Track and field: First glimpse at London Olympic opening ceremony

The £27 million event, orchestrated by Oscar-winning film director Danny Boyle, will feature a meadow, with cattle, horses and sheep completing the bucolic picture.

There will be a cricket match, picnics and farmers tilling the land, alongside children dancing around maypoles sporting national flora of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Glastonbury Festival – with a “mosh pit” – and Last Night of the Proms will also be portrayed.

More than 10,000 volunteers will recreate scenes from the British countryside, in a show that will be watched by a worldwide audience of a billion.

Organisers declined to give away too many secrets ahead of next month’s ceremony, but a spokesman said the home nations would be represented by “maypoles topped with a thistle, a daffodil, a rose and flax”.

Last night Rob Gibson, an SNP MSP, expressed doubt over the decision to use the Scottish emblem in such a way. “A maypole is no place for a thistle,” he said.

But he added: “Pre-reformation dances around maypoles were found throughout the Celtic world. So why not give it another whirl for the Olympics? I hope Scotland is well represented.”

A spokesman for VisitScotland said he was confident that Scotland would hold its own on the Olympic stage. “Danny Boyle is making a film that will showcase the journey of the torch, which will show off Scotland’s cultural vibrancy to the world,” he said.

Yesterday Mr Boyle, whose film credits include Train- spotting, said: “The ceremony is an attempt to capture a picture of ourselves as a nation, where we have come from and where we want to be.”

The event will be called “Isles of Wonder” and the theme will be “Green and Pleasant”, in tribute to William Blake’s Jerusalem, regarded by many as an English national anthem. It will unfold on one of the biggest sets ever built.

With just over a month left before the Games get under way, volunteers have held 157 rehearsals. The 30 sheep, 12 horses, three cows, two goats, ten chickens, ten ducks, nine geese and three sheepdogs also taking part have yet to practise their roles.

Mr Boyle said he has drawn inspiration from Shakespeare’s The Tempest to tell a story of a land recovering from its industrial legacy.

An Olympics spokesman said that Mr Boyle wanted to keep the finer details under wraps. Little has so far been revealed about any of the ceremonies surrounding the 2012 Games, although Paul McCartney let slip earlier this month that he will headline the closing event.

Europe’s largest bell will ring inside the stadium to start the opening spectacle, and there will be nearly 3,000 props and 23,000 costumes.

Yesterday, Games supremo Lord Coe said: “I’m sure it will be a fantastic celebration that will welcome the 10,500 athletes from around the world and make our nation proud.”

The ceremony will begin at 9pm on 27 July.

It will be followed by the athletes’ parade, then the lighting of the Olympic cauldron and a fireworks display.