The joy and madness of taking part in London 2012
As the BBC reshows highlights of the Opening Ceremony, Kat Brown recalls her blissful time as a ‘Pandemonium Drummer’
When did you fall in love with the London 2012 Opening Ceremony? Was it when Underworld’s extraordinary beats first roared out over the speakers and smoking chimneys flew up from the floor? The minute’s silence for those who died in the world wars, maybe? Was it when the Queen parachuted in with Daniel Craig as James Bond, or the lighting of the cauldron?
For me, it was just before kickoff, backstage, when I posed with the British sprinter Phil Brown for a photograph – him holding my drum sticks and me wearing his 1984 silver medal. “This is amazing!” we both yelled, eyes bright with the fervour of the temporarily insane.
That bit obviously won’t air when
BBC One repeats an extended version of the ceremony tonight – and I’m biased anyway, because I was in the Industrial Revolution segment and obviously think that’s the best bit – but revisiting the extraordinary moment when Britain finally fell in love with the Olympics, and rediscovered itself in what is essentially a really highbudget take on This is Your Life, is equally priceless.
I had just turned 29, and was panicking about 30, when
I auditioned to be a volunteer performer in November 2011. I didn’t have any hobbies outside work and I wanted to be part of something wonderful and meaningful. The flyer I saw on the Tube suggested I’d get that in spades.
In east London’s vast 3 Mills Studios, enormous groups of us were put through our paces to test our sense of direction, whether we could do simple choreography – and if we could keep a secret. “Don’t tell people what you see or do. Tell them
Emotional: volunteer performer Kat Brown kept a diary to remember her experience how you feel,” said Steve Boyd, head of mass choreography. Well Steve, it felt like the world’s most ecstatic aerobics class. I enjoyed myself hugely. After a recall audition in which I mimed brushing my teeth as though canvassing Bafta, I was cast as one of the 1,000 Pandemonium Drummers, whose job it would be to provide the beat for the Industrial Revolution music, drumming on upturned buckets and bins, before changing into jeans, trainers and white sweatshirts to marshal the athletes during the Parade of Nations. At my first rehearsal, on May 25, at
3 Mills Studios, Danny Boyle, the ceremony’s director, showed us a model of the stadium mocked up with grass and the Glastonbury Tor. In my diary, I noted: “Danny told us something so amazing, so lovely, that it made the whole Olympics make sense.” I didn’t record exactly what that was, but it was either something about the power of volunteering or his plan to put 116 live animals on stage. Boyle conveyed his vision with total conviction – both revelations elicited sighs of joy from the performers.
We had 123 hours of rehearsal: two per week in June, usually at weekends, for four or five hours a time; and between two and four per week in July, between five and 10 hours each, leading up to the ceremony on July 27.
Rain tested our enthusiasm during the first three rehearsals at the old Ford plant in Dagenham. “Play the
My first audition was great – it felt like the world’s most ecstatic aerobics class
drum so your mum can see you on TV,” Underworld’s Rick Smith said cheerily through our earpieces.
We rehearsed diligently for the most naive of reasons: we wanted Britain to love the ceremony. That, and because we’d be sacked if we missed even one session. There were performers travelling to the rehearsals from Gloucestershire, Staffordshire and even France, some barely out of their teens, others old enough to claim a pension. We formed strong bonds in our little drummer cohorts, with the occasional diva thrown in. If I never have to see another person bend over in a thong that’s fine with me. A G-string, in the Industrial Revolution?
But there was also kindness. One woman baked cupcakes for all 1,000 drummers. A girl in my cohort made themed shortbread for our last rehearsal. I met a childhood friend I hadn’t seen in years who just appeared one day through the circus top that was keeping Boyle’s vision a secret from the Dagenham locals.
I wanted viewers to have similar moments to the ones I had over those weeks, where something so amazing happened that I would cry, then turn to find at least 50 other people also sheepishly wiping their faces.
One of my favourite moments came after a rehearsal in the stadium. I had sneaked into the stands to watch the NHS performers rehearse their segment and saw that Boyle was standing there too. We grinned at each other in utter delight at the magic unfolding before us, a joy that the rest of Britain couldn’t possibly anticipate – because of course, nobody wanted the Olympics at all.
When London won the bid on July 6 2005, my office stopped to watch the announcement, cheered and opened some fizz. The bombings the next morning were like a licked finger snuffing out a candle. No spark of anything other than horror and grief remained in London. Who cared about some far-off sporting event when people were dead?
The courage and bravery of our healthcare workers, the dedication of those who arrived on the Windrush, the memory of those who have died too young, all ran through the Opening Ceremony’s core. As the Olympic rings were raised to the top of the stadium, and I looked out at the huge crowd, the magnitude of what the Olympics means, of what the achievements of London have meant, washed over me like smelted gold.
That glowing NHS tribute has even deeper resonance now. When lockdown began to ease, I walked from my home in south London to Piccadilly Circus to witness the city in silence, and thus the invisible evidence of countless people who had come together in a common purpose, to help one another by staying at home. Like the Opening Ceremony, it was awe-inspiring.
I haven’t drummed since – my costumes are up in the attic, awaiting donation either to the V&A or to my goddaughter’s school – but that spirit stays with me, sometimes in remarkable coincidences. When I ran the London Marathon in 2014, the St John Ambulance volunteer who helped me at the halfway point when I had a panic attack turned out to be a drummer from my cohort.
London 2012 showed what amazing things can and will happen when our energy is harnessed in the creation of something greater than the individual.
It’s a spirit we should continue to channel in 2020.
London 2012 – The Opening Ceremony is on BBC One today at 10.35pm