AMERICAN DREAM

It’s bigger, brighter and better than ever, and now London’s new, unmistakably Americanised dome is putting its troubled past behind it.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MILLENNIUM DOME ON SOUTH EAST London’s Greenwich Peninsula was a uniquely British farce. It had the requisite cast of comic characters, from beleaguered Tory Prime Minister John Major, whose doomed government commissioned the infamous white elephant in 1994, to his Labour successor Tony Blair, who vastly increased the project’s size and scope, determined to make it the jewel in the crown of his party’s youthful and exuberant outlook.

Fat chance. Ill-conceived, poorly executed and undermined by a spiralling budget, the Dome was the exact opposite of everything that Blair promised: a triumph of cynicism over confidence, blandness over boldness, and mediocrity over excellence. The vision of Britain it ushered in as the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1999, was perfectly captured by a grim faced Queen reluctantly holding hands with her PM and looking like she’d rather be anywhere but there.

But if the Millennium Dome represents a classic British failure, the startling revival of its fortunes as The O2 – and the regeneration of the Greenwich Peninsula itself – is the ultimate transatlantic success story. If you want your razzle dazzle done right, it seems, just ask the Americans.

After six years gathering dust at an estimated cost of £1m (€1.3m) a month, the government finally brokered a deal to sell the Dome to American billionaire Philip Anschutz’s AEG Worldwide. A sports and entertainment outfit that owns dozens of venues around the world, AEG promised to generate £4bn (€5bn) of private sector investment in the region, at the heart of which was a grand plan to convert the moribund Dome into a glittering entertainment complex with cinemas, restaurants, bars and a 20,000-seat state-of-the-art concert and sports venue. Thanks to a £6m (€8m) per year sponsorship deal, the venue would be known as The O2.

In hindsight, it looks like a stunning piece of business for AEG. Rumours at the time suggested that the government literally gave the Dome away, so desperate were they to get it off the public balance sheet. But it’s easy to forget just how risky it seemed in 2006. So entrenched was the view that the Dome was a failure O2 had to shrug off claims that it was sponsoring a “monument of ridicule”. But Philip Beard, CEO of The O2, saw that as an advantage: “Because the Millennium Dome had been seen as a failure it made the re-branding easier in as much as people were intrigued about what was being developed under the tent,” he explains. “As soon as we opened we had a fantastic response, and almost immediately people were seeing it as a turnaround success – a contrast to its former life.”

Within three months The O2 had sold over 600,000 tickets for shows by performers including Bon Jovi and Elton John. Since then it has hosted the Rolling Stones, a record breaking 21-night residency from Prince, Take That (AEG Europe CEO David Campbell’s favourite performance) and Led Zeppelin, who saw 25 million applications for tickets. After only six months, The O2 overtook Madison Square Garden as the world’s most popular concert venue.

Today, The O2 leads the entire Greenwich Peninsula in oozing a very un-British chutzpah. It looks as miraculous as it always did with its sweeping, curvaceous lines and soaring struts. Giant billboards depicting seminal moments in rock history line the route from tube station to arena, beginning with the debut of Elvis in 1954 and culminating in – you guessed it – its own opening.

But though Beard might describe it as “the first of its kind”, inside AEG’s American lineage is obvious. This is entertainment by volume: an overwhelming extravaganza of sensory stimuli under one roof. The central arena itself only accounts for a small proportion of The O2’s overall capacity, which can fit 18,000 double decker buses under its 50m-high roof. You don’t even notice the arena at first, as Entertainment Avenue sweeps you around the periphery of the stadium past bars, restaurants, clubs and – depending on the season – either a giant artificial beach or ice rink. This is franchise heaven, with more than a whiff of Disney’s Main Street USA about its corporatised sense of fun.

What’s really striking about the place, though, is that there’s so much more left to come. Fully 25% of The O2 remains undeveloped, in part because AEG was expecting to win the government’s ‘super casino’ licence. It’s another British fiasco that, says Beard, “We don’t think about. We moved on.”

But whereas some stadiums can seem forlorn in the cold light of day, The O2 retains a frisson of energy, like an afterglow from the megawattage generated on its record-breaking nights. There’s so much else to do that there’s always a buzz – on a recent rare weekend with no major shows, 50,000 punters still came through the doors to eat, drink and have fun.

Those kinds of numbers inevitably have a knock-on effect on the local community, and Beard sees The O2 as being part of something much bigger than itself: “The people who visit us every day are the people who live locally, so we ensure they receive the best benefits,” he says. “But there is a whole regeneration programme for the Greenwich Peninsula – we are simply the first big development on it.”

Greenwich Council agrees. Leader Chris Roberts describes the Peninsula as “one of the key strategic sites in the council’s plans to regenerate the western end of the Thames Gateway”, and The O2 as “one of London’s landmark buildings… which has provided a significant impetus in respect of long-term regeneration to the area.” He concludes: “These developments represent a huge boost for the Peninsula and refl ect a highly visible and palpable sign that the area is regenerating for the benefit of both local people and the wider community.”

Step outside The O2 and evidence of that regeneration isn’t hard to find. A busy building site heralds the arrival of Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication in 2010, part of what Roberts describes as the “masterplan” to create a mixed use district that will generate new business opportunities for Greenwich.

Beyond that site, the unmistakeable humps of The David Beckham Academy loom large. The Academy – a football and training centre for young players that houses several full-size pitches – promises to become a major attraction in its own right. But it’s also another example of the Americanisation of the Peninsula’s entertainment scene. Beckham’s metrosexual modernity changed the very nature of ‘Englishness’ from a dour past to a glamorous present. Now based in LA, where the Academy has a sister school, his career has played out like a Hollywood film. If America is his new home, Greenwich seems a natural pied à terre.

Greenwich is headed helter skelter towards the future, but that doesn’t mean all traces of its past will be left behind. Companies like Greenwich Inc are ensuring that a taste of tradition is still available. Its network of bars and restaurants include the likes of The Spread Eagle, established at 1-2 Stockwell Street in 1650, or George of Greenwich, a delicatessen that fuses Old Greenwich with New Europe, and is housed in a converted antiques store.

Whether inspired by America, Britain, or just a few individuals who saw the potential of one of London’s most picturesque destinations, one thing is certain: after the disaster of the Dome, the Greenwich Peninsula has got its groove back and is finding a way to play a leading role in 21st-century London.

WORDS BY MATT BOCHENSKI