Television

Closing Ceremony owes it to Bollywood   Author: eNews staff and agencies | Mar 27, 2006, 11:00

Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai steals the show

Thank you India and New Delhi.

John Farnham, Dame Edna, ballerinas in AFL football colours, staid dancing: Melbourne’s contribution to its closing ceremony was all too staid and predictable.

But Bollywood showed viewers and those at the MCG what a party is.

Without the vibrant energy of the New Delhi part of last night's closing ceremony for the Commonwealth Games, and the outstanding fireworks displays, the whole thing would have been dull, another example of Melbourne's peculiarly insular world view.

Bollywood music, singing, dancing, dancers, floats, colourful politicians and lots of energy: it lifted the closing ceremony and promised that the 2010 Games in New Delhi would be a highly interesting, so unlike Melbourne and something to celebrate India's rapid emergence as a regional; and world economic and political power.

The closing ceremony and other games coverage helped Nine to an easy win on the night with a share of 48.0%, down on the 51.6% of the opening ceremony. A total of 2.790 million people watched the closing ceremony across the country, down 685,000 from the 3.475 million who watched the opening.

Melbourne of course had the biggest audience, 1.292 million, down on the 1.5 million who watched the opening night. Sydney had a share of 40.9%, Melbourne 64.0%, Brisbane, 41.3%, Adelaide, 40.4% and Perth, 32.7%.

Nine commentators, Ray Martin and Nicole Livingstone (thankfully promoted instead of Liz Hayes) struggled to capture the spectacle of the brief Indian contribution.

'Colourful' was not an adequate description. They were clearly unprepared for what India showed it could do.

Like so much of the Nine telecast the commentary on the final Nine was banal: like much of the commentary from the studio, especially Gary Lyon and James Brayshaw in the morning session and Ken Sutcliffe at night.

Only Mark Nicholas in the afternoon session attempted to understand what he was doing, just linking, throwing and occasionally commenting; his interaction with Leila Mckinnon, who did updates, gave the session some breadth.

McKinnon, wife of former Nine CEO, David Gyngell, was by far the best studio performer for Nine in what was a jingoistic and highly restricted coverage.

The closing ceremony could have done with a greater injection of the energy and party like atmosphere of Bollywood. It was sedate, boring, hard to understand (ballerinas wearing AFL football team colours? What is the world to make of that strange custom?).

Apart from New Delhi there was none of the party atmosphere of the Sydney 2000 closing ceremony: It was supposed to be a celebration of a great time, which Melbourne appears to have had.

Good crowds, good TV audiences, great spectacle, competition and performances.

And at the end a piece of navel gazing.

Melbourne has struggled to live down that great quote from Ava Gardner that Melbourne was a great place (in her view) to make a movie about the end of the world (On the Beach).

Harsh, but in the late 50s, accurate from what we now know of Melbourne of the time.

Much of the Games coverage and boosterim reflected that inferiority complex.

And wasn't it great to see that Melbourne could summon John Farnham out of 'retirement' for yet another of his melba-like performances.

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