EUROVISION – IS IT REALLY A FIX?
By Shane Jarvis

Daily Telegraph
9:34AM BST 14 May 2009
UK

Shane Jarvis listens to all 42 entries in this year’s contest and
assesses the chances of UK hopeful Jade Ewen.

Making ‘un point’?? Jade Ewen rehearsing in Moscow this week Photo:
GETTY IMAGES Millions of viewers will watch the Eurovision Song Contest
on Saturday betting that the UK’s entry, It’s My Time by Jade Ewen,
will come last. So long has our run of Eurovision failure lasted that
many -including former host Terry Wogan – are convinced that the UK
never stands a chance of winning again.

But the doubters may be proved wrong. After another UK debacle last
year, someone decided that, in order to do better in the contest,
we should start taking ourselves and the competition a bit more
seriously. Andrew Lloyd Webber became involved, and his composition
might actually prove to be a contender.

Sounds Like Teen Spirit: a cross between Borat and Little Miss
SunshineTo assess our chances – and at great risk to my aural sanity
– I decided to listen intently to all 42 entries in the competition
just to see if there was any musical merit in any of them. And, to
my great surprise, the fact of the matter is that there is – and not
always where you might expect it. The winning entry might come from
Slovenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Lithuania or20Armenia, all of whom have
very good compositions.

For what it is worth, the UK entry stands up well against the
opposition and could even finish in the top five. But there are many
songs of quality and originality – more than there is room for in
the final of 25 songs. Once again this year, the number of entries
means there are two semi-finals in the week before the main televised
event. So who are the ones to watch for and who can we dismiss?

Norway, which has earned the dubious zero-points honour four times,
has an excellent song and is justifiably favourite to win. Alexander
Rybak’s Fairytale is a freewheeling fantasy with a violin hook and
verse/chorus combination reminiscent of Maroon 5. Sweden is putting
in a dynamic pop opera that is breathless, entertaining, infectious
and ends two octaves above middle C. And Christina Metaxa’s entry for
Cyprus starts in Lloyd Webber style before heading into U2 territory.

Of the five automatic finalists, only the UK and France deserve to be
there, although the Russian song, Mamo, is a slow burner. Spain and
Germany, I’m afraid, turn in poor performances that lack originality
and sparkle. Despite listening to Spain’s entry more than a dozen
times, I still cannot remember a thing about it other than it abandons
Latin flavours in favour of an eastern European minor refrain that
will fool no one.

When Wogan announced that he was stepping down from20presenting
the contest for UK viewers last year, he cited a number of reasons
why he thought the UK would never again do well in the show. They
included everything from our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq
and our automatic entry into the final, to the notion that eastern
European countries voted just for each other.

What he might have overlooked was that his disdain and increasing
contempt for the contest was beginning to be noticed by the organisers
and other countries and that, more importantly, maybe the songs placed
higher than the UK’s were actually better. It may even have been that
Wogan’s presence was putting the UK at a disadvantage. One participant
observed during Tuesday night’s first semi-final that our commentator
would no doubt be saying cruel things again this year.

But this time we might see a difference. We have a new presenter in
Graham Norton and a strong and serious entry. Lloyd Webber will be
appearing onstage with Jade Ewen with a song that ticks a lot of boxes.

Only if it finishes last might the Woganists be vindicated in their
suspicions that Eurovision is all one big fix.

The second Eurovision semi-final is on BBC3 at 8pm tonight. The final
is on BBC1 at 8pm on Sat.