The most deafening shout of the Eurovision night wasn’t the climactic shriek vented by Bambie Thug, Ireland’s ‘goth goblin’ entrant, giving a demon one last emphatic kick in the ribs.
It was the roar of British voters at home, delivering a maximum 12 points to support Israel’s courageous singer Eden Golan – despite the pusillanimous official UK jurors who gave the 20-year-old from Tel Aviv no points at all.
The message could not have been louder. We were not intimidated by the pro-Hamas mob outside the arena in Malmo, Sweden, baying for Eden’s blood (and neither was she, despite the constant need for an armed guard).
And we would not be cowed by the Left-wing joy police ordering people around the country not to have Eurovision parties, not to join in the silliness, not to cheer and groan and dance, simply because this year’s contest included a Jewish Israeli girl.
In fact, she topped the public poll but, thanks to the official juries, the trophy went to Switzerland’s flamboyant singer Nemo – whose song The Code was admittedly the stand-out catchy number of the night and whose spectacular dance routine was easily the most impressive.
British voters at home gave a maximum 12 points to support Israel’s courageous singer Eden Golan, 20
After a ceremony marred by angry demonstrations outside, jeers and catcalls in the auditorium, and a pervading sense of unease, everyone involved looked grateful simply to get to the end without incident.
And then Nemo fumbled the glass statuette, and appeared to break it. That summed the night up.
Still, it was heartening to see the extent of public backing for Israel. Ireland’s viewers award ten points to Eden and her song Hurricane – originally called October Rain, in tribute to the hundreds of victims in Palestine’s terrorist slaughter last year.
As a friend with Emerald Isle roots remarked to me: ‘If there’s any people who would typically empathise with colonial struggle, it’s the Irish.’
Ordinary voters in , France, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and even tiny Luxembourg and San Marino also handed 12 points apiece to Israel.
This international determination to resist anti-Semitism could not prevent outbreaks of booing and jeers in the arena, muted during Eden’s performance but all too obvious whenever a national jury awarded points for her performance.
The mood from the first moment, when a message from HRH Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden opened the contest, was deep with unease. The tension didn’t let up throughout the night, from the initial parade of flags to the ambiguously barbed comments of some of the celebs announcing their country’s scores.
Veteran Euro-hostess Petra Mede, introducing each one via a painfully slow satellite link, looked like she was constantly expecting some outrageous political statement. Her face was crumpled with anxiety. Backstage, organisers who would usually be sipping champagne were probably chugging PeptoBismol for their heartburn.
It was equally heartening to see Ireland’s viewers award ten points to Eden and her song Hurricane – originally called October Rain, in tribute to the hundreds of victims in Palestine’s terrorist slