I was at the hall of Swedish Church in Marylebone last night to watch the final of Melody Festival – the bar was selling dill crisps, pear cider and plenty merriment. As I expected, ‘Heroes’ won. But the show itself was a masterpiece of entertainment, an example of how Swedish TV is now vastly superior to the BBC in spite of having a fraction of its entertainment budget.
The show was played to a 28,000-strong crowd (a panel of six BBC bureaucrats choose the lamentable UK entries) Melody Festival opened with a version of Final Countdown (a Swedish anthem) sung in swing time by Conchita, last year’s Eurovision winner.
As the votes came in, MelodyFestival laid on this wacky but brilliant act by a Norwegian comedy duo, Ylvis, called ‘What’s the meaning of Stonehenge’. So Swedish TV was sending up the very Eurovision schlager music it was serving up – a brilliant musical form of self-deprecation.
But the main attraction of the night was one we didn’t see at the Swedish church – how the contest was conveyed for the hard of hearing. Yes, cue jokes about that being the best way to enjoy Eurovision. But last night, it probably was. Look at this guy, above – or click to 1’45 in to when he really gets going. There’s someone who enjoys his job. It’s a sign of SVT’s professionalism: they laid on an world-class evening of musical entertainment for everyone. Including the deaf.
And this, by the way, is my definition of a public service – not one that will ever be replicated by the BBC, with its bureaucratic mindset and the soft xenophobia that informs its disdainful incomprehension of what is now the most-watched entertainment show on the planet. Plenty Brits in that Swedish church hall last night were there to vicariously enjoy the contest through a country that actually understands how to lay on a show.
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