Calling the tunes

Ahead of next Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest final, Sir Terry Wogan tells Michael Deacon why poor old Royaume-Uni may never triumph again...

Sir Terry Wogan must have ears of steel. The day before our interview, he watched the videos of every single entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. All 43 of them. It’s a test of endurance that would have reduced Hercules to a sobbing heap, but the BBC’s indefatigable commentator is in cheerful mood. “They say it isn’t over until the fat lady sings,” he says. “So the Portuguese entrant had better be on last. I thought Russia might win this year since Putin’s got nasty and we need the oil. Then I heard the song and thought, ‘...No’.”

He seems particularly amused by the French entry, Divine by Sébastian Tellier. There’s been uproar in France because its entry, for the first time, has English lyrics. The singer, Wogan notes, has a suspiciously large beard and long hair: “You see, he’s having to do it in disguise for his own safety.” Wogan has been providing the BBC’s commentary on Eurovision since 1971 – first on radio, then (since 1980) on BBC1. Next Saturday he’ll be in Belgrade in Serbia to cover the final; on Tuesday and Thursday this week, viewers of BBC3 can watch the semi-finals. These feature all the entrants except the holders Serbia, plus Spain, Germany, France and “Royaume-Uni”, ie the UK. Those four are Eurovision’s biggest financial contributors, so they go straight to the final. You see what integrity the competition has.

It’s hard to imagine Eurovision without Wogan’s dry (but, he says, affectionate) narration: he introduced the presenters of 2001’s contest in Denmark by crying, “Look, it’s Doctor Death and the Tooth Fairy.” Wogan is such a Euro-institution that he’s mentioned in this year’s Irish entry, Irelande Douze Pointe by Dustin the puppet turkey: one verse begins, “Drag acts and bad acts and Terry Wogan’s wig.” Wogan, I’m afraid, isn’t impressed: he says it’s daft to do a novelty song, as the joke will be meaningless to viewers “east of the Danube”, and because “you shouldn’t try to be funnier than the contest itself”. The “wig” reference clearly doesn’t delight him either: “That’s old hat,” he says.

Last year, the UK’s representatives Scooch finish 23rd out of 24. Wogan, who thought Scooch were terrible, says our song this time, 'Even If' by Andy Abraham, is “the best we’ve had in years”. But he adds that we shouldn’t necessarily expect it to do much better. “It would be a great result to finish in the top 10,” says Wogan. “Just to try to make up for the UK doing so badly in recent years.” He thinks the chances of a win for the UK – or any country in Western Europe – have become remote since the contest was expanded to include so many new states from Eastern Europe. Moldova, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania... their viewers are bound to vote for each other’s countries. The last winner from the west was Denmark in 2000.

“What we need in the voting is an Iron Curtain,” he says, looking half-serious. “All the big countries in Western Europe – France, Germany, Spain, the UK, San Marino… They should unite just to give one of us a chance.” But even though the block voting frustrates him, he still loves the contest itself. He’s never once considered giving up the job because, he says, there’s always “some silly new thing that makes it worthwhile”. The ridiculousness of the local presenters, for example: one pair of hosts – funnily enough, it was “Doctor Death and the Tooth Fairy” – spoke solely in rhyming couplets. “A great idea,” says Wogan. “For the first link.”

Then there are the variety acts who perform during the interval. One year, it was a mime troupe. “I was doing it for the radio,” says Wogan. “Can you imagine? Fifteen minutes of clowns miming. Not a lot to talk about.” Thankfully, he always has sustenance to hand. “My producer and I used to have a rule: ‘No drinks until song 12’,” he says. “Now it’s song seven. Anyway, I only have Bailey’s Irish Cream – it’s not an alcoholic drink, it’s a dairy product.”

He’ll be 70 in August, but has no plans to retire: he says he’ll do so only when his family tell him he’s passed his peak, if they say, “Your timing’s half a beat off.” Timing is everything to him. He says he’d quit if Radio 2 were privatised and started running ad breaks: “The adverts would ruin my timing.” But, while he’s adamant that the BBC should never go private, he has his criticisms of it. “The BBC needs to contract,” he says. Contract how? By axing BBC3, say? “There would be a case for that – BBC3, BBC4, perhaps some of the digital radio stations, because the audiences aren’t discernible.”

Which is something you certainly can’t say about Eurovision. Nearly 11million in Britain watched last year’s final. And you can be sure they’ll keep watching, for as long as that warm but withering voice is there to guide them through Royaume-Uni’s latest debacle.

The Eurovision Song Contest 2008 is on BBC1 next Saturday, 24 May, at 8.00pm. The semi-finals are on BBC3 on Tuesday and Thursday of this week, at 8.00pm