King of pop Pete's

n lisa williams

Who will represent Britain at this year's Eurovision Song Contest? In Eurovision: Your Country Needs You there's a chance to find out and play a part in choosing the act.

Considering the hit-and-miss performances of recent years, it'll take a miracle for a British act to clinch victory in a few weeks' time. After all, tactical voting has been the name of the game for years now, with countries usually voting for their neighbours, regardless of a track or artist's quality.

Since 1956 the show has made for compelling viewing, even if the format can be cheesier than Wallace and Gromit's pantry.

Britain entered Eurovision's musical arena in 1957, and in that time we've won a mere five times, coming rock bottom in 2003 and 2008.

Let's hope those were the bad old days, because even though Andy Abrahams and Jade Ewen have met their Waterloo in Belgrade and Moscow respectively, die hard fans live in hope that this year's British entrants can go one step further and receive many congratulations from the masses.

Graham Norton welcomes the wannabe entrants who hope to make beautiful music in Oslo with a track penned by Pete Waterman.

The latter admits that composing a tune for the prestigious event is no easy task.

"It's hard enough writing a hit song in the first place, let alone a Eurovision winner," says Waterman.

And with more than 200 hits to his name, including 22 number ones, he has come as close as anyone to mastering the art.

"You need to come up with something simple and catchy, people think it's easy but it's not."

With his track record, it's little wonder the BBC has turned to the legendary pop writer to compose the UK's entry for the this year's Eurovision.

"When the BBC called to ask if I would do it, I had two questions," he says. "The first was to ensure that I had a free hand musically and the second was to ask my old partner Mike Stock to help me. We haven't worked together recently, but we've remained friends and there was no question that I would be willing as long as he was prepared to do it with me. Mike is the musician and he interprets my ideas - a trouble shared is a trouble halved, as they say."

For three weeks, Waterman and Stock have been creating a tune that will work for the UK, and hopefully impress people from Sheffield to Sarajevo. However, Waterman isn't too worried about that. "The song has to appeal to one person only, and that's me," he says. "Others will have their views on whether it's a good song or not, but I have to be in charge as ultimately I have to deliver it. If people don't like it, I can't do anything about that. We have the same starting point with all our songs and we know what the limitations are."

Back to this week's contest, and the five finalists will perform their entries in front of a panel of judges.

Sugababes will perform the track Wear My Kiss, and then the winner is announced after a public vote. Who wins? You decide.

EUROVISION: YOUR

COUNTRY NEEDS YOU

(BBC One, 8.30pm)

THE UK EXPECTS: Songsmith Pete Waterman and presenter Graham Norton search for Britain's representative in Oslo

Pick of the day

The Mentalist

(Five, 9pm)

This series not only boasts a top turn by Simon Baker as the eponymous hero, but some cracking storylines.

In the latest episode, the body of lawyer Gordon Hodges is found at the side of a road. You would think the dead man's wife would be surprised, but not a bit of it.

She reveals that her spouse was a lawyer with one client - a notorious motorcycle club known as the Sinner Saints. It turns out that Hodges had recently been busted for possession of drugs, but the charges were dropped, begging the question: did this happen in exchange for Hodges informing on his clients?

When Jane and Lisbon visit the Saints to learn more, they meet their enigmatic leader Von McBride, who rejects the notion that Hodges was an informant - which suggests that the killer may be closer to home than originally imagined.

Friday Night With Jonathan Ross

(BBC One, 10.35pm)

IF you were to come up with a list of people whose main virtues were subtlety and quiet understanding, chances are that Jonathan Ross wouldn't feature highly, if at all.

So, it might come as a surprise to find that Cheryl Cole is the latest celebrity to brave the famous shiny black sofa.

Whether you're interested in the showbiz world or not, you can't fail to have noticed that Geordie lass Cheryl has been dominating the headlines lately, and not because of her glittering career. Instead, it's her private life, in particular her marriage to Chelsea and England footballer Ashley Cole, that's been under the spotlight.

With a bit of luck Ross will show his sensitive side tonight, or at least focus on the fact that Cheryl has a new single, entitled Parachute, coming out soon.

No doubt her career as an X Factor judge and member of Girls Aloud will be mentioned too.

On the box

with Gareth Edwards

Holby City

(BBC1, 9pm, last night)

IT must be hard for the writers of long-running soap opera dramas to keep coming up with new ideas.

For the writers of Holby City it's probably extra-tough, since most of the good stories have already been nicked by Casualty, and while they can recycle and juggle around the same elements time and time again, there comes a point where they have to cast their net a little wider for ideas.

And so the writers have taken a well-trodden path and started pinching ideas not from the small screen (well, not directly at any rate) but from the classics of cinema.

Akira Kurosawa's 1950 masterpiece Rashomon is, to be fair, one of the most copied formats of all time, based on the idea of the same event being seen from different angles, and thus revealing a different story.

So for viewers who were confused by last week's episode, in which lots of gunshot victims appeared at the hospital, and everything started going wrong, this week provided the answers.

Yes, that's right - it's the same episode of Holby City as last week, but slightly different, which presumably saves on the budget if nothing else.

So why were Joseph and Daisha involved in the hostage situation at an Indian restaurant? You'll probably wish you hadn't asked.

Joseph decided to get drunk after his bust-up with Faye, and went into the restaurant to buy wine, with Daisha in tow trying to stop him, at which point a crazed hoodie teenager came in with a gun - yes, gunpoint robbery of an Indian restaurant - and wound up shooting the place up, hitting the owner, a pregnant woman, an old man and, eventually, Daisha before being gunned down by armed police.

It's all very forced, with the sledgehammer references to last week's episode a little like having Leslie Ash, pictured, turn to camera and ask: "You see what we did there? Spot the reference, eh? Isn't that clever?"

Well no, actually. It's not that clever it's certainly not original and sadly it didn't make for a better drama. Just a more over-the-top, contrived melodrama.