The naysayers said it would be the biggest flop of the new century. The controversial Millennium Dome was created as part of Britain’s year 2000 celebrations. It initially housed the Millennium Experience, which was a less than rousing success.
When it emerged that the dome had cost a staggering €921 million, there were dark mutterings about misuse of public funds
When that closed, the dome was pretty much redundant for several years. When it emerged that the dome had cost a staggering €921 million, there were dark mutterings about misuse of public funds for short-sighted projects.
But in 2005, the dome got a reprieve. It was turned into the O2 arena and has gone on to host everything, from Cirque du Soleil to sell-out concerts for the biggest names in music. In turn, it has helped to regenerate the entire North Greenwich peninsula. Somehow, from the ashes of profligate public spending, the millennium experiment has emerged victorious. I went to see the phoenix for myself.
Emerging from Greenwich North tube station, the dome is, of course, the dominant sight on the skyline. Its marquee roof hangs suspended from 12 support towers, representing the hours of the clock (a nod at the close proximity of the dome to the Meridian timeline) and the calendar months. It’s also 365 metres in diameter.
For an entry fee of around €30, it’s possible to channel your inner mountaineer and find out how the Earth looks from the summit of the dome (booking recommended from www.theo2.co.uk/upattheo2).
I watched as climbers, clad in jumpsuits and attached to a safety line, dragged themselves up the curving white hemisphere to a platform for the inevitable conquerors’ photo. The trip takes 90 minutes though, which was 60 more minutes than I had, so I opted instead for the Emirates Skyline, just five minutes’ walk away.
The Skyline was originally built to link the Greenwich peninsula to the Royal Docks. It opened in time for the 2012 Olympics and supposedly functions as an integral part of the transport system, although tourists appear to be the main users. Large gondolas are in perpetual motion for 1.1km over the Thames on huge steel cables. They don’t actually stop at the entrance, just sail sedately along, their doors opening automatically.
I jumped in and traced a stately semi-circle of the boarding area while the doors closed. The cable suddenly rose sharply and I was airborne.
Alone in my gondola, the dome came into view and then dropped rapidly away. Directly below were the choppy, churning waters of the Thames as they ran down to the Thames Barrier.
Away from the newfound glamour of the arena, Greenwich remains an industrial site. The dome was built on land previously contaminated by toxic sludge from old gas works. The recycling plants and piles of sand and stone that still remain were strangely fascinating from the sky.
As I reached the apex of the cable, London was spread out beneath, stretching far into the distance in every direction, a washed-up detritus of buildings and businesses. Planes swooped past the cable cars, landing just a few hundred metres away at City Airport.
It’s possible to get off at the other end of the cable and have a wander around the Royal Docks but honestly, there’s not that much to see there. I just stayed put, circling the exit platform and taking off again below a bizarrely inane video of Londoners waving at a camera, looking distinctly uncomfortable and, well, British (perhaps that’s the point). With a discount for my travelcard, the jaunt across the river cost me €7.50 and took less than 10 minutes.
Back on solid ground, I headed back to the dome and went inside to discover that it’s more than just a giant concert hall. The O2 bubble houses the British Music Experience, where you can “explore, play, sing and dance your way through 60 years of British music”.
Hand-written lyrics and outfits from the Spice Girls to the Sex Pistols make the big names a little bit more human. At the Sky Studios, there’s the option to explore an alternative career as a newsreader for 10 minutes, then e-mail the result to your family. There’s also an 11-screen multiplex cinema.
I bypassed these attractions in favour of Entertainment Avenue, a pseudo street which was heaving with bars and restaurants (there are more outside in the piazza). Sadly, they are all chain restaurants (presumably the rents are too eye-wateringly high to encourage small businesses to take a risk), but the Slug and Lettuce did a passable cucumber gin and Pizza Express furnished me with a leggera pizza – essentially, a standard thin crust with the middle taken out and stuffed with lettuce instead, perfect for a light dinner before the Paloma Faith concert.
And this was where the dome fell down. Paloma has an indisputably lovely voice, whether you’re a huge fan of her music or not. She sings songs where Etta James, Amy Winehouse and Adele collide in a thunder clap of jazzy, music hall notes. Up there on stage, she had a 15-piece band that included four violins, a harp and a double bass.
It should have been harmony heaven. But what issued from the speakers into the cavernous, tented interior of the 02 was what my musical friend called “a white wall of noise”. Paloma did her very best, the crowd were rocking, the atmosphere was lively but the acoustics were against her. Ms Faith can perhaps take consolation in the fact that when Madonna played here the acoustics were slated then too.
If you can tune out the static, Leonard Cohen, The Moody Blues, Maroon 5, Rod Stewart, Iron Maiden and Neil Young are performing over the next few months.
Tickets are available on the O2 site, so it’s easy to book to see a brilliant band and spend a couple of hours beforehand climbing the dome and sailing over the River Thames in a Gondola.
Just don’t take a musical snob as a companion with you; I hadn’t really noticed quite how bad the sound was until he pointed it out to me.