Page 3 Profile: Danny Boyle, Director, Opening Ceremony

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Danny Boyle has already been angered by camera positioning at the Opening Ceremony (AP)

No pressure then ...

Tonight, billions of people around the world will watch Boyle's Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. Get it right, and the Oscar-winning director of Slumdog Millionaire will be hailed as one of Britain's greatest visionaries. Get it wrong, and he'll face a lifetime of ridicule. The task might not be so daunting were it not for the incredible (and frankly, terrifying) opener to the Beijing Games put on by Zhang Yimou in 2008. But whereas Yimou had £65m to play with, Boyle's budget is a trifling £27m.

Is that enough?

Hope so. The few details unveiled so far suggest it will be a quaint journey through a rural idyll. Boyle revealed a few more snippets to America's Today programme. The Queen is a "key part", and characters from British literature such as Cruella de Vil and Peter Pan will also appear.

Sounds promising...

There's also a personal resonance for Boyle. His father died last year, and today would have been his 91st birthday. But not even members of the director's family have been told what's going to happen. "I have absolutely no idea what to expect because he hasn't told us," his twin sister Maria told the Manchester Evening News.