In an exclusive interview with The Euro Trip, the team working on the BBC’s Eurovision participation have revealed some thought-provoking details ahead of the imminently expected reveal of this year’s UK act.
Head of Delegation Andrew Cartmell and Sam Ryder’s former manager David May led the search for the UK’s act for Basel, with both the artist and song now in place.
Click to read this story at a glance…
- The UK’s Eurovision act for 2024 has been selected, with both the artist and song in place, but the official announcement is still pending as the team fine-tunes the song
- The UK’s entry this year will shift away from the recent dance-pop style, showcasing a sound that highlights British musical heritage, according to Head of Delegation Andrew Cartmell and Sam Ryder’s former manager David May
- Despite speculation that the UK act would be revealed after the finale of The Traitors, Cartmell confirmed this was never the plan, and the team is focused on making “a splash” with the announcement
Fans can expect a gear change from the dance-pop style of Mae Muller and Olly Alexander’s entries from the past two editions of the contest.
“What we’re doing this year is a very different style and sound to the last couple of years,” Cartmell told The Euro Trip.
“The last couple of years has been dance-pop, I guess. We are doing something different to that.
“There’s an essence of Britishness in the song.”
May added further description and intrigue to his colleague’s comments, saying: “We’re going back to the UK heritage of music; threads of what we do best. And I think we’ve encapsulated that.
“I think the world wants to see that. There’s things that we do very, very well musically, it’s very, very broad, but we do it very well, and that’s what we wanted to bring to the table.”
May joined Cartmell’s search for the UK’s act for this year’s contest in Basel last summer, accepting an invite made over the phone almost immediately after the competition in Malmö in which Olly Alexander received the dreaded nil points in the televote.
May’s initial and only involvement in Eurovision before came in 2022 when he was the manager of Sam Ryder who secured the UK’s best result at the competition in a quarter of a century.
Cartmell was the UK’s Head of Delegation at Eurovision in 2012 and 2013, later returning to the role at every edition of the competition since 2018, only stepping aside in 2023 when he was the Executive Producer of the entire contest in Liverpool.
Although the UK’s act for this year’s edition of Eurovision is yet to be revealed, they are “very, very, very excited” to have been chosen to represent their country, Cartmell revealed.
He also said that breaking the news to the act a few weeks ago “had to be, on that particular day, over Zoom”.
The BBC team and the artist are still making adjustments to the song that will represent the UK in Basel, which is why an announcement hasn’t been made yet.
“We had the song a few weeks ago, but we’re looking to still work on it, improve it, and develop it,” Cartmell said.
“We just want to make sure we have everything in place.
“We don’t want to announce and launch without everything there.”
Cartmell also revealed that the chosen artists presented multiple songs for consideration, and that the BBC team “worked with the artist on additional songs”, but he stopped short of saying who pitched the selected song.
Despite rumours swirling on social media over the last few weeks that the act would be announced after the final episode of The Traitors in the second last week of January, this was never the case.
“There was a rumour doing the rounds that the UK artist was going to be announced after the final of The Traitors which, I have to say, what a great idea.
“I’m afraid to say it was never the plan. I’m sorry because that would have been a great idea.
“We want to make a splash when we announce, obviously. That’s the plan. We just want to get everything in place to do that.”
The Euro Trip Podcast 
One Comment Add yours