Tonight at the Hackney Empire in London, the recording took place of the BBC Concert Orchestra's Eurovision & ABBA tribute. The programme was presented by Ken Bruce, who has commentated on the contest since 1988, for BBC Radio 2. The orchestra was conducted by David Arnold, while there were four guest vocalists on stage during the evening, Samantha Shaw, Joanne Farrell, Steven Houghton and Chris Manoe.

The first part of the evening was entitled Eurovision Heaven, and started with the BBC concert orchestra playing, Making your mind up. Following on from this Ken Bruce made his introductions, and during the evening entertained the audience with some anecdotes from his time on the contest. Including the missed apple story from the 1989 interval act, to meeting his wife to be at the 1998 contest,memories of a taxi journey in Ireland, and of his most recent experiences in Athens.

The next three songs were all performed by the guests vocalists, Love shine a light, Power to all our friends and Boom bang-a-bang. There was a predominantly British feel to the choice of songs for the evening! The next song Puppet on a string was performed solely by the orchestra, and was a very popular arrangement with the audience.

Two more songs then followed that were accompanied by the vocals, they were Rock bottom, followed by All kinds of everything, one of just two songs in the tribute, that were not United Kingdom entries in the contest.

Next up was the orchestra on its own, with Congratulations, which also nicely dovetailed into Te deum at the climax. The final batch of songs, all with vocals,had all topped the British charts, Ooh aah..just a little bit, which even had the orchestra members clapping along to it, Save your kisses for me,which included the dance routine – even though the show is for radio, and finally, the all time top Eurovision song contest song, Waterloo.

This nicely brought the first half of the show to a close, and those presenttook their chance to top up with liquid refreshment. The audience seem to comprise a grand mixture of ABBA fans, Eurovision song contest fans, and some generally more elderly patrons, who were probably more appreciative of the BBC concert orchestra.

The second half of the show was billed as an ABBA tribute, and featured the following songs, Take a chance on me, I have a dream, Money, money, money, Winner takes it all, Knowing me, knowing you, Fernando, Chiquitita, Super Trouper and Does your mother know. There were some great arrangements of the songs, and by now a lot of the audience were joining in with the songs and dancing in the aisles. Finally, the classic Dancing queen had virtually everyone up on their feet. Then after all the applause for the orchestra, the conductor, the vocalists and Ken Bruce, there was another chance to enjoy Waterloo, which was the ideal song to conclude an evening of Eurovision and ABBA tributes.

At the moment the transmission date of this programme isn't known, but as soon as esctoday.com finds out, we will publish the details.