Marty Whelan has been delighting Eurovision watchers for decades with his witty commentary.
And he has no plans of stopping any time soon. He tells VIP Magazine that it truly is a “pleasure”.
Ahead of the Late Late Show’s Eurovision special, we caught up with the King of Eurovision himself.
He tells us that he sees it as a privilege that he has been the voice of Eurovision for generations.
“I’m very lucky on my radio show we have small people and we have mammies and daddies. It’s a have a very broad audience. And that’s what the Eurovision is,“ he tells us.
“That’s the joy of it, that it’s all these different things together. That’s the pleasure.“
Of course, he is a massive Eurovision fan himself and he has a good feeling about Ireland this year.
Six Irish acts will compete tonight on The Late Late Show with one being chosen to represent Ireland. The acts include ADGY (Too Good for your Love), CONNOLLY (Midnight Summer Night), Wild Youth (We are One), Leila Jane (Wild), K Muni & ND, Kofi Appiah and Nevlonne Dampare (Down in the Rain), Public Image Limited (Hawaii).
“I’m feeling very good. We haven’t won for a long time. We do the best we can, but we have a semi-final to get through,“ Marty tells us.
“But because the UK doesn’t have to do that sometimes we feel ‘Ugh, here we go again.’ They just waltz into it because they’re one of the big payers. We have to get through the semi-final first and we don’t know what the other songs are. But we have six incredible songs, very different acts. But we don’t know how it’s going to go.
“There’s no formula and we have proven that. We keep getting kicked to the bottom. But we try everything and you have to try everything. Sometimes we do relatively well and sometimes we don’t qualify. And that’s the pain because you feel for the act when they don’t qualify.“
However, he tells us that competing is good enough.
“It is the ultimate joy of the event and I just giggle my way through it.“
Plenty of giggling, we tell him. So does he ever get in trouble for being too cheeky with his commentary? Absolutely not, he tells us.
“I say what I see. I’m bold but I’m not really bold – I’m bold-ish. I’m very conscious that someone’s child is up on stage. But I think you can have fun with it because it is a fun event.
“It’s a song contest. My attitude has always been let’s see what happens here. And sometimes I do come out with ‘Oh my goodness’ because that’s how I feel.“
The Late Late Eurosong Special airs on RTÉ One tonight at 9:35 pm
