A little bit of glitter

Julia Zemiro has such faith in the essence of Eurovision, she says it could survive even the toughest threats.

“What would be interesting one year is if there was such a global financial crisis that Eurovision had to be pared down. Imagine if it had a lot of stuff stripped away. You could still pull glitter out of your bra, sure, cos that’s not expensive,” she said.

“But if you had to really contain it and it was just reliant on talent and a small room you’d be thinking ‘it’ll be a little bit different now!'”

The RocKwiz host says her affection for the world’s biggest pop contest stems back many years. She watched the show growing up, performed in the original EuroBeat stage musical and introduced previous SBS broadcasts. This year she takes a primary role commentating the event for SBS on the ground in Moscow with co-host Sam Pang. Following the previous audio coverage of Des Mangan, it is the first time SBS has sent a team and production crew to film full commentary.

With the retirement of legendary UK commentator Terry Wogan, Zemiro is conscious of not trying to copy his style. Comments will be left to the ‘Russian Postcards,’ following each of the acts.

“We’ll be doing it with love, and we’ll be doing it sparingly. And that’s what Terry did so well. Sometimes he would say nothing for ages and then all of a sudden you’d hear this voice say ‘Mmm, lovely’ and you’d just kill yourself laughing,” she said.

“But I do believe less is more.”

Zemiro says the recent introduction of Semi Finals has changed the way Eurovision works, with the ‘worst of the worst’ songs all but banished from the big Final.

“The disappointing thing about the Semis now is the Final isn’t as much of a surprise. Although there is the thing of knowing if someone performed beautifully at the semis whether they get to the final and lose their cool.

“But then you get surprised when you think ‘how did THAT get through?'”

The popularity of Eurovision, which began in 1956 from its predecessor the San Remo Musical Festival, has spawned several off-shoots including the Junior Eurovision Song Festival, Eurovision Dance Contest, a film in the pipeline from Working Title, the stage musical and now AsiaVision, an Asia-Pacific Song Contest.

“Why do I not get excited by that? I mean hearing songs in different languages from Asia would be camp and funny but my deep love is for Eastern European, French, Ukranian, Hungarian.

“So with Asiavision I go ‘oh right, ok…..”

Australia is eligible for inclusion in the Asia-Pacific event.

SBS also screens three EBU-produced Countdown to Eurovision shows which showcase each of the acts in contention. They are hosted by Jovan Radomir who hosted the show last year, and Russia’s Yana Churikova who co-presented this years Russian national final.

Producing the Australian content will be Paul Clarke, who has produced music television events including Kylie Minogue’s Showgirl and X tour videos plus Long Way to the Top, the Countdown Spectacular, and Swan Lake and Keating! The Musical for the ABC.

The Greek entry “This is our Night” by Sakis Rouvas is co-written by Australia’s Craig Porteils and Cameron Giles-Webb, while UK entrant Jade Ewen previously appeared in the ABC children’s series, Out There (2003).

But with her French background, Zemiro is pinning her hopes on France’s Patricia Kaas and her ballad, “Et S’il Fallait Le Faire.” Kaas will have to work hard to pip the favourite, Norway’s Alexander Rybak. The kid with the violin.

“And I love the Scandanavian stuff. I never love England or Ireland that much, but I’ve always loved the weird stuff. And Russia. It just touches a chord in me… just love the sound of it.”

Countdown to Eurovision 5:30pm Wednesday, Thursday Friday
Eurovision Semi Finals 7:30pm Friday, Saturday
Eurovision Final 7:30pm Sunday on SBS.

Disclaimer: David Knox blogs Eurovision for SBS.