Olympic opening ceremony will be full of surprises

 LONDON, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The best kept secret of the Olympic Games at the moment is what the opening ceremony will be like, but from the details revealed by the Olympic authorities and partially¹ leaked by some of the performers, it looks set to be spectacular and with a dash of British humor thrown in.

The ceremony at the Olympic Stadium will be in front of an audience of 80,000 spectators, some of whom have paid 2,012 pounds (about 3,120 U.S.dollars) for their seats.

The director is British film and theater director Danny Boyle, who won the best director Oscar for his film "Slumdog Millionaire" in 2009.

One of Boyle's 2010 theater productions, "Frankenstein" at the British National Theater in London, featured a large church bell, and that theme has been picked up for the opening ceremony, where Europe's largest bell -- cast especially for the event at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry just five kilometers from the Games site -- figures prominently.

The bell fits Boyle's "Isles² of Wonder" theme for the ceremony. Photos of a scale model of the stadium arena³ during the ceremony show a set of typical British landscapes, with a patchwork⁴ of fields and rural scenes.

Local media has also reported that there will be depictions of the industrial revolution, to mark Britain's historic record as the first country to industrialize.

The newspaper 'The Daily Telegraph' reported that one of the stories that would be told in the ceremony would be a typical British Saturday night out partying and drinking for a pair of female friends, who organize their evening using social media to escape their parents who don't want them to go out.

This story gives Boyle a chance to showcase British popular music over the past 50 years, many of whose stars -- like the Beatles -- are known across the world.

The ceremony will use 25,000 performers, and several farmyard animals too, and will cost 27 million pounds (about 41.9 million U.S.dollars), and one of the elements that will certainly be in it is the entry of all 204 competing teams into the arena.

The opening ceremony is reported to start at 9pm British summer time and run for three and half hours. About an hour and a half of this time will be taken up with the arrival of the 204 teams.

All those who have taken part in rehearsals⁵ for the opening ceremony, including the audience, were asked to keep the details secret and very little has leaked out.

But one thing has constantly been mentioned -- the show will be funny and contain some typical British humor.

It's not clear what that will mean -- will it be visual, or slapstick, or witty⁶, or ironic⁷?

All of those can be characteristics of British humor, but the final test will be does the watching audience of billions around the world find it funny.

1 partially   

adv.部分地，从某些方面讲

参考例句：

• The door was partially concealed by the drapes.门有一部分被门帘遮住了。
• The police managed to restore calm and the curfew was partially lifted.警方设法恢复了平静，宵禁部分解除。

2 isles   

岛( isle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the geology of the British Isles 不列颠群岛的地质
• The boat left for the isles. 小船驶向那些小岛。

3 arena   

n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台

参考例句：

• She entered the political arena at the age of 25. 她25岁进入政界。
• He had not an adequate arena for the exercise of his talents.他没有充分发挥其才能的场所。

4 patchwork   

n.混杂物；拼缝物

参考例句：

• That proposal is nothing else other than a patchwork.那个建议只是一个大杂烩而已。
• She patched new cloth to the old coat,so It'seemed mere patchwork. 她把新布初到那件旧上衣上，所以那件衣服看上去就象拼凑起来的东西。

5 rehearsals   

n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 )；排练；复述；重复

参考例句：

• The earlier protests had just been dress rehearsals for full-scale revolution. 早期的抗议仅仅是大革命开始前的预演。
• She worked like a demon all through rehearsals. 她每次排演时始终精力过人。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 witty   

adj.机智的，风趣的

参考例句：

• Her witty remarks added a little salt to the conversation.她的妙语使谈话增添了一些风趣。
• He scored a bull's-eye in their argument with that witty retort.在他们的辩论中他那一句机智的反驳击中了要害。

7 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。