We wuz robbed again - but the UK has a lot to be proud about

Eurovisionland is a strange and unpredictable place, indeed. I mean, who would ever have thought we'd sit down for a marathon four-hour viewing session that would include a song about being possessed by the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe, six women with ginormous hair-plaits dressed as druid nuns, a Dungeons and Dragons-themed combo complete with a dwarf playing a penny-whistle, a group of ballroom dancers forming a human centipede, a heavy metal band arriving on stage in a 1980s Toyota, a camp-as-tits Boy George sound-a-like with a love of hats, and some middle-aged rockers wearing dresses and military caps, taking the piss out of Putin and other dictators, singing about tractors and then stripping to their baggy underpants on stage?!

We would, of course..!

"Our gang" [below: Hils (France), Crog (Portugal), Russ (Cyprus, complete with goat), Baby Steve (Switzerland) and Alex (Italy), Lou (Ukraine, aka Volodymyr Zelenskyy), Sal (Austria)] once again did us proud at our celebration of the "Gay World Cup" aka the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday. I allocate three countries each - one for booze, one for food, and a third for costume and/or flag-waving - and the results were colourful to say the least!

With a buffet-of-all-nations to sate our appetites soak up the vast quantities of exotic booze on offer, and photo-shoots all done and dusted, it was time for the "show of shows" to begin!

Hosted by the UK in Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine [which, for obvious reasons, was unable to do the usual duty of the previous year's winner], the organisers at the BBC certainly pulled out all the stops. The staging was superb, the special effects flawless, and the presenters (Graham Norton, actress - and budding gay icon - Hannah Waddingham, singer and TV presenter Alesha Dixon, and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina, with additional commentary by comedienne Mel Giedroyc) were excellent, and sometimes hilarious - and the whole shebang kicked-off with with a most remarkable intro indeed. Famous artists all paying tribute to 2022's victorious Stefania by Kalush Orchestra, including our own runner-up Sam Ryder, Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Joss Stone and more... but probably most notable for an appearance by none other than Catherine, Princess of Wales, at around the 2½ minute mark!

Of the contest itself? We all had our scorecards at the ready, and watched all twenty-six performances with the usual mix of shock and awe, shouting at the telly, "phwhoaar"s at some of the totty...

Italy's Marco Mengoni

...taking advantage of some of the boring ones to go for a pee, a top-up or a fag, and "oh-fuck-how-did-they-get-into-the-final?" groans.

Then a break - and more madness, confusion and a really emotional moment, courtesy of the interval entertainment; a selection of previous Eurovision winners singing from the vast back-catalogue of songs with their roots in host city Liverpool. You might prefer to skip the bland and deadpan rendition of Imagine at the opening segment of this clip and skip to around the 2:10 slot:

You never saw them in the same room...

John-John (as usual) came up with the best "look", with his almost-true-to-the-original impression of audience favourite (and one of ours!), Käärijä of Finland (whose was one of the maddest of all performances).

Speaking of which...

The Dolores Delargo Towers jury votes were as follows:

#5 - Moldova: Pasha Parfeni - Soarele şi Luna

#4 - Belgium: Gustaph - Because Of You

#3 - Finland: Käärijä - Cha Cha Cha

#2 - Croatia: Let 3 - Mama ŠČ!

#1 - United Kingdom: Mae Muller - I Wrote a Song

This was, of course, in complete contrast to the actual votes...

First came the long, long, long presentation of the jury votes. With 37 countries taking part (only 26 made the final), it is a bit of a slog. You can imagine, dear reader, the shouting and consternation and occasional boos and hisses from our living-room, as country after country failed to give the UK any votes at all, but Sweden, Italy, and the godawful Ariana Grande-wannabee from Israel got alternate douze points, battling it out for the top slot. In the end, poor Mae only got fifteen votes.

Public votes were announced next [and in a change of rules this year, these votes could come from anywhere where the contest is shown, not just the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union], which caused a bit of a kerfuffle at the top - as, with the Liverpool arena already resounding to chants of "Cha Cha Cha!", Finland received a massive 376 extra points (the highest score from the phone-in votes), leap-frogging them all! Unfortunately, Sweden had so many points from the juries already that the 243 extra meant their song was the overall victor by a landslide with 583 points. And here is its performer, (second time winner) Loreen!

