EU need Norton
Lucky it’s on late, Ry
DIDN’T see this next one back on coming. Ben Elton sitcom form with Shakespeare it does Upstart Crow. Though – Oxbridge clone Blackadder plan” (not jokes, a “brilliant Mitchell “cunning”), David with sarcasm playing the Bard and a Melchett-esque not The nemesis. But it’s Wright Way. Yea, verily. TWENTY songs down in Stockholm’s Globe Arena and time to crank up the party.
So get ready to form an impromptu conga in your living room, folks, because it’s Ukraine’s entry.
A jolly old ditty called 1944, about a war massacre.
Which pretty much summed up last night’s Eurovision Song Contest, a four- hour campaign video for Brexit, where most of the fun was sucked out at BBC4’s semi-finals with all the bonkers acts ditched.
If you didn’t catch them, you missed a naked bloke from Belarus serenading a wolf, a Macedonian Jane McDonald’s ode to kebabs (“Dona! Dona! Dona!”) written by – and I swear I’m not making this up – Romeo Grill.
And tiny San Marino, with commentator Scott Mills informing us: “Nobody from San Marino is involved with thiss att all.. They’ve officially run out of pop p stars.”
So instead they sent a middle-aged aged bald man in a burgundy suit and trilby to do a Whispering Bob Harris tribute over a disco number, with the girls from the I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper video.
And no, I’ve no idea why that didn’t get voted through either.
But we still had 26 left standing for the main event, with the best song and singer, at Eurovision, turning out to be a Koreanborn Aussie. Figure that one out. Russia threw the kitchen sink at their entry, a depressing version of the theme tune from Henry Kelly’s Going For Gold.
Belgium ripped off Sax by Fleur East, Hungary sent a Zayn Malik double and Croatia decided The Cranberries’ foghorn is what Europe is really into.
We also had “the sexiest woman in Armenia… 2012”, Dutch country and western, a Polish Sgt Pepper, a catchy belter from France and, for the first time in years, a fighting chance for the UK to avoid humiliation, with Joe & Jake. Laughs, though, were only ever going to come from two sources.
The brilliant Graham Norton, whose absence on Tuesday and Thursday night meant we had to suffer the commentary of Mills and Bake Off obsessed Mel “Eurovizh” Giedroyc.
And Swedish hosts Petra Mede and Mans Zelmerlow who’d opened the second semi-final with a fantastic, jaw-dislodging song and dance number explaining “what on earth is going on” to Eurovision newcomers.
“We make music and friends with every nation, and bankrupt the hosting TV station. And the interval act is your one big chance to fail to live up to Riverdance.”
A line enjoyed by everyone in the room. With the possible exception of Justin Timberlake.
Douze points for the semi- finals, Sweden. IT’S part chat show, part game show, part prank show and part dinner lady work experience. So no surprise Up Late With Rylan is a mess. He’s fawning yet upstages his guests, most things they try don’t work and “Ferne McCann or McCann’t” is an Almost Impossible Gameshow rip-off. But hey, 11pm on C5 keeps Rylan safely out of harm’s way. Well done everyone.