Express 24h

The ceremony is the brainchild of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle and will cost £27 million to stage, around one third of the total £81m budget of the Olympic and Paralympic ceremonies.

It will start with the ringing of a giant bell inscribed with a line from a speech by Caliban in William Shakespeare's The Tempest: "Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises".

The bell weights 27 tons and is being struck today at the Whitechapel Bell foundry. It's much bigger than Big Ben and the hope is that it will remain in the Park after the Games.

The ceremony, which begins at 9pm on July 27 (with the pre-show starting at 20.12), is expected to last well over three hours, but will need to end by 12.30am to allow spectators to get public transport home.

Boyle said: "We are trying to capture a sense of humour. With the NHS we got an idea and then tried to make sense of it. Why not nurses and children and connect the two together? I daren't say anymore because I've been told not to."

He said he wanted to reflect the "friendliness" of the Sydney Games.

"I'd be very honoured if we were compared to Sydney and became a People's Games," he said.

The Sydney opening ceremony featured heavy doses of
_{Danny Boyle's model of the Olympic Stadium, which he is using to plan the opening ceremony}

Boyle said he had been inspired by the opening ceremony at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and had used his recent West End run of Frankenstein as a "dry run" for the opening ceremony.

He will be allowed two full dress rehearsals in the Olympic Stadium before the event itself but was wary of information being leaked.

Creative director Stephen Daldry said the ceremonies will show "who we are, who we were and who we wish to be."