The Eurovision Song Contest is 50 years old - and the birthday bash is serving up plenty of drama, writes Karen Fricker in Copenhagen
What, again? So soon? That will doubtless be the response of many to the news that, come 8pm tonight, the familiar strains of Te Deum will issue forth from our television sets and the good, bad, and ugly of European popular music will vie for top honours in a Eurovision Song Contest.
Didn't we do that already this year? Ukraine, wasn't it? The ginger-haired Irish pair didn't make it out of the starting blocks, some Latvian boys sang a ballad, and the Greek hottie won?
No, you're not having flashbacks or memory loss. The usual, annual Eurovision contest having been dispatched last May in Kiev, tonight's programme is an extra: a once-off celebration of the 50th anniversary of the contest, hosted in Copenhagen by Danmarks Radio (DR), on behalf of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the Geneva-based professional organisation of television broadcasters which is behind the annual song spree.
Doubtless wisely, the Eurovision brass have determined that a celebration on its own probably wouldn't capture the continent's attention, so they've made it a familiar-looking competition. Earlier this year, online voters chose 10 of 14 songs vying tonight to be named the best Eurovision song ever (the Eurovision Steering Group chose the other four).
Tonight's programme will consist of film clips of the original Eurovision performances of the nominated songs, some of which will be augmented by live appearances by the original performers singing along with their recorded selves. The celebration will include a live orchestra, a choice the EBU's director of television, Bjorn Erichsen, describes as driven by "pure nostalgia" for the 48 years of Eurovision contests which included orchestral accompaniment (this was phased out in 1999, much to the distress of Eurovision purists).
The bookies' favourite tonight is no surprise: Abba's Waterloo, doubtless the most famous and recognisable Eurovision song in the contest's history.
A more open question is whether all or some of the members of Abba will appear tonight to perform live - the group is currently scheduled to appear on video, but it is believed that the organisers are holding back on a number of surprise features, including live appearances.
Appropriately, given that Ireland has won Eurovision more frequently (seven times) than anyone else, this country will be strongly represented in tonight's programme. Double-nominee Johnny Logan, a newly formed Irish "supergroup" of Eurovision winners (Linda Martin, Charlie McGettigan and Eimear Quinn, joined by this year's Danish national winner, Jakob Sveistrup), and Riverdance will all perform live. Even Ronan Keating has plumped up his Eurovision credentials (he co-presented the 1997 contest in Dublin) and is pitching up to sing in Copenhagen.
Controversially, the BBC is not broadcasting the event. The corporation's controller of entertainment commissioning, Jon Beazley, says the programme is "too remote for a wider British audience" because "there are to be a lot of Eurovision acts [ in it], which of course aren't all British". This reasoning seems odd - the annual song contest, after all, contains much more international than domestic content. Relatively speaking, Britain will be quite well represented in tonight's broadcast: it is the only country apart from Ireland with two nominated songs; one of the two co-hosts, Katrina Leskanich (of The Waves fame), is a former UK Eurovision winner; and the title of the whole evening, Congratulations, is taken from Cliff Richard's nominated song.
THE LARGER CONTEXT for the seeming British indifference may be that the BBC vied to be the organiser of tonight's celebration and for a brief time last year was the chosen host, but then withdrew, citing difficulties with the proposed venue, the Royal Albert Hall. The network appears to have lost interest in the event once it was not in charge.
The EBU's Erichsen calls the decision of both Britain and France not to participate tonight "a pity and a missed opportunity" which had an impact on the overall budgeting of the event, in that it put a larger financial strain on those countries that are broadcasting it. This decision, coupled with the dismal performance of all of the "big four" Eurovision countries (Britain, France, Germany and Spain) at this year's contest in Kiev, raises the larger question of where Eurovision is heading.
With smaller eastern European and Mediterranean countries now dominating the winners' lists, and the western European nations (which remain the contest's biggest overall funders) performing poorly and now sidelining the anniversary, a larger shakedown of the organisation of the event in the coming years seems inevitable, and necessary.
But hard questions, for the moment, are being put to one side in favour of sequins, singalongs and an unabashed love-in for an event that has, in its unique way, brought Europe together for the last half-century.