Marie Kemplay discusses how ‘the show” will have to go on without its most famous voice

He’s only Wo-gone and done it. Can you believe that after 35 years as the face of The Eurovision Song Contest Terry Wogan has pulled out? To be replaced by our favourite, over-the-top and camp comedian, Graham Norton. You may be thinking he’s the perfect host for the annual showcase of Euro trash, but Wogan was about all that made the contest bearable: bringing British common sense to an evening of nonsense. I’m thinking, miniature cars, Rock monsters, airline crews, the madness goes on…

It was pretty obvious he was leaving when at the end of last year’s contest he signed off with wistful comments like “I have to decide whether I want to do this again. Indeed, western European participants have to decide whether they want to take part from here on in because their prospects are poor.”

Wogan’s departure marks the end of an era when Britain, and other Western European countries could actually win. In recent years there have been very plausible accusations of bloc voting after a series of Eastern European countries have won in succession and Western European countries have been given consistently bad marks. It was less than surprising when Russia took the prize last year after receiving ‘douze points’ from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus and Armenia.

But is there not perhaps just a hint of ’sour grapes’ at work here? Let’s be honest have any UK songs actually deserved to win in say the last five years? Does anybody even remember any UK entries from the past 5 years? Scooch anybody? Andy Abrahams? Daz Sampson? I’m not suggesting there isn’t some serious favouritism going on amongst our ex-Soviet counterparts but you can’t blame them for how utterly forgettable and just downright bad our entries have been.

But it’s not just us Brits, I think the contest as a whole is suffering, these are no longer the glory days of ‘Waterloo’ and ‘Save all you kisses for me’. I have no idea what last year’s winning song, ‘I Believe’ by Dima Bilan sounds like, or Molitva by Marija Šerifović from 2007. Perhaps Andrew Lloyd Webber, who is writing the UK’s song this year can inject some of his special brand of musical magic and save us from the embarrassment of ‘nil points, however I don’t hold out much hope and if I’m honest I don’t care too much either.

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Image Credit: proteusbcn

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