Eurovision At 60

‘It was the very first time Europe came together – on wings of song,’ opines Terry Wogan. And there you were thinking our decades of peace have had something to do with Nato or the old Common Market, when all this time it’s been the demented warblings of polyglot cabaret acts that have held sway. Going out on the eve of this year’s contest, Eurovision At 60 (Friday, BBC Four, 9pm) goes forwards from 1956 onwards to bring together a compendium of pretty much every memorable moment – and there have been plenty – in the history of an event that defies taste, reason and frankly sanity. Among a glorious cornucopia of mind-melting facts, my favourite is the revelation that behind the innocuous melody of Cliff Richard’s Congratulations in 1968 is the session guitar work of one Jimmy Page, barely moments before he embarked on the bacchanalian odyssey known as Led Zeppelin. The following year Lulu donned a bright pink dress to visit the delights of Boom Bang-A-Bang on an unsuspecting fascist Spain. Looking at the footage from the stance of our ever-so-sophisticated age you feel like you might as well be staring at an ancient papyrus manuscript. Fast-forward through the milestones – Abba’s all-conquering Waterloo in 1974, nul points for Norway’s Jahn Teigen four years later, Bucks Fizz and the whip-away skirts – but as the years roll on you can’t help but notice how the more recent contests are increasingly forgettable. Could it be that irony killed the Eurovision star?

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NOT TO BE MISSED

Perspectives, ITV , Sunday, 10.15pm
With brains as well as looks to make mere mortal men despair, Eddie Redmayne offers a masterclass in war art.

Springwatch, BBC2, Monday, 8pm
The countryside blooms: Michaela Strachan and Chris Packham present the returning series.

Churchill: When Britain Sa id No, BBC2, Monday, 9pm
Historians Max Hastings and Anthony Beevor recount how Britain turfed Winston out of No 10.