Presenter and actor Graham Norton will guide the audience through this year's final of the Eurovision Song Contest. This was announced by the BBC on Wednesday.

Born in Ireland (59), he has made a name for himself with his comedy talk show "The Graham Norton Show" on the BBC, where he regularly gets stars to tell tales of their lives in rough words. ESC fans may still know him from the Netflix comedy "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga" (2020).

In addition to Norton, actress Hannah Waddingham ("Game of Thrones") as well as "Britain's Got Talent" juror Alesha Dixon and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina belong to the ESC moderator team. The women's trio will already moderate the two semi-finals on May 9th and 11th. Norton will join the May 13 final and commentate for British television audiences as he has done in previous years, the BBC report said. Last year's Ukrainian commentator, Timur Miroshnychenko, will be involved in the opening ceremony and live shows.

The Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra won last year's ESC with their song "Stefania". Normally the competition would therefore take place in Ukraine this year. Because of the ongoing war, however, it will be held in Great Britain, which took second place with Sam Ryder. The Beatles' hometown of Liverpool was able to prevail in a British selection process. Mayor Joanne Anderson announced that she wanted to throw the "best party ever". However, the focus should be on the Ukrainian culture.