Semi 1: Tuesday, 8pm
BBC4
(The UK can vote in this one)
Semi 2: Thursday, 8pm
BBC4
Final: Saturday, 8pm
BBC1
IT’S TIME! Everyone’s travelling to Kiev in the Ukraine for the 62nd edition of the Eurovish where we will be celebrating diversity with 42 songs, most of which power ballads sung in English, a language that’s losing its importance in Europe. As we are well aware this is a song contest and as we’re always told through various thinkpieces throughout the media politics just doesn’t come into it and this year is looking more apolitical than ever. We cannot wait!
The UK entry is Lucie Jones. We’ve not actually heard the song anywhere since it was picked as a winner so I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest it probably won’t win.
Annual FAQ:
- “Why are Australia in it? They’re not even IN Europe!” They are associate members of the European Broadcasting Union and have been invited.
- “Why are Israel in it? They’re not even IN Europe!” They are members of the European Broadcasting Union.
- “Why are the UK in it? They’re not even IN Europe!” They are members of the European Broadcasting Union.
- “What happens if Australia wins?” They’ll probably hold the next one in Germany as a co-production with SBS.
- “Why is the BBC wasting the licence fee on an event we have no chance of winning?” Even so it actually works out as a rather good value per hour proposition for effectively 7.5 hrs of primetime telly, which would otherwise have to be filled with something. It’s not like we’re staging it.
We’re basically going into the week completely blind this year. We can’t wait for everyone on Twitter to go “this is rubbish OH BLOODY HELL THIS IS SO EXCITING” with the voting like last year. And this year there are special Twitter emojis for #12points, #eurovision, #esc2017 and #celebratediversity.
Brig
This sounds like the sort of thing we’d like. Details a bit scrappy but a twenty episode run – hopefully doesnt end up like The Murder Game and get shunted to 3am on a Sunday morning!
http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/news/a827712/bbc-one-new-immersive-show-armchair-detectives/
We’ve actually briefly mentioned this is comments previous, from what I’m gathering it’s probably a bit closer to Whodunnit with Jon Pertwee than Whodunnit the recentish US reality game.
I was thinking Cluedo myself…
Yes indeed, although they’re basically the same thing.
From what I’ve put together it’s basically people watching a filmed Midsomer Murders-esque drama and everysooften the action stops and the team discuss what they’ve seen, ending up with guessing who the criminal is. Probably Not As Much The Sort Of Thing We Like As We Would Like but there are good people working on it.
I am wondering if we are going to get Zero points this year or will the brexit backlash hit us back in 2019.
If it was in July last year, probably. It feels too long since it happened to have any real effect. What’s really going to hurt it is if there’s no staging on the night, like pretty much every one of our entries since we started doing badly.
I have a pretty decent feeling we will hit top 10 this year.
I think you’d probably be able to get quite good odds on that.
Missed out on 150/1 odds on a UK win, I’m too hurt by that now to put a bet on 🙁
3.15 on the UK to finish top ten at Betfair Exchange right now i.e. a bit over 2-1. 60 to win outright.
A Brexit backlash from Australia? San Marino? Norway?
Brig, you forgot “Why is the BBC wasting the licence fee on an event we have no chance of winning” as a FAQ question.
Ooh good one. Might add it.
Actually as we all know the Brexit backlash will fall out of the basket in a few years time, a bit like how next year the different currency exchange rate will stop counting towards the rate of inflation.
Really, though, the idea that we come bottom because people don’t like us only makes sense if people were voting for every other country apart from the UK. The bit last year where we were sitting pretty in mid-table before the public vote and then promptly plummeted to the bottom was a great telly moment, though. Someone on Twitter said Tel would have loved that, and they’re right.
I dunno why we’re considered to be forever doomed to failure, though, Germany probably has a worse record than us in the past two decades or so, and seem to have a similar attitude to it to us in that they think it’s funny and will often submit silly entries, like Wadde Hadde Dudde Da. And yet the other year they won the thing. I don’t see why we can’t do that.
On a political tip, though, I’m currently reading A Classless Society by Alwyn W Turner, his history of the nineties, and he talks about Britain winning Eurovision two days after the 1997 election, and quotes Michael Leggo saying it was wonderful to be enjoying Eurovision success in the UK for the first time in eighteen years. Of course, it hadn’t been eighteen years, it had been sixteen. He was mixing it up with something else.
I think ultimately we Brits secretly really enjoy moaning about Eurovision and we wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much if we regularly finished mid-table.
If recent election wins and the position in the running order are the barometers of the predicting winning country..
..see you in Paris this time next year, everyone.
In other news Letterbox with Mel Giedroyc films in June at Elstree, details SRO.
Unfortunately it’s timed so that I can’t make it because of work. Knock yourselves out though, let us know if you go and see it.
http://www.sroaudiences.com/application.asp?show_id=1970
In minor daytime news, BBC2 appears to have swapped around Celebrity Eggheads and Debatable from today.
As a side-note it appears that Celebrity Eggheads is still a regular Eggheads game, just dragged out to 45 mins!
I think ITV may be adapting ABC’s Big Fan, or something similar.
On StarNow, there are several applications for fans of various celebrities/shows (I can see John Cleese, Coronation Street and Will & Grace) to take meet stars from the show/the person and there is a prize up for grabs.
Here is the Italian ESC promo.
Flavio Insinna from Affari Tuoi and Federico Russo from Ninja Warrior are taking this seriously!
It looks like Italy have got a really good chance of winning this year, so it’d be interesting to see who they get to host it if they do.
I guess Raffaella Carrà or maybe Milly Carlucci from Strictly Come Dancing. Paolo Bonolis said he wants to make his own contest.
Going through the practice aggregate reel:
Of course there’s nothing good. There’s also nothing shockingly bad, so it will probably be very, very tedious through and through. Unless you’re a teenage girl, because so much delicious flesh is there to be ogled.
Based on all of five minutes of study, predictions: Poland & Ukraine sound like lukewarm faves, San Marino is dated but well made, Belgium had potential but not enough skill to carry it through, Italy is too cool to play its comedy earnestly, and so achieves little.
Why are there no stiletto slides and floating vampire dentures like past years?
Repeating something that has been done before rarely works. 😉
There’ll almost certainly never be another winner like Lordi or Conchita.
Unless you’re Johnny Logan.
Final running order:
01. Israel
02. Poland
03. Belarus
04. Austria
05. Armenia
06. Netherlands
07. Moldova
08. Hungary
09. Italy
10. Denmark
11. Portugal
12. Azerbaijan
13. Croatia
14. Australia
15. Greece
16. Spain
17. Norway
18. United Kingdom
19. Cyprus
20. Romania
21. Germany
22. Ukraine
23. Belgium
24. Sweden
25. Bulgaria
26. France
I know the draw is partly random and all, but… note that the Ukrainian producers were fired a few months ago and replaced by Swedes.
Public Vote Points Breakdown
United Kingdom
Total points in vote: 12
Countries who voted:
Ireland: 4
Australia: 3
Spain: 1
Malta: 4