Festival of British Popular Songs

The Festival of British Popular Songs was a song competition organised by the BBC. It began in 1956 following the success of the Eurovision Song Contest. Due to being so long ago, the names of performers and songs who took part are no longer known.

1956 Festival

The first Festival of British Popular Songs was held from May to October 1956. 36 songs took part across six semi-finals. Each semi-final had six songs and the winning song of each semi-final went through to the final. The winning song was decided by music experts, who used a scoreboard to rank the songs by points.

Entry			Place
Performer 1	Performer 2	Song
Lester Ferguson	Jean Campbell	"Cloudy Moon"	3rd
Dennis Lotis	The Keynotes	"Everybody Falls in Love with Someone"	1st
Ronnie Carroll	Laurie Payne	"For You and Me"	3rd
Shirley Abacair	Bill McGuffie	"Little Ship"	2nd
Carole Carr	Max Jaffa	"No Love Could Be"	3rd
Petula Clark	The Bill McGuffie Quartet	"Wibbly Wobbly Moon"	3rd

1957 Festival

In 1957, the United Kingdom joined the Eurovision Song Contest. The Festival of British Popular Songs was used to decide the UK's entry. The Festival was made shorter, with three semi-finals instead of six. The two winners of each semi-final went through to the final. The songs were scored by ten twelve-member juries representing major cities around the UK.

R/O	Performer 1	Performer 2	Song	Points	Place
1	The Keynotes	Bill Maynard	"Don't Cry Little Doll"	14	4
2	Pauline Shepherd	Carole Carr	"Once"	23	2
3	Denis Lotis	The Keynotes	"Seven"	13	5/6
4	Malcom Lockyer Quartet	Patricia Bredin	"All"	39	1st
5	Ronnie Hilton	Alan Bristow	"For Your Love"	13	5/6
6	Lita Roza	Stan Roderick	"The Way It Goes"	18	3