Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber has spoken out for the first time since announcing that he will manage the United Kingdom's Eurovision Song Contest national selection in 2009. Speaking to BBC Newsbeat, he says Eurovision is a poison chalice and that he'd be happy if known celebrities enter the selection process.
In a full interview, Andrew Lloyd Webber says that Eurovision is "the biggest poison chalice I've ever been given in my career. I quite like poison chalices and this is a particularly interesting brew if you ask me." He also says tha he would be thrilled if big names came forward to try out for the chance to represent the country, asking "Cliff, where are you?"
On the UK's recent poor form and how to rectify it, he explains:
"I'm not going to do anything other than try and get the best song and the best act. Whether we win or not in a way is not really the point, providing we've got a really great song. Over the years Eurovision has come up with an awful lot of very good songs and they haven't necessarily won it".
On the new selection format, he explains:
"People might feel that they're more in touch with it than the have been in the past. I really want to be completely open-minded. For example, if a boy band came and one of the boys was good, I'm not going to rule out the possibility of saying 'I want to take that band member and put them with someone else'. If we had been casting a girl band out of the Oliver programme I did, there were four girls who came out through that programme who would be a match for Girls Aloud any time of the day."
Talking about the style of the song that he will prepare, Andew Lloyd Webber says:
"I'm quite proud of the fact that most of my musicals have had big pop hits out of them and therefore I'm going to write this for the charts – I'm not going to write it as if it's a show song."
Read the full article at the BBC website here.
