If the singer takes centre stage, we can win again

SETS THE CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS

CHARLIE McGettigan’s call for a boycott of the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel next year in the wake of the horrific events which took place in Gaza is a just cause, and one with which I thoroughly agree.

If you recall, I tipped Israel’s Netta Barzilai, pictured below, to win here a few weeks ago. She duly did with her song Toy, which she touted as a women’s anthem, allied to the #metoo campaign. In reality it is a rehash of the Birdie song and in discos all across Europe it will be this summer’s dance hit.

But there is another reason to boycott the 2019 Eurovision. We need a changing of the guard, a new team to put the whole scenario together. The present team just isn’t cutting it. There is one thing the Irish winners of the past have in common, which is overlooked every year. But I’ll come back to that later.

They had a good idea this year when they plumped for the two gay dancers to feature in the video of Ryan O’Shaughnessy’s song Together, a gentle love ballad. The video was tasty, but they should have left it at that, because boy did the dancing backfire when it came to the actual contest itself.

Ryan was confident when he started to sing. With just him on guitar, accompanied by a pianist, it was simple and plaintive. Then suddenly, the two whirling dervishes came buckin’ and leppin’, twistin’ and turnin’, and immediately the lovely lyric and the melodious tune fell into a terpsichorean void.

The cavorting was a total distraction and it put an end to Ryan’s chances. It was a daring enough idea to play the gay card, but and given we were the first country to legalise gay marriage through a popular vote, it was just about acceptable. But the turnout of the pink vote did not meet our expectations. Despite China refusing to show our entry, it had looked like it might be the fillip we needed.

I don’t think Ryan would have won anyway. I have to confess, I didn’t spot Germany as a threat at all and I thought that if the Israeli song floundered, the Austrian Lionel Richie might scoop it from Cyprus.

It was cheering to see the opera singer from Estonia get a decent amount of votes. The last notes of her song were the most thrilling thing I have heard, ever, in the Eurovision.

I was slightly disappointed that nobody wore angels’ wings this year, and even though the production was staggeringly exciting from a visual and technical point of view, it had nothing to do with the song contest and it seemed like the more bizarre the setting, the more the singers bought into it.

So what is this one thing that past Irish Eurovision winners have in common? Dana sat on a stool and sang about all the things she liked. Johnny Logan reprised the stool, but he calculated exactly when he would get up from the stool.

WHEN Johnny sang Hold Me Now, he was centre stage, out front, alone, with three backing singers, who didn’t move. When Niamh Kavanagh stood alone in centre stage and sang In Your Eyes, it oozed class. Linda Martin sang Why Me? alone and centre stage, and Eimear Quinn, with a very different kind of song, The Voice, also sang in this way. No dancers. No histrionics. One person singing, that’s the key. Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan were two people, but they presented themselves with just a piano and a guitar, with not a leotard in sight. Except, not very long after they had sung, Michael Flatley exploded onto centre stage in The Point Depot and triggered the greatest dancing frenzy of modern times: Riverdance.