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Beckham to join X Factor star in Beijing closing show
Matthew Beard, Evening Standard16.06.08
David Beckham and former X Factor winner Leona Lewis are among stars being lined up to feature in the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
The "handover" performance will mark the point when the next Games move to London.
A central feature of the eightminute spectacle in Beijing's 90,000 capacity Olympic stadium will be a red Routemaster bus on loan from Transport for London.
Beckham, who originates from Leyton and backed the 2012 bid, will jump off the bus for a kickabout with children representing every country in the world. At the next "stop" in the arena Lewis, Hackney-born winner of the 2006 X Factor talent show, will perform one of her hits.
The production will culminate in Boris Johnson receiving the Olympic flag from his Beijing counterpart. The Mayor has admitted practising every day to ensure he does not make a mistake at the ceremony - where he has to wave the six-metre flag back and forth eight times. He told business leaders that with an audience of three billion people watching, it would be embarrassing to drop it.
Reader views (1)
Beckham on a Routemaster at the closing ceremony? Well, those coming to the London Games won’t see that much loved symbol of London because some idiot chose to scrap them. But worse will be the representative acts who are supposed to characterize the best of British? English? Heaven knows? Culture. We’ll see Zoo Nation a hoodie, ‘unban dance squad’ which features gangster rap and a drug-dealing pimp. They will be joined by performers from the Royal Ballet and CandoCo, a disabled dance company. Disabled dancers? I’ve been told I’ve got two left feet, so presumably, my pathetic efforts at dance would qualify me for that group, but I don’t think millions worldwide would appreciate that spectacle. I’m afraid all this televised garbage confirms one’s impression that the 2012 organisers are such a bunch of incompetent fools that the 2012 Games will be a giant ’hundred times worse than the Dome’ debacle.
- Sean Dunne, Louth UK