It's no Euphoria, but an earworm nonetheless.

The UK ended the evening with a total of 24, in 25th place out of 26.

• An interesting article by BBC Music Correspondent Mark Savage attempts to analyse the possible reasons why.

We hid our disappointment well, by switching off after Doreen Loreen's reprise performance, and cranking up the Dolores Delargo Towers YouTube party playlist until the wee small hours!

Same time, same place, next year?

YES!!

Who needs Tacky Music Monday when you have Eurovision?!

Socially-distanced Euro-madness

We're nothing if not troupers, our gang! Despite the limitations and frustrations of watching the telly with sound turned down and only one person's telly playing the audio, fifteen of us convened last night via Zoom for the whole marathon four-and-a-half hours of Eurovision-themed broadcasting, including Graham Norton's Eurovision: Come Together [which featured a selection of past Eurovision winners who were then subject to a vote from the public for the best ever; Abba's Waterloo won, unsurprisingly], the "official" trans-European broadcast Europe Shine a Light [which gave a snippet of every one of the 41 entries who would have been featured in this year's cancelled contest - with sarky commentary from Mr Norton again, as is traditional - plus appearances from Johnny Logan, Mans Zelmerlöw and many many more, remote sing-a-longs and a huge smattering of shmaltz], followed by the much more tongue-in-cheek A to Z of Eurovision hosted by Rylan Clark-Neil [which took an irreverent "sideways" look at the madness that is the secret of why we all love the contest so].

A helluva lot of alcohol, bitching about the performers and general merriment ensued...

Of the acts-that-missed-out this year [and none of the songs are permitted to be re-entered next year according to the rules, even if some of the acts may return], not many caught our ear - apart from these...

The Mamas - Move (Sweden)

The Roop - On Fire (Lithuania)

Little Big - Uno (Russia)

And the one that we, and the bookies, predicted might well have won it:

Daði Freyr - Think About Things (Iceland)

We all did THAT dance in our living-rooms...

Roll on next year - if this pandemic shit is indeed over by then - when the Eurovision Song Contest proper is set to (finally) be hosted in Rotterdam (where it was supposed to be yesterday)!

We wuz robbed. Again! #589 in a recurring series...

Our Katie Boyle shrine

If the whole thing wasn't so ridiculously, gloriously, over-the-top; if it weren't our excuse for a blinder of a house party; if it had not carved its well-deserved niche in our Social Calendar as the "Gay World Cup" - we might boycott the Eurovision Song Contest for its blatant political bias against the UK. Despite entering one of our best songs, and an excellent singer, to represent us, we still only managed 24th place out of 26...

Ho hum. As per usual, our home was invaded by a host of our best chums, all variously attired to represent one of the participating countries; I was hostess-with-the-mostest/"Graham Norton"; vast quantities of booze and exotic foodstuffs were consumed; the rafters shook with cheers, jeers, singing and general merriment; and this morning the floor is covered with so many sequins, it looks like Liberace sneezed on our carpet! Quite the housewarming party for Dolores Delargo Towers #4.





Of the contest itself? It was (as is quite usual) a "mixed bag" of juvenile political worthiness ("peace", "love", and - ahem - "asylum-seekers" being heavily featured themes) and sheer unadulterated madness, and as usual the voting system was an esoteric mix of the obvious (Cyprus always gets 12 points from Greece, Eastern European and Scandi countries inevitably vote for their neighbours, and so on) and the random, but it also threw up some odd disparities - the jury votes favoured the "Justin-Timberlake-wannabee" from Sweden and the impassioned soul singer from Austria, but the popular (phone) votes pushed the likes of the Czech Republic's poor imitation of Justin Bieber, the over-emoting Italian duettists and the ugly Vikings from Denmark out of the lower reaches where they were languishing into the top ten).

