Abba reunion would be too enormous to consider, says Bjorn

Exhibition charts rise of band against backdrop of ‘grim’ 1970s Britain

Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus said the pop sensations will never perform again because it would be “too enormous” – as he unveiled a show charting the rise of the band against the backdrop of “grim”, 1970s Britain.

The immersive exhibition at London’s Southbank Centre takes visitors inside a dark and dreary British living-room, a recreation of the Brighton hotel bedrooms the band slept in following their stunning Eurovision win, a recording studio and an aeroplane cabin.

Ulvaeus, 72, told the Press Association the exhibition made him realise how “impossibly gloomy” Britain was at the time, with a collapsing economy, a three-day working week, and strikes.

“We were here for one or two days, now and then, so we didn’t quite know about this,” he said.

He said the London venue’s exhibition on another Nordic export, the Moomins, was one of the reasons he said yes to the “intimate” Abba show, which is a world away from “those huge exhibitions pop stars usually have”.

Ulvaeus said wandering through the show had rekindled old memories, but that there was no chance of the hit Swedish band reuniting.

“I walked through yesterday and some of the rooms really took me back,” he said.

“Especially the (recreation Sydney arena backstage.”

He continued: “The hotel room in Brighton was like the room (bandmate and then wife) Agnetha (Faltskog) and I must have had, the bed in which I woke up at 4 o’clock in the morning the day after (their Eurovision win), finally realising what had happened, because everything was chaos before.

“It happened overnight so it was, ‘today we’re famous and yesterday we weren’t’.”

But Ulvaeus said performing as a group again was “not going to happen”, adding: “I think we don’t feel the motivation.

“The four of us, with live concerts, no. The simple answer is because we don’t want to. Why don’t we want to?

“I guess because it would be such hassle, it would be enormous.

“And it would take such... you cannot imagine the tension and the attention from everyone.” of a)

Picture: PA. Bjorn Ulvaeus in a recreation of the Napoleon Suite at the Brighton Grand Hotel.

Bjorn and ex-wife Agnetha Faltskog when Abba were on the rise.