Can you really parody Eurovision? Australian-inspired Eurobeat is heading to a theatre near you in July and then to the West End.

Viv Hardwick talks to host Mel Giedroyc about the show which the UK can actually win.

EUROBEAT is the one theatre show where the audience are postively encouraged to use their mobile phones. In fact the spoof version of the Eurovision Song Contest, the TV show the UK now loves to hate, can't work without them. On the eve of the TV version returning to our screens on Saturday, a chat with Eurobeat host Mel Giedroyc seems quite timely. She's an acknowledged Eurovision expert, has acted as a judge for Making Your Mind Up (the programme which chose our ignominious entry by Scooch last year), has Eastern European roots and (whisper this quietly) has recently experienced a UK victory in the stage version of Eurovision.

"We encourage people to vote using their mobile phones at the interval, although we do ask them to put them on silent mode. A computer counts up the votes and we have all the fun of the voting in the second half,"

explains Giedroyc, who will host the Newcastle leg of Eurobeat's tour in July with Les Dennis, as the pair unleash the hilarity of the voting process.

UK hurt about which countries will vote for our song now stretches back to 1968 and Cliff Richard's song of Congratulations being pushed into second place by Spain, following vote-rigging arranged by Spanish dictator General Franco, a fact recently revealed by Spanish journalists. The sad fact is that Saturday's UK song by Andy Abraham is unlikely to finish anywhere near the runnerup spot. Our unpopularity in Europe since 1997 has seen any points awarded above the infamous "nul" level considered a bonus. "I do love the Eurovision Song Contest but we're not likely to do very well until we get out of Iraq. The trouble is that the Eastern Europeans take it very seriously, it's a matter of national pride which is why they end up voting for each other," Giedroyc says. "The voting is one of the best parts because you always get a national celebrity, who we don't know in the UK but is really famous in their own country, and they try and put in gags and expand their role when all they have to do is announce the voting figures. It's wonderful."

Eurobeat manufactures the national fervour in the theatre by handing out flags and favours to the audience and asking them to support one of ten songs which contain all the crazy antics so often associated with a bid to win Eurovision.

"This wouldn't work if our songs and singers weren't any good. They also reflect the bizarre performances we've got used to seeing on Eurovision. The show also appeals to all ages," Giedroyc says of Eurobeat which was a huge hit at last year's Edinburgh Festival. The tour has blossomed slowly, more through world of mouth than anything else, and has just earned an invitation to run in the West End. That doesn't mean that Eurobeat has managed to avoid courting controversy.

"We are in Belfast at the moment and it was decided to take the Union Jack and the Irish flags up to Stormont as part of the publicity for the show. The next thing we know, the show was being accused of breaking the law by displaying these flags and we ended up on the front pages of four newspapers for all the wrong reasons. So Eurobeat can by as controversial as Eurovision," she says. As for voting, when the show ran in Edinburgh, the Estonia or Russian songs won nearly every night with the tour being more wide open.

"I can tell you that the UK entry did manage a victory... it was in Stoke two weeks ago. The show is a bit of party. People are getting up at the end, they're dressing up and it's just fab.

It's all-comers welcome. It really is. In a sense this is a type of panto performance. This isn't just a trip to the theatre. This isn't a niche camp show."

The biggest surprise about Eurobeat is that the project has come out of Australia. "It's a massive cult thing in Australia which I didn't realise until I got involved with this. Craig Christie and Andrew Patterson, who wrote the show, and Glyn Nicholas who has brought it over from Australia at first seemed ridiculous, but they've got bloody good sense of humour in Oz and this started out as a small show about ten years ago. Then it toured around Oz and the plan was always to break into the UK market which they're doing," she says.

Giedroyc, made famous through appearing on TV and touring with Sue Perkins as well as writing for French and Saunders, has just finished filming a sketch series for the BBC.

"It's due to go out in June and it was good fun to do... but I don't know the title, which is a bit mad, because it always just had a working title. I'm on Eurobeat until the autumn and we'll take it into the West End (the Novello Theatre) at the beginning of September which we've just heard about."

* Eurobeat - Almost Eurovision (Sarajevo), Newcastle Theatre Royal, July 7-12. Box Office: 08448-11-21-21 or www.theatreroyal.co.uk