Highlights? The fantastic operatic vocals of Estonia's Elina (and, of course, that dress) [BBC host Graham Norton's comment: "Her wedding dress is going to be a real disappointment after that, isn't it? 'This old thing'."]:

Eurovision Song Contest 2018 - Elina Nechayeva - La Forza (Estonia)

...the craziness of Moldova's DoReDos [Graham Norton's comment: "It's like they've got a time machine and gone back to 1978. It's like some children's television presenters got a bit over-excited at their Christmas party.... Answers on a postcard please. I've no idea what was going on."]:

Eurovision Song Contest 2018 - DoReDoS - My Lucky Day (Moldova)

...and the powerful performance by Miss Saara Alto (quite a feat, while spinning on a knife-thrower's board!):

Eurovision Song Contest 2018 - Saara Aalto - Monsters (Finland)

Our girl SuRie faced the horror of having some lunatic political protestor rush her on stage to snatch her microphone - but then went on to perform the best rendition of her faboo song Storm we'd seen her do. Despite being offered a second chance to perform, which she declined, she didn't benefit from any "sympathy vote". Our "jury" gave her top marks, however:

United Kingdom 233
Israel 218
Finland 209
Moldova 208
Estonia 186
Bulgaria 182
Cyprus 168
Denmark 155
Austria 140

In the end, in the real contest, it was quite a nail-biting voting countdown as the phone votes were announced - frustratingly slowly - and the "horse-trading" between countries began in earnest. Austria had an early lead, then it was threatened by Sweden, then, eventually, the winning position was a close-run thing between Cyprus's sassy Eleni Foureira (Beyonce-style hair-flicking dance routine, and all) and Israel's kooky Netta. As the crescendo arrived, it was obvious that the "Beth Ditto-looky-likey doing chicken noises" had won - and well-deserved, I'd say!

Netta - Toy:

Here's the runners-up:

Eleni [Graham Norton's comment: "Wow. We must applaud the use of flame-resistant hairspray there. That was impressive stuff."]:

Eurovision Song Contest 2018 - Eleni Foureira - Fuego (Cyprus)

...and Cesár [Graham again: "Now he can go and get out of that outfit. Must be like a paddling pool in those trousers - not a very breathable fabric."]:

Eurovision Song Contest 2018 - Cesár Sampson - Nobody But You (Austria)

Despite the injustice meted out to SuRie, it was a supremely fun night - and we all had a fantabulosa party!

Same time, next year?!

Save your Waterloo Ding Dong Phoenix for Me

Our little gang had another faboo night out on Sunday - the return of the extravaganza that is West End Eurovision!

Basically, the premise of the event - a major fundraiser for the charity Make A Difference Trust (aka TheatreMAD), which supports HIV and AIDS projects that build awareness and provide care, support and education in the UK and Sub-Saharan Africa - is that the casts of renowned West End musicals all perform song'n'dance numbers from former entries in the Eurovision Song Contest, before a panel of judges, with votes from panels from each competing show and an audience vote at the end to decide the winner. A bit like the real thing, but with a West End twist.

And just like the real thing, the audience was about 99% composed of gay men! Understandably so, as just about every second of it - from our MC, veteran Music Hall player Richard Gauntlett, to the judges: former Hot Gossip chorographer and stalwart of Strictly Come Dancing Arlene Phillips, former Eastenders actor and West End star John Partridge, and, campest of the lot, comedian, actor, and writer Tom Allen; the performances themselves, and the plethora of surprise guests (in person and in the "ident" videos) - was as camp as knickers, dear...

Here, for your delectation, is a summary of the contest highlights, courtesy of Scott Matthewman, in his excellent review on The Reviews Hub [how I despise that word!] website:

...While the cast of Hamilton start strongly, with a rendition of 2014 Denmark entry Cliché Love Song that is mashed up with their show’s own The Schuyler Sisters, it is pleasant enough but no more. One almost wonders whether, if this is all West End Eurovision has to offer, its revival was worth it...

...A couple of shows’ choices, both of song and creative performance, veers towards the traditional Eurovision style of presentation. In particular, Kinky Boots’ choice of Warrior, Georgia’s 2015 entry, fits in with the musical’s message of acceptance and defiance, while Mamma Mia! seems to step away from its everyday life of Abba-infused camp with a rendition of Undo (Sweden, 2014) that is rather too serious.

At the other end of the scale, the cast of Young Frankenstein perform a rendition of Sweden’s 1999 entry Take Me To Your Heaven with a tongue-in-cheek rendition that seeks to cast show’s matriarch Lesley Joseph in the role of God, while Aladdin’s performance of the Danish 2007 entry Drama Queen relies on muscular men in leather harnesses and an oversized drag queen – performance staples that go down well amongst an audience which is predominantly composed of gay men.

The best performances tend to be those that take a well-known Eurovision number and take it in a new direction. 42nd Street chose UK winner Boom-Bang-a-Bang for this treatment – initially performing it reverentially in a 1969-style performance, until an interruption from Lulu (the song’s original singer, and who has recently joined the 42nd Street cast) causes the cast to break out into a samba-infused version.

But this is eclipsed by the cast of Dreamgirls, who similarly start with a “straight” version of Making Your Mind Up, before junking it in favour of a hyped-up, soulful rendition that is both 100% Dreamgirls and also a thrilling and faithful interpretation of the original.

Good as it may be, though, it is the cast of The Phantom of the Opera that dominates the proceedings...

...Choosing Rise Like a Phoenix, Conchita Wurst’s 2014 winner for Austria, [it] initially looks like it is going to be a straightforward performance, the combination of beautiful golden dress and full facial beard channelling Wurst’s signature look. But as the backing performers emerge, it is clear the Phantom team are running with the idea. Women from other West End shows, including Donna from Mamma Mia! and Elphaba from Wicked, are recreated with their own beards, before being joined by other hirsute theatrical characters – Harry Potter’s Dumbledore, The Greatest Showman’s Bearded Lady, even Cousin It from The Addams Family.

It’s a performance which is simultaneously bonkers, bold and brilliantly executed. It comes as no surprise, then, when in the scoring part of the evening Phantom takes an early lead and only pulls further ahead with each round of scores. It is an appropriate win, as guest Graham Norton points out as he hands over the trophy: in recent weeks, Conchita Wurst has been forced to discuss her HIV status in public after facing blackmail threats from a former boyfriend, and her refusal to treat her diagnosis as a source of shame is the sort of message that TheatreMAD works hard to promote.

The show concludes with two genuine Eurovision performances. As with previous West End Eurovision shows, a former entrant is invited to perform. Last year’s entrant, Lucie Jones, is an appropriate choice for the event’s revival, as she is enjoying a career in musical theatre herself, currently on tour with Legally Blonde. And kicking off what is hopefully a new tradition for subsequent charity events, the UK’s current entry SuRie performs her entry, Storm.

But great as these performances are, it is the companies of the West End shows who deserve the greatest attention. With each performance predominantly undertaken by the junior members of each show’s ensemble, the evening is both a celebration of the depth of talent within the West End and a valuable fundraiser for HIV charities.

Long may it continue.

Amen to that!

There is (unfortunately) no footage of any of the actual performances from the night itself, but here is the "official ident" from Phantom crew, done in the style of [the improbably popular Channel 4 telly show about - erm - people watching telly] Gogglebox:

West End Eurovision Ident 2018 - The Phantom of the Opera

And here, again, is the UK's entry for the real, official Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon 2018:

SuRie - Storm

She was great - and let's hope she does well! Lucie Jones was great (with her "big gay hands in the air poppers o’clock remix of 'Never Give Up On You' to quote Eurovision blogger Monty on the OnEurope site). Graham Norton was great. Lulu was great. Phantom was great. In fact, everything about this was an absolute hoot - roll on next year (and roll on our Eurovision party in just a few weeks' time)!

TheatreMAD

It will never be the same again!

Despite all the rumours and denials (see below), it seems that the sometimes funny, sometimes downright irritating Graham Norton is going to replace the venerable Sir Terry Wogan as presenter of the Eurovision Song Contest, after all.

Read the announcement from the BBC

Life will never be the same again...

Graham Norton denies Eurovision rumours

Eurovision voting