No ifs or butts, Graham Norton’s Eurovision Song Contest masterclass proved he really is a worthy successor to Sir Terry
Despite finishing third last the show was one of the most entertaining things you're likely to see on BBC1 this year
FOR all its worthy dross and money-wasting ways, there were two reasons to mourn the loss of BBC3 to the internet last year.
Then I realised they’d simply switched this week’s Eurovision semi-finals to BBC4, where Mel Giedroyc and Scott Mills covered everyone in 36 layers of irony while the rest of the continent removed anything spelt F.U.N.
The break-dancing Moldovan spaceman? Macedonia’s kebab song (“Dona dona dona”)? A pair of baggy-trousered Greek rappers I’d been itching to call MC Homer?
All gone, long before the big night.
Expectations were at a pretty low ebb, then, on Saturday for the 61st Eurovision Song Contest, on BBC1, which was brilliantly staged and hosted by the Swedes but represented only the hollowest possible triumph for Great Britain.
Third last in the contest itself, yet through our stubborn, almost heroic refusal to speak any other language we have now bent the rest of the world to our collective will and got 25 out of 26 Eurovision finalists singing in English.
This is great news on the summer holiday front, obviously, but it had a horribly stifling effect on Eurovision, where in place of the usual bouzouki madness and gimp-suit dancers from Albania, we had dozens of instantly-forgettable X Factor power ballads and a Georgian rock outfit who would not have looked out of place emptying the NME tent at Glastonbury.
As the slick but unwelcome presence of Justin Timberlake and US television seemed to confirm, this is a situation that’s probably going to get worse and we’re already at the point where only three of Saturday’s finalists could be considered even mildly eccentric.
Hats off, then, to Dutch country and western singer Douwe Bob, who came to a grinding, ten-second halt during his Slow Down song; Poland’s answer to Charles II, Michal Szpak, which I presume isn’t a stage name, and the shrill Ukrainian winner Jamala, whose 1944 hymn to the motherland simultaneously charmed half of the continent while converting the other 50 per cent of us to Stalinism.
These were the slimmest possible pickings from a dreadful comedy year.
And yet, I’d still argue, there were a couple of very good reasons why Eurovision was the most entertaining thing you’ll see in this BBC1 slot all year.
The first and most obvious was the new scoring system, which finally introduced some tension into the second half of the show.
It also managed to do it without diluting the charm of the national juries, who continue to send their country’s biggest oddball to deliver 12 points, build their part — “Special greeting to all those who love Albanian music” — and then silence the whole of Europe with this sort of conversation stopper.
“There’s a Swedish saying. If there’s room in the heart there’s room in the butt.”
Is there indeed?
Well I’d like to see that Swedish saying on a Eurovision coat of arms, next to a picture of Graham Norton, who delivered a presenting masterclass on Saturday night and paid the most beautiful tribute to Terry Wogan at the arrival of “song nine”, his traditional cue to start drinking.
Above and beyond that fine gesture, though, he captured the tone of the man who invented his job to perfection, toying brilliantly with both the score readers, “Is she an Uber driver in Moldova?” and the running order: “From one of the best songs in the competition . . . to Cyprus.”
If there was a moment that sealed it, though, it was the arrival of the German entry.
“Song ten. And forgive me, ladies and gentlemen. Maybe I’m just old and grumpy but there isn’t a single thing about this woman that doesn’t annoy me.”
The voice of Eurovision.
— TV GOLD: Sweden’s brilliant Eurovision parody interval song Love Love Peace Peace (and a man in a hamster wheel).
Grant Mitchell reappearing, silhouette first, on EastEnders. Celebrity Juice plonking Eamonn Holmes in a mobility scooter and Indiana Jones outfit.
Ronan Keating’s face turning from enthusiastic, to civil, to distracted, to b******-his-agent mad, in the space of just 45 Up Late With Rylan minutes.
And Beaver Las Vegas narrator Cherie Lunghi, concluding a disappointing documentary with a planet-saving message to unite the world: “Learn to love your beaver.” Amen.
Enders so Ham fisted
IF you want to know how disconnected EastEnders’ middle-class and very right-on scriptwriters are from the real thing, then you need only look at the show’s dysfunctional relationship with football.
The Bafta-winning soap graciously acknowledges the world’s most popular team sport exists, of course. It also has a pub team (mixed gender, naturally), that plays one fixture every summer and, at entirely random moments, even allows one of the Square’s many West Ham fans to talk about them, in the manner of a 1930s’ Pathe Newsreel.
“We’re a bit like West Ham, aren’t we Dad,” said Johnny Carter recently, sounding like one of the Railway Children, “If we play like a team nothing can get past our defence.”
Casual observers might then just have thought, despite the tone, EastEnders would pinch its nose, take a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and actually get Mick, Johnny or Billy to acknowledge the last-ever knees-up at the Boleyn Ground, on Tuesday.
Not a chance, or even a word, for that matter.
Instead, we had cancer, blackmail and some wife-swapping oaf called Neville catching the full force of the show’s agenda from Mick’s wife Linda, above, who screamed: “When are men going to get it? Real intimacy is about trust. And d’you know what?”
Yeah, I think I probably do, Linda, given the fact EastEnders reminds me, about 27 times a week.
Never mind, though, hey? There’ll be another stadium move along in 112 years.
— THOSE Eurovision semi-final statistics in full. Number of times BBC4 host Mel Giedroyc referenced The Great British Bake Off – ten.
Number of times BBC4 host Mel Giedroyc referenced Terry Wogan – Zero.
— INCIDENTALLY, which is meant to be the funny bit of Mel & Sue? ’Cos my money’s on &.
Rylan’s chatty mangle
IF you’re remotely charmed by the idea an eight-year-old Rylan Clark once dreamed of having his own chat show, you clearly haven’t watched the nightmare come true, four nights a week, on Channel 5 . . . babe.
Up Late With Rylan, a series that got off to the worst possible start when opening guest Alesha Dixon made the mistake of asking: “Is there anything this man can’t do?”
I had a 23-page list, by the end of the week. It was topped by his inability to go any longer than 23 seconds without bringing the conversation back to the subject of himself, or calling someone “babe,” and those hideous Carlton Palmer teeth (should never have been capped), which mean Rylan can barely finish a sentence without adding a saliva-gathering “SCHLUUURRRRP.”
Even the dumbest chat show on television realises, though, it’s as much about the break-out features as the host, these days.
So they’ve tried distracting us with games, pranks and a stand-up segment, with Sophie Willan, which they’ve tastefully named in honour of the Holocaust movie Sophie’s Choice.
There’s still no avoiding Rylan, though. He’s the ultimate KitKat advert celebrity, in fact. “You can’t sing, you can’t play, you look awful . . . you’ll go far.”
Indeed, I was having trouble thinking of anyone who’s made so little go such a long way, when, as if by magic, Rickie and Melvin appeared to discuss Bang On The Money. “Crazy innit? It feels like ITV have made a mistake. I’m like, ‘What have they done’?”
They’ve made a mistake, babe. That’s what they’ve done. SCHLUUURRRRP.
— TV name of the week. Vogue On Sex cameraman, Enda O’Looney, was just beaten by Eurovision’s video content editor, Mikki Kunttu.
— VERY incidentally, if West Ham’s captain Mark Noble married singer Cher, would she become a nuclear disaster?
— RANDOM TV irritations: Britain’s clueless Eurovision jury awarding the Georgian racket 12 points.
Sky Sports’ Teddy Sheringham dressing like Sean Connery in The Untouchables for Upton Park’s last hurrah.
Dale Winton’s 60-year-old head sporting a teenager’s haircut on the Lottery show. Every needy fraud in the country making up stories about a teacher who once told them they’d “never amount to anything”.
And TLC’s Vogue Williams visiting a swingers’ club in Limerick, Ireland, called I-Kandi, rather than the Bond-inspired name which I thought should be local industry standard, Plenty O’Tooles.
— WHY the long face? I’ve been watching The Queen’s 90th Birthday celebrations, hosted by Ant & Dec, on ITV, and it was (how can I put this diplomatically) a bit heavy on the equine-related front. To the point I’ve had to cancel my annual “No s***?” awards, following this Ant McPartlin link, two hours and ten minutes into the evening.
“The Queen’s been an animal lover since childhood. But of course her particular favourite was the horse.”
Full coverage of the evening is available on the ITV iplayer. But wild horses couldn’t etc etc.
— OVER on ITV’s Killer Women With Piers Morgan documentary our unusually solemn host confronts Terry, the father of triple murderer Erin Caffey, with these crucial questions.
“When you look back on life before this atrocity, do you think of any moments that you think, ‘That was a warning, that was something’? You must have agonised. Are you able to identify anything?”
A look, a word, a gesture?
Or was it just that chilling moment they announced: “Here’s Andi Peters with the competition?”
— GREAT Sporting Insights. Paul Merson: “Bertrand throws his right leg at it on his left foot.”
Danny Simpson: “If we hadn’t got a goal for the draw, we’d have lost.”
And Vicky Gomersall: “After that result it’s as you were in the table but Everton move up a place.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray).
— TRIBUTE of the week. Eurosport’s fine rowing commentator Gillian Lindsay: “Although Ron Needs died at the age of 90 he would still turn up to training every day. Incredible.”
Aye, the don’t make ’em like Ron any more.
Lookalikes
THIS week’s £69 winner is Piers Morgan and Davros, creator of the Daleks, one of whom does Donald Trump’s PR. Sent in by Paul Sutherland, of Putney, South West London.
Picture research by Marta Ovod.
No more Jamie Vardy/Albert Steptoe suggestions, I beg you.