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The BBC kicked off its week of song contest coverage on Tuesday night with Boom Bang-A-Bang: 50 Years Of Eurovision. Hosted by Terry Wogan – well, who else? – the show took an hour-long trawl through the past five decades, from the black and white, orchestra-led days of the 1950s right up to Greece’s 2005 triumph. Daz Sampson also showed up to perform Teenage Life, offering Team Eurovision its first chance to hear the schoolgirl-clad backing vocalists sing live (and very good they sounded too).

For the most part, the show was yet another opportunity to wheel some of the best, worst and tackiest clips out of the archives, with the likes of Nicole and Hugo and Freddi and Friends putting in an appearance alongside Bucks Fizz, Johnny Logan and other contest winners. We’d seen quite a few of these on previous clip shows yet some – Jemini’s disaster in Riga, for example, are always entertaining no matter how many times you see them.

There was also the chance to see interval acts (remember the Wombles in 1974?), presenters breaking into song and even the odd gaffe (our favourite being presenter Toto Cutugno’s inability to count at the 1991 contest in Rome). The whole thing was a bit on the hurried side, and it would’ve been nice to hear some more of the songs accompanying the clips (since many simply appeared for a few seconds in compilations), but there was still plenty to enjoy here. If nothing else, it’s gotten us in the mood for Thursday’s semi-final.