Team GB Homecoming concert, review: a colourful love-bomb to Britain's sporting heroes
Crowds, at last. Team GB’s Olympic athletes belatedly received the adulation they deserved at this televised homecoming concert at a packed Wembley Arena. With a format that sat somewhere between Sports Personality of the Year and the Brit Awards, the 90-minute show – put on by the National Lottery – saw performances from artists including Chic legend Nile Rodgers and prolific chart star Anne-Marie.
After weeks in relative isolation and a Games at which they competed in empty venues in Tokyo, the Olympians’ reaction to this colourful love-bomb was something to behold. Euphoria, bemusement and exhaustion appeared to be the competing emotions as the athletes filed in from the stage as the show started. The same was true for the audience. With a 65-medal haul, there was a palpable sense that this lot had achieved something that the home nations’ football teams had failed to do earlier in the summer at the stadium just 50 metres away. Finally, shiny sporting metal had come home.
This was bold and inclusive prime-time entertainment (it was recorded on Sunday afternoon afternoon but shown “as live” on BBC1 that evening). What the show lacked in edge, it made up for in unbridled positivity. Singer Rag’n’Bone Man’s propulsive opening song All You Ever Wanted was the sonic equivalent of a mammoth hammer throw: it soared and wowed and landed somewhere up in The Gods. In a lovely touch, rising star Griff performed the delicate One Foot in Front of the Other wearing the Team GB cardigan that Tom Daley was pictured knitting as he sat by the pool waiting to dive. And Chic and Laura Mvula’s electric rendition of Good Times – in which Mvula played a “keytar” keyboard guitar and Rodgers performed the full Rapper’s Delight rap -– was pure joy.
The sense of occasion was swelled by Big Guns of stage and screen. Idris Elba, Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen recited pre-recorded prose over slick montages. There are, I have found, two kinds of people in the world: those who like sporting montages and those who don’t. For those in the former camp, this show was Shangri-La. We had montages of Olympians winning, of them not winning, of them training over lockdown, of tears, glory and sacrifice. For those steel-hearted folk in the latter camp, The Secret World of Crisps documentary on Channel 4 may have been a better bet.
The great and the good were in the crowd too. I saw three Sirs before I’d even sat down: Chris Hoy, Keir Starmer and John Major. (Boris Johnson met the athletes earlier but cut his visit short due to unfolding events in Afghanistan.) This was the Establishment’s “thank you” to our jetlagged superstars.
The music and montages were interspersed with athlete interviews by hosts Greg James and Clara Amfo. Medal-winners including BMX-er Charlotte Worthington, swimmer Tom Dean and cycling’s golden couple Jason and Laura Kenny had their moments in the spotlight. “Surreal,” seemed to be the consensus emotion among the Olympians. The chats were frustratingly short and superficial. When host James asked Jason Kenny how he and Laura process their success, Kenny replied, “I haven’t really thought about it?” He turned to his wife. “Have you thought about it?” Give him another gold medal for his cool nonchalance.
The balance wasn’t always right. Oddly there was no focus on equestrianism, at which Team GB excelled this year. It would be patronising and sad if organisers had assumed that such sports were too elitist for a mass-audience show like this. And there was no sign of Adam Peaty, the star swimmer who has signed up for Strictly. Perhaps it was felt that we’ll get our fill of him in the months ahead.
The event also highlighted modern sport’s uncomfortable reality: the men’s 4 x 100m silver medal-winning team seemed to have been cancelled from the jamboree after sprinter CJ Ujah failed a drugs test late last week. Nothing has yet been proven – but how quickly history can be erased.
Soul singer Mica Paris stole the show the show with Rise Up, and there were eye-catching performances from English National Ballet, contemporary dance troupe Rambert and theatre company Chickenshed. Singer Yungblud performed David Bowie’s Heroes as dance-circus company Motionhouse performed around him. We all knew who he was singing about.
Around 5,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes have benefited from National Lottery cash since funding started back in 1997, and medals galore have followed – that stat alone is worth a ticker-tape parade. As boxer Frazer Clarke said on this night of awestruck and frazzled heroes, “I’m so proud to be British right now.”
Available on iPlayer