Risky choice of blonde comedienne for Eurovision show pays off

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By Tuomas Peltomäki
     
      It was certainly a surprise for many Finns, when Mikko Leppilampi, one of the announcers of the Eurovision Song Contest, went into the crowd to find an ordinary Eurovision fan.
      He found Krisse.
     
At this point, reactions in living rooms in Finland probably ranged from shouts of joy to uncomfortable squirming.
      "Certainly those whom I might annoy in any case were immensely annoyed that I was hanging around there", admits comedienne Krisse Salminen, as she eats her lunch - "in secret, so they won't see that I'm eating stuff that I brought with me" - at the Papukaija cafe at Helsinki's Linnanmäki amusement park.
      A play in which she is performing is beginning soon, and before that she needs to go to makeup and have her hair done.
      "It was better that I came as a surprise. Some Finns knew that it wasn't really a surprise, but anyway. It was fun. It was so nice that I was spared the advance speculation. Many would have said ‘No, no, don't send that blonde there to spoil Eurovision'".
     
Indeed. There was a considerable risk of cultural misunderstanding in the choice of comic relief for the show. In Eastern Europe there are hardly enough blondes to give rise to a joke genre of their own, and it is not certain if everyone in the southernmost parts of Europe even approves of women telling jokes.
      In addition, much of the sense of humour among Eurovision fans is known to focus on funny hats and cross-dressing.
      But it all went just fine, of course!
      At the after-party after the Eurovision finals, Salminen had to answer so many enquiries by foreign journalists that she almost forgot to eat and drink.
      "The good reactions from foreigners were a relief, because many were afraid of what they would think. They came to thank me and many of them were laughing already from the beginning. Quite a few journalists asked if I could be funny and nice in front of the camera like I was in the broadcast."
      The foreign media had also figured out that Salminen is fairly well-known in Finland.
      "‘Famous actress', they all repeated to me. ‘Err, right. That's me', I said to a few of them."
     
Salminen was initially not supposed to appear in the Eurovision broadcast. She had been asked to come there to warm up the crowd before the actual broadcast. The request was made by Ilkka Talasranta, head of entertainment programming at the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE. He was Salminen's former piano teacher. Talasranta was also the schoolteacher of Jaana Pelkonen, who co-hosted the show with Mikko Leppilampi.
      "That's right! Lahti rules!" Salminen says.
      Salminen and Pelkonen went to school together in Lahti, and it is from that part of the country that she also knows Laura Voutilainen, who also took part in Eurovision in her own lively style.
      "After leaving school Jaana and I both went to work at a local radio in Lahti to brew coffee and take vox pop polls. At the Eurovision after-party we laughed and said that the coffee girls from Radio 99 have certainly done well."
      YLE changed its mind a couple of months later and asked Salminen if, instead of being the warm-up act, she would deal with the interviews in the "green room" - the lounge where the contestants would sit while the votes were being counted.
      "It suited me better than warming up the crowd for 20 minutes in English. And the warmup act would not even have been televised."
     
In fact, the role of a gossipy journalist in the back room fit Salminen like a glove.
      Her own television programme, Krisse Show, was largely based on her interviewing people. In September she will have another television show.
      "My comedy is based on body language and expressions, as well as conversation and interviews. All you have to do is come up with the questions. The humour comes from the reactions to the answers", Salminen explains.
      In the same breath she admits that the knowledge that the Eurovision Song Contest was being watched by 100 million people made the work tougher than usual. The number of viewers was taken into account in what she was paid, but that did not help calm her nerves much while she was backstage.
      "I just tried to think that this is just another rehearsal. Nobody will even see this."
      The green room interviews, as well as everything else that happened in the final, was certainly thought out and rehearsed in advance.
      She also had plenty of luck.
      "I knew that the performers from Ukraine did not speak a word of English, but I completely forgot that in the broadcast itself. When I was going to talk to them, with the cameras on, I remembered - oh, yeah! Then I just had to dance their dance. Fortunately it popped into my head somehow."
     
When the broadcast was finished and the questions from the foreign media faded away, and the party was closing down, Salminen went home, brushed her teeth, and went to sleep.
      "That is how one of the best days of my life ended. Or at least it was in the top five."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 19.5..2007


Previously in HS International Edition:
  COMMENTARY: Anyone for Sopot? (A Eurovision rant) (15.5.2007)
  Serbian ballad wins Eurovision Song Contest - Belgrade hosts in 2008 (14.5.2007)

TUOMAS PELTOMÄKI / Helsingin Sanomat
tuomas.peltomaki@sanoma.fi