This is normally the post I look most forward to writing. My thoughts on a joyful four hours where I can bemoan the UK at being rubbish, debate the merits of the winner and just generally review whatever has occurred on the night.
But this year is different for obvious reasons. Firstly, there is the cloud over Israel’s participation. I initially thought many months back the EBU had taken the right decision allowing them to compete. But over time I came to question this. There was the attempt to send a deliberately provocative song, that was eventually watered down. Then there have been persistent rumours that the delegation had been unpleasant in their conduct to other delegations that had openly criticised them being allowed to compete. On balance, whilst Israel should have been allowed to compete, it perhaps would make sense know for everyone involved to ask whether it is the best thing in the long run for anyone involved to allow this to be repeated.
Then there was the Netherlands’ disqualification following an altercation with a member of the production team. It says something about how toxic the environment was this year that the rumour mill immediately sought to blame Israel. Personally, though I find it regretful, I do think that the disqualification was the right thing to do. If the act was indeed engaged in threatening behaviour then that is a breach of the rules, and it would be worse for them to have carried on and perhaps won and then be found guilty then to be removed and later found innocent.
So what about the show itself? Well, overall it was brilliant to see the breadth of genres. We seem to have moved far on from ballads and eurodance being all that is available with the odd token rock song. Ireland, Croatia and Switzerland in particular all learnt how to do ‘different’ right. Less so Norway and Finland. The former were handsomely rewarded with both healthy jury and public vote scores. Switzerland were deserving winners in my view – easily the best voice on the night, an excellently constructed song and clever staging.
The biggest shocks were the big votes for Ukraine and Israel. Yes, there’s sympathy voting, but I am tiring of a certain class of viewer failing to actually reward good songs. Although in terms of Israel, it perhaps shows that underneath a progressive veneer, the average viewer is still quite conservative and not interested in the plight of Gaza the way younger generations might wish them to be.
And the UK? Well, we came 18th, which is several places higher than last year, thanks to a jury score that fell for the pop hook. But no viewer votes. Again, in hindsight staging the song around a homoerotic encounter in a men’s locker room in space was not the strongest of ideas when you are pitching to an audience that consider Eurovision to be a family show (although no such issues with scantily clad women or hetero men dancing suggestively). The LGBT audience were busy rallying behind Switzerland and Ireland anyway.
Plus, Olly’s voice was not the best. It was very much a performance that seemed to be focused on dancing and the bells and whistles, rather than showing any vocal prowess. With so many countries delivering something close to flawless (again Switzerland, but also France, Germany and Latvia) you can’t get away with those kind of wobbles.
But there is hope. The song was so nearly there. The vocals were not a complete disaster. The staging showed the UK can be bold. If we can build on this we can climb the leaderboard. That’s something to hope for in a difficult time for the contest.
matthewatetheremote 