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Guaranteed to provide a lift in dark times, Eurovision 2024 is set to flounce back on to screens. It started on May 7, with the final taking place this Saturday, May 11.
Britain’s representative this year is 33-year-old singer and actor Olly Alexander. Star of It’s A Sin and the lead singer of Years & Years, his entry – a thumping bassline electro feverdream, Dizzy – is exactly the sort of thing which Eurovision specialises in. It’s camp, catchy and, looked at for more than three seconds, as flimsy as a feather boa on the breeze. Dynamite.
Find out whether the judges in Malmö feel the same way by turning into the Grand Final on Saturday May 11, which will be broadcast live 8pm on BBC One. Representing the host nation of Sweden, the event will be MC’ed by Hollywood actress Malin Åkerman (best known for Watchman), who is joined by comedian and Eurovision regular Petra Mede. And, as usual, Graham Norton will be on hand for eyebrows-raised presenting duties. This year, Joanna Lumley will be UK’s spokesperson.
But what happens when the lights fade out? Life as someone who “once made a t__ of themselves on Eurovision” can be a bleak place. (Just ask Jemini.) So from the famous to the infamous, it’s time to look back at what happened next to all the British acts who’ve graced the Eurovision stage.
Where are the Eurovision Song Contest entries now?
1957: Patricia Bredin, ‘All’
“All the golden dreams of yesterday,” crooned Patricia Bredin, the young actress and amateur opera singer from Hull who became Britain’s first ever Eurovision contestant, when we joined the contest for its second year. (We would skip the next one, too.) At a nifty one minute and 52 seconds, All remains the UK’s shortest Eurovision entry.
Born in 1935, Bredin went on to appear in several films alongside Sid James and Ian Carmichael, before taking over from Julie Andrews as Guenevere in a Broadway production of Camelot with Richard Burton. She then emigrated to Canada and took to raising cattle.
She was still performing as recently as 2007, and looked back at her Eurovision appearance fondly, although she was a bit baffled when she was first approached to take part in the contest. She had never watched TV before, and wasn’t sure what it involved. “Television? I’d never heard of it! I didn’t know what they were talking about,” she recalled in 2016. Bredin died on August 13, 2023, aged 88.
1959: Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson, ‘Sing, Little Birdie’
Very much the Beyoncé and Jay Z of their day, Carr & Johnson were both popular and independently successful singers before their marriage in 1955. They arrived on Eurovision at the peak of their fame, which clearly helped: they placed second in that year’s contest.
After Eurovision, Johnson went on work as a Radio 2 DJ, and appeared in the TV children’s programme Crackerjack. In 1987, the couple starred together in a West End revival of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Follies. For many years, they lived together in Brinsworth House, an actors’ and artists’ retirement home in Twickenham. Teddy Johnson died in June 2018, and Pearl Carr followed in February 2020. They were both 98.
1960: Bryan Johnson, ‘Looking High, High, High’
Our 1959 contestant Teddy Johnson had auditioned to represent the UK again in 1960, but found himself pipped to the post by his own brother, Bryan, an out-of-work actor. Like Teddy the year before, Bryan finished in second place.
Better known for his stage roles than his singing, Johnson gave several acclaimed performances in Shakespearean productions, taking comic roles alongside the famous (and famously histrionic) actor-director Sir Donald Wolfit. Recalling his part in Wolfit’s King Lear, the impresario called Johnson “the best Fool I ever had”. He died in 1995.
