Danny Boyle directed the highly praised opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. While Boyle received much of the credit, he relied on a team to help realize his vision. This article profiles four key members of that team: Paulette Randall, Liz Hoggard, Toby Sedgwick, and Kenrick 'H2O' Sandy. Randall was the associate director and Boyle's right-hand person. She helped shape the script and retain a sense of wonder. Sedgwick choreographed and directed over 1,000 volunteers. Sandy choreographed a key storyline and torchbearer sequence. Suttirat Anne Larlarb designed costumes and vehicles for the ceremony. All four played integral roles in creating Boyle's

1. Monday 30 July 2012 evening standard
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Director Danny Boyle has justifiably been given
the credit for the stunning opening ceremony,
but he wasn’t alone. Liz Hoggard talks to
the people who helped create the vision
W
HAT makes her boss so So proud:
special is that he breaks Paulette Randall
down the traditional played a key part
boundaries between in producing the
c re a t ive s , t h e a t re ceremony
director Paulette Randall said. Working
for Danny Boyle is more like being part
of a “collective think tank”.
As associate director of the opening
ceremony show, Isle of Wonder, she looking for the right people to tell the
has been Boyle’s right-hand woman. right story,” Randall said firmly, add-
She edited the script, taught children ing: “I said to Danny that, statistically,
to dance under the maypole and we — he as a white man, and I, as a black
helped retain a childlike sense of won- woman — are going to be the minority
der. At times, she acted as Boyle’s pro- in the next 25 years. Just as America
tector and his audience. “Whenever I has become Spanish, here it’s become
was in doubt [about something in the so organically mixed. And that’s the
show], I’d say to Danny: ‘What do you whole point.”
want me to feel at this point?’” They decided to follow the frantic
For inspiration in the planning stages, industrial revolution scenes with
Boyle took her and the show’s design- Akram Khan’s tribute to the 7 July Lon-
ers to a private early morning viewing don bomb victims. She said: “It was the
of the David Hockney exhibition at the most beautiful way to end a sequence
Royal Academy. “We wanted to create that had all been about electronics, and
a similar panoramic effect to those come back to human beings using
paintings,” Randall said. music and dance.”
Knowing her theatrical pedigree — She and Boyle worked together 20
Randall, 49, has directed August Wil- years ago when she won a Royal Court
son’s plays, which celebrate the African Young Writers award. “The prize was
American experience and is a former to have your play produced profession-
artistic director of black theatre com- ally, and Danny was the director. I was
pany, Talawa; her TV credits include in rehearsals watching him and
Desmond’s (C4) and The Real McCoy thought, ‘Actually, I want to do what
(BBC2) — makes you wonder whether he does’, so I applied for a bursary and
she can claim credit for the multicul- ended up assisting him on a plays.”
tural flavour of the show. I mention the She spent Friday troubleshooting and
show’s impressively multicultural cast, roaming the stadium, experiencing the
which included Dizzee Rascal, Akram show from every angle. “At one point
jeremy selwyn
Khan and dancers Jasmine Breinburg I was behind Michael Jordan and my
and Henrique Costan, playing young heart-throb John McEnroe. I’m so
lovers Frankie and June. “We were proud to have been part of it.”
Toby Sedgwick would say to them: ‘You must never Kenrick ‘H2O’ Sandy dance. In November 2009, The
Movement Director show what you are doing, you must Choreographer (left) Barbican invited Boy Blue to
just BE it’.” become artistic associates.
On the night: Pedigree: Trained as an actor and On the night: Choreographed the
Sedgwick, 58, directed mime artist. Frankie and June storyline — where Suttirat Anne
1,000 volunteers as The Boyle connection: In 2002, a young teenage couple fell in love Larlarb
they transformed the green and Boyle cast him as the priest who first thanks to a lost phone. Also oversaw Designer
pleasant land into the industrial succumbs to the virus in 28 Days the seven young torchbearers
revolution sections; he also Later. Impressed by his knowledge lighting the cauldron. On the night: Boyle
choreographed the parade of of physical theatre, Boyle asked Pedigree: At the forefront of the UK calls her his “mini-
suffragettes, Jarrow marchers and him to train all the actors in the film. hip hop nu-style dance scene, his director” — she designed the show’s
Windrush immigrants. Later he brought him in as video credits include Plan B, costumes and those beautiful “dove
His vision of a digging, hammering movement director on Frankenstein Sugababes, George Michael and bikes” that whizzed around the
army drew on the photography of at the National, where he coached a Dizzee Rascal. He co-founded Boy stadium.
Sebastião Salgado, and the films of naked Benedict Cumberbatch and Blue Entertainment, the Olivier Pedigree: After studying art at
Jacques Tati. Jonny Lee Miller as The Creature. In award-winning hip hop theatre Stanford, she entered Yale’s MFA
“The one thing the volunteers 2008, he won an Olivier for best company, which runs dance classes programme where she trained with
learned is how the audience interpret theatre choreographer for War in Newham for young people who theatre guru Ming Cho Lee. Has
everything through body language. I Horse. would never normally encounter worked on The Lion King.