For many, it was the most stunning and captivating opening ceremony to any Olympic Games. More than one billion people around the world watched Danny Boyle’s Isles of Wonder vision of the United Kingdom which kicked off the London 2012 Games.

The theatrical tour de force spanned the birth-pangs of industrialisation, the fight for women’s votes, the start of mass migration and the birth of the NHS and took in Britain’s rich tapestry of popular music, film and literature, won plaudits around the world.

The show included a series of dazzling spectacles, from a 40ft oak tree rising serenely from a grassy mound, to a towering 18metre Voldemort character roaming around the stage. Even Her Majesty the Queen, James Bond and David Beckham played the game.