The 2012 Olympics brought Britain together in pride and unity – look at us now

Danny Boyle’s celebrated opening ceremony re-airs tonight on BBC One. Amid the nation’s bitter political divide and 45,000 coronavirus deaths, it feels like a relic from another age, writes Fiona Sturges

Rings representing the Olympics and the industrial revolution are lit during Danny Boyle's 2012 opening ceremony (Getty)

Do you remember that time when everyone was happy and the country came together in a spirit of optimism and good cheer? When strangers smiled at each other, partied into the night and waved union jacks without menace or ill will? It was late July in 2012, and it all began with the opening ceremony of London’s Olympic Games. Directed by the filmmaker Danny Boyle, the four-hour extravaganza was two years in the making and cost £27m – which seems a lot until you consider the government just spent over half that on a contract to secure ferry services for a no-deal Brexit with a company that has no ferries.

Naturally, this being Britain, not everyone was on board beforehand. Still traumatised by the atrocious Queen’s Jubilee celebrations 10 years earlier, most anticipated a bum-clenching spectacle that would sit somewhere between Eurovision, a Royal Variety Performance and a hen party after pub kicking-out time. Imagine our surprise when it turned out to be full of magical storytelling, riotous wit and inventive stagecraft, and celebrated trade unions, agriculture, suffragists, multiculturalism and the NHS. Featuring the Sex Pistols, Dizzee Rascal, multiple Mary Poppinses, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his massive hat, Emeli Sandé, David Beckham smirking in a speed boat, the actual Queen in a comedy skit with James Bond, chimneys rising out of the earth, Shire horses, geese and a flock of sheep, it was absolutely bonkers in the best possible way. A billion people tuned in to watch.

The notices from abroad veered between amused bafflement and unabashed delight. The Sydney Morning Herald called it “at once subversive and sublime”, France’s Le Parisien said it was “magnificent, inventive and offbeat” and The New York Times decided it was “hilariously quirky”. The then Conservative MP for Cannock Chase, Aidan Burley, best known for having attended a Nazi-themed stag do, tweeted that it was “leftie multicultural crap”, but you can’t please everyone. The ensuing two and a half weeks were similarly joyous as Britain hoovered up medals, and commentators, crowds and viewers whooped and roared, high on sporting excellence. Lest we forget, this was the summer it was considered normal to “do the Mobot” in front of strangers while completely sober.

In what is either a stroke of genius or an act of abject cruelty, this Friday night the BBC is broadcasting the ceremony, with added commentary from Boyle. I will be watching, though it will be hard not to dwell on the gulf between where we were then and where we find ourselves now. Shortly before the big day, Boyle told the BBC that his vision was to create “a picture of ourselves as a nation”. Well, look at that picture now. Forty-five thousand deaths from Covid-19; a ravaged economy; environmental calamity; record-breaking inequality; bloody Brexit. Certainly, it will be bittersweet to relive a ceremony that hailed British industry at a time when record numbers of businesses are going down the pan and workers are losing their livelihoods, and to bask in Britain’s pioneering musical and theatrical heritage when live music and theatre is suffering like never before. And what to say about the NHS, an institution brought to its knees in the past decade by leaders determined to dismantle it, and yet who clapped for its workers on their doorsteps during lockdown? It’s enough to make you weep.

Of course, it’s easy to look back through rose-tinted spectacles at what was really a brief moment in time, a glorious few weeks of sunshine and sporting prowess. From our current vantage point, the 2012 Olympics seems the antithesis of Brexit Britain, representing a period in which we were united, not divided, and when the phrase “national pride” didn’t conjure images of blinkered, hard-right jingoism.

It’s easy to forget, though, that the run-up to the event was not a happy time. The country was in the grip of ruthless austerity measures and, just a year before, the England riots, sparked by the shooting by police of Mark Duggan, had thrown racial and class tensions into grim relief. Three months ahead of the Olympics, The Guardian columnist John Harris called it “stupendous insanity”, reflecting what many felt about the cost, the blatant consumerism, and the scores of east Londoners forced to out of their businesses and homes to make way for the bulldozers. The BBC even made Twenty-Twelve, a show mocking the ineptitude of organisers a full year before the event. Also, it wasn’t a summer of sunshine at all. For much of the Olympics, it rained. A lot.

Nonetheless, Boyle’s ceremony heralded a sudden shift. It exhorted us to look with affection at our country, and, however briefly, to view the glass as half full. We applauded staff and volunteers as well as competitors – and not just our own but those we were competing against. As the gold medals piled up, we also experienced a strange new sensation ­– that of winning. In our hearts, we knew it wouldn’t last so we enjoyed it while we could. So perhaps now, all these years later, we should watch the ceremony not through the lens of what we have lost but of what we know is possible. That, even in the bleakest of times, a country can come together, have a few drinks and celebrate human achievement. In July 2012, we fleetingly saw Britain bonded in joy and generosity. If it happened once, it can happen again.

‘London 2012 – Opening Ceremony’ is being reshown on BBC One on Friday 17 July at 10.45pm