Big top secret: 2012 Olympic opening ceremony is taking shape in a closely guarded tent

At the Dagenham Ford plant, rehearsals are under way for the showcase

The traffic streaming down the A13 can hardly miss it: a giant blue-and-yellow big top slap bang in the middle of the old Ford factory at Dagenham, east London. But this, in fact, is the world's most top-secret circus.

Police and security guards have been swarming around it like bees since it appeared almost overnight two weeks ago, much to the surprise of local residents, who have not had much to twitch the net curtains over since the last British-built Ford Fiesta drove out the front gates almost a decade ago.

It is under these stripy spires that the Greatest Show on Earth (copyright Seb Coe) is about to take shape. The first full-scale rehearsals for Danny Boyle's Olympics Opening Ceremony are soon to begin. Extra security has been hired to keep away prying eyes and long-lens photographers, but so well-kept was the secret none have turned up.

"I didn't know they were doing the opening ceremony in there," said one female resident of nearby Sierra Drive, separated from the magic by a busy road and a barbed-wire fence.

Another resident, pushing her pram along in the driving rain, said: "My daughter thought it was a circus. The Olympics, is it? What a waste of money."

In December David Cameron doubled the budget for the four ceremonies – opening and closing for the Olympics and the Paralympics – from £40m to £81m, and immediately a call went out for more performers. The 12,000 dancers, drummers, skateboarders, acrobats and lookalikes for British historical figures now secured will be spending an awful lot of time here over the next three months, before the Opening Ceremony at 9pm on Friday 27 July.

Details of quite what to expect remain scarce. Danny Boyle has revealed that the ceremony is named Isles of Wonder and is based on a few tantalising lines from Shakespeare's The Tempest. It has been reported that the actor Mark Rylance, the first artistic director of the Globe and the star of the recent West End and Broadway triumph Jersualem, will read the lines, "Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not."

The same quotation will appear on a huge bell hanging at one end of the stadium, currently being cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, the same company that produced Big Ben and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

If Rylance has been to the Dagenham big top, he has not been spotted. Nor have the locals seen any figures with giant golf balls for heads, as featured in a short video of the rehearsals so far. Women dressed as the famous suffragette Emily Davison, who ran in front of the king's horse, are also expected to appear. Ms Davison would feel particularly at home. It was at the Ford factory in 1968 where women workers went on a famous strike over equal pay, as portrayed in the 2010 film Made in Dagenham.

Hundreds of NHS nurses will also feature in one sequence, and Boyle has promised to capture the British "sense of humour". Pupils from schools in Barking & Dagenham are also taking part.

Other rehearsals will be held at Three Mills Studios, in the shadow of the Olympic Stadium, where Boyle and the director of ceremonies, Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry, have been working on the events since last year.

The closing ceremony is to be called "A Symphony of British Music", featuring British music "from Elgar to Adele", according to the ceremony's director, Kim Gavin, the man behind the recent phenomenally successful Take That arena tours. Adele, Sir Paul McCartney, Elton John, the Rolling Stones and the Spice Girls have all been tipped to perform. It was recently revealed that the Sex Pistols had declined an invitation to take part.

Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus
Caption competition
Caption competition
News in pictures
World news in pictures
Sport blogs

iBet: Look To The Lady In The Prince Of Wales

The Prince of Wales Stakes today is regarded by many as the No1 race of the Royal Ascot meeting and ...

by Gareth Purnell

iBet: Favourites have a good record in the Coventry stakes

Today’s St James Palace looks a cracker and there has been sustained money for Dawn Approach since t...

by Gareth Purnell

Newcastle don’t need a football director – they need a new medical team after finishing bottom of the injury league

Newcastle United have shocked their fans by appointing Joe Kinnear as director of football but new f...

by Alex Miller

       
 

Day In a Page

'To farm I have to rape the countryside. It’s got to be wrong': The true effect of the badger cull

The true effect of the badger cull

'To farm I have to rape the countryside. It’s got to be wrong'
Theatre review: Daniel Radcliffe gives an admirably honest performance in Michael Grandage's The Cripple of Inishmaan

First night: The Cripple of Inishmaan

Daniel Radcliffe gives an admirably honest performance in Michael Grandage's comedy
Girls Guides drop religious reference but pledge to self and the Queen

Guides drop religious reference but pledge to self and the Queen

After 103 years, organisation changes oath to welcome 'all girls, of all faiths, and none'
Steve Tongue: Joe Kinnear was one of the boys and a breath of fresh air... 21 years ago

Steve Tongue

Joe Kinnear was one of the boys and a breath of fresh air... 21 years ago
Chris Froome: Free from 'pain in neck' after Bradley Wiggins' exit

Chris Froome: Free from 'pain in neck' after Wiggins' exit

Sky's lead rider says he is in fantastic form for the Tour and happy pecking order debate is over
Hannah England: I've got the right times – now to focus on the chess

Hannah England: Keeping Track

I've got the right times – now to focus on the chess
Beards, brawn and body art

Beards, brawn and body art

Meet London’s new batch of male models
Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

British love of shows such as The Bridge, Borgen and The Killing shows no sign of fading
Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?

The Great Green Wall of Africa,

Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?
Laughter Inc: the cheering growth of the chuckle industry

Laughter Inc

The cheering growth of the chuckle industry
The bad science scandal: how fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research

The bad science scandal

How fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research
To the manor born: The female aristocrats battling to inherit the title

Female aristocrats battle to inherit the title

A passionate protest is gathering pace among the women of Britain's aristocracy, who believe that men should no longer automatically inherit the family pile and title.
Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten

In pictures: JFK's visit to Berlin in 1963

Photographer Ulrich Mack accompanied Kennedy on the entire trip. The results are an astonishing record of a watershed moment.
Eat shoots and leaves: Mark Hix gets creative with fresh peas, mangetouts and sugar snaps

Mark Hix gets creative with English peas

English peas and their offsprings, such as mangetouts and sugar snaps, are great tossed into a salad, says our chef.
Ceviche with a smile: Chef Martin Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends

Chef Martin Morales: Ceviche with a smile

Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends