Famous composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is highly involved in this year's UK selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. In Your Country Needs You, a weekly elimination show on the BBC, TV-viewers and Webber look for the right person to represent their country on stage in Moscow, in front of some 100 million viewers. "If we win we shall have to host next year's show and it's going to cost £25 million - that's what the Russians are spending. Actually, it's probably going to cost £300 million by then, bearing in mind the pound will be valueless by that time," Webber jokes in the interview with The Daily Mail.
My Time
"The song is called My Time," Webber says. "It has been written in a way that it can be done by any of the remaining contestants, but I've come to the decision, rightly or wrongly, that what most countries will be doing, particularly in the stadium that's being used, is trying to fill it. Certainly the acts I've seen so far, they've all been pretty girls with four dancers, or pole vaulters or skaters or elephants or whatever."
The world of Eurovision
The artist who wins the UK national selection also gets a record deal with Universal. Webber: "The reason is simple. Which is the single biggest entertainment that's come out of musical theatre in ten years and out of musical film? Mamma Mia! Where did that start? Eurovision. What was the biggest live entertainment show around the world in the past ten years? Riverdance. Where did that come from? Eurovision. So if you've got the right artist and the right song it is not something to laugh at," he concludes.
You can read the full interview with Andrew Lloyd Webber, in which he reveals some amusing details about his visit to Russian Prime-Minister Vladimir Putin, on the website of The Daily Mail.
What do you think about Webber's efforts to start a new Eurovision Song Contest era in the United Kingdom? Please leave your comment!
