another broadcaster was involved.
Presenter Hazel Irvine, one of the main anchors of the BBC coverage, said she would have found it difficult to muster the same levels of energy to front another Games so soon. "I would find it hard to climb the mountain again," she said – but added that thought the BBC could have "fought harder" to get the Paralympics rights.
Mosey conceded however that it had "turned up" the coverage of the Paralympics on Radio 5 Live, which has the radio rights, but denied it had judged it wrong by not handing over the station to the Games for the same 6am to 1am coverage it afforded the main event.
He confirmed that BBC director general Mark Thompson intervened towards the end of the Olympics to address alleged jingoism, but said it was right as both he and Thompson thought there were small gaps in coverage of non-British stars.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/25/olympics-2012-helen-mirren-queen
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