London plans cool Olympics

London 2012 will unveil their blueprint to be the cool Olympics with an eight-minute slot in the Beijing closing ceremony that will combine the best of British rock, glamour, culture and sport.

Rock legend Jimmy Page and singer Leona Lewis will star in London’s set, performing a stunning new version of the Led Zeppelin classic ’Whole Lotta Love’, while footballer David Beckham will also be involved.

The set will kick-in after London mayor Boris Johnson receives the Olympic flag in the handover ceremony, and starts with a red London double decker bus driving around the Bird’s Nest stadium being pursued by Team GB cyclists Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton and Shanaze Reade.

Bill Morris, London 2012’s director of ceremonies, said they were not aiming to try to match Beijing in terms of scale at the handover ceremony – the Chinese will have a cast of literally thousands involved.

Morris said: “We will take a London approach and will be different. Our approach is to keep it simple and creative, to make it youthful and diverse, entertaining and fun.

“It will be London, UK, loud and proud.”

Three dance groups will also be involved: the Royal Opera House including Deborah Bull who has come out of retirement specially, street dance theatre group ZooNation and CandoCo, a company which specialises in mixing performers with and without disabilities.

After the flag handover, the national anthem is sung by the National Youth Theatre, then the bus and the cyclists appear.

The dancers will surround the red double-decker when it halts at a bus stop and a 10-year-old girl from east London, Tayyiba Dudhwala, who was chosen in a Blue Peter competition, will emerge to receive a football from another girl Erika Tham.

The bus then transforms itself and Leona Lewis emerges from the roof on a rising column dressed in gold and singing an R’n’B aria. The music reaches a crescendo and Page appears on a rising stage with a guitar and after a pause, the unmistakable first riffs of ’Whole Lotta Love’ blast out, and Lewis starts singing.

Towards the end of the song, David Beckham appears on another lift accompanied by Tayyiba, plus a violinist and a cellist representing the London Symphony Orchestra, is handed the football and kicks it into the crowd of athletes, many of them from Team GB, in the centre of the field.

Hi-tech umbrellas then cover the bus, forming a screen of dazzling images before the bus transforms into a carnival float and heads out of the stadium.

TV coverage of the event will then have a live link to the handover party outside Buckingham Palace.

Morris admitted he was stunned by the scale and spectacle of Beijing’s opening ceremony but said he was not overawed.

He added: “I can genuinely say I did not feel a sense of nervousness that we had to follow that because London brings other things and it will be a different place and a different time.”

Martin Green, London’s head of the ceremonies, said the key was not to “try to rebrand London in eight minutes”.

He added: “We decided to go for a short, sharp shock, something contemporary that celebrates everything that London is.”

London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe admitted that the handover slot was a tough ask but believes they will pull it off.

He said: “We are not going to win over everybody but it is something that will appeal both to younger generations and to more mature generations such as myself. I just love the version of Whole Lotta Love that he and Leona Lewis have done.

“We have been respectful when we have needed to be and I believe this will really show what we can do in London with the talent we have.”