Colour Supplement

What else could it be but “The Eurovision Song Contest”!

Eurovision

1981

1974

1996

2020

For the first time since it started in 1956, there was no Eurovision Song Contest in 2020. However, there was a live show which, just like the contest itself, was simultaneously broadcast across Europe and beyond and was hosted from the Netherlands by Dutch presenters Chantal Janzen, Edsilia Rombley and Jan Smit.

The highlight of Eurovision 2020 was a compilation of all the artists singing “Shine A Light”:

You’re in shot

Of course, one of the joys of watching Eurovision is to see pictures of technical equipment which –er – shouldn’t have been shown ….oh, just me, then?

1965

1974

Robin Sutherland: BBC London OBs definitely serviced the 1974 Eurovision show , so definitely an EMI 2001. Unmistakable shape when it’s enlarged a bit.

Loiz Bale: I wonder if it was Stan Bale – my husband: he worked on that show and crew apparently went to the bookie shop after rehearsals thinking that “Waterloo” would do it!!! … The rest is history!

Alan Taylor: I too worked on the show. I’m pretty sure that the camera must have been an EMI 2001 as that was the “normal” camera used on OB scanners at that time.

I was working one half of the stage, positioning microphones for each act. There were a few challenging circumstances. First of all the stage sloped towards the audience, which meant that stand mics stood on the tilt, which looked wrong and also meant that they leaned away from the artist. As most of the taller stands were of a type with folding legs ( ST200 ? ), I sourced a supply of washers which could be wedged into the hinge part to make one leg angled lower that the other two so that the column stood vertical when on stage.

The other challenge was that the art department decided to carpet the stage with a fairly long-pile cream carpet. The usual approach of camera tape markings for microphone positions looked naff, so I went to Ryman’s and got a sheet of circular white labels about 25 mm in diameter. We could write on those labels, stick them in position and they didn’t look too prominent in shot. During the dress rehearsal ( or the rather disorganised run through that posed as a dress rehearsal ) there was a pause of a few minutes and the band on stage at the time sat down on the carpet while the issue was resolved. They very helpfully decided to peel off the round sticky labels that somebody had left on the carpet. Fortunately, having previously worked on shows where the art dept painted over all our labels at the last minute, I had also made an emergency plan with measurements, so was able to replace them with new labels.

The director was Michael Hurll and at the end of the dress rehearsal, it is necessary to have an act come on stage posing as the winners for the closing ceremony. Michael didn’t want to give any act a psychological advantage, so the winning country was announced as being “Caley”, whereupon Norman Caley walked onto stage in evening dress to perform his act where his arms gradually lengthen to an absurd extent. I don’t know of any recording made at that time, but there is a YouTube video of him doing that act during a “Seaside Special” starring Cliff Richard from France.