The celebrations marking Beijing’s handover to London as Olympic host city will feature David Beckham in a double-decker bus, a duet by Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page, and a singalong to the strains of Derby Ram.

The folk song, an ode to the charms of a fat male sheep and its bloody slaughter, has been selected as one of a number of regionally themed songs that will be performed at cities around Britain this weekend.

The handover will take place at 2.30pm BST on Sunday, when Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, will symbolically be handed the Olympic flag in Beijing.

London Olympic organisers are hoping that Beckham can provide the star quality needed to ensure that their ceremony in Beijing this weekend does not pale in comparison to what the Chinese hosts promise to be another dazzling spectacle. The former England football captain will play a central role in the eight-minute slot granted to the next host city in the Games’ grand finale on Sunday night.

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After entering the Bird’s Nest stadium atop a London bus, he will kick a football around with children representing the 205 Olympic nations. Lewis, the X Factor winner, and Page, lead guitarist with Led Zeppelin, are also scheduled to perform.

Hundreds of ballet dancers from the Royal Opera House accompanied by an urban dance act and a disabled dance troupe will perform routines before Mr Johnson receives the Olympic flag from his Beijing counterpart.Chinese organisers have only eight hours to transform the stadium at the end of the men’s marathon, the final event of the Games. The closing ceremony will feature a kung fu display by 350 local martial artists and 60 erhu, or Chinese violin players, from the eastern province of Jiangsu, according to the Beijing News.

Zhang Yimou, the creative director who was also in charge of the spectacular opening ceremony, which was revealed to be partially faked, said that the climax of the show would be the extinguishing of the Olympic flame.

“We are dedicated to creating a happy atmosphere. The message is to say goodbye, and to promise to meet again in four years,” he said.

The handover celebrations will be broadcast in cities across Britain on about 30 giant public screens. Regional choirs will lead 15 minutes of collective singing in each location. Cities taking part include Middlesbrough, Glasgow, Portsmouth, Manchester, Norwich, Bradford, Coventry, Derby, Birmingham, Swansea, Leicester and Blackpool.

The regionally themed songs will include Delilah in Swansea, Danny Boy in Belfast and I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside in Blackpool.

In London, 40,000 people are expected to gather for a party on the Mall, for which tickets have already been allocated.

The mayor also announced that a victory parade will be held in London on October 16 for the Team GB and Paralympian athletes.