Michael is having a ball

WOULD they consider asking Michael Ball to do Eurovision again, do you suppose? It wouldn’t be such a mad idea. After all, the last time Michael sang for us, back in 1992 in a Swedish ice hockey stadium, we finished second.

Yes, second! That’s about 63 places higher than we tend to finish nowadays. But more to the point, everybody loves Michael Ball. He’s impossible to dislike. So if he did represent us in Italy next May, the people of Europe would have to stop being beastly to us, at least for one evening. Even if they gave him a truly terrible song to sing – which, let’s face it, is more than likely – and dressed him in the Union flag and a Boris Got Brexit Done T-shirt, the people of Europe would think: “Never mind all that, it’s Michael Ball.We LOVE Michael Ball! Douze pwan!”

It would be just like the old days. For the meantime, though, I fear this must remain a pipe dream. Michael’s made a travel series for Channel 5, called WONDERFUL WALES WITH MICHAEL BALL (8pm), and if he really enjoyed doing this as much as it looks as though he did, particularly as he traces his family’s SouthWales roots, why would he not just ask to make more? I’m sure they would let him.

He still gets to sing, here and there – indeed he bursts into We’ll Keep A Welcome... within the episode’s first couple of minutes, as he crosses the Severn Bridge in his discovery – but here he’s not having to worry whether it will be received as well as, say, a yodelling man from Austria dressed as a swan.

Among the places he visits in this first programme is the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. It’s a venue that clearly means a lot to him, not least because he sang at its opening ceremony in 2004 in front of the Queen. He’s a particular fan of its acoustics.

“When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums!” Michael exclaims.

“It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes!”

Not because he’s been on the beer but because, yep, he’s off again, taking to the stage and giving us a burst of that thing from Les Misérables. He’s having to sing it to an empty auditorium, of course, which seems a pity.

But on the plus side, it means there’s no one there to butt in and go: “Er, so sorry to interrupt, Mr Ball, but isn’t it meant to be ‘there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes’..?

Elsewhere, tonight’s the night Harry Redknapp’s EASTENDERS

cameo goes out on BBC One (8.35pm).

And might he fancy a permanent role, do we think?

Bound to, I’d have thought. At least until a better offer comes in from West Ham United or Emmerdale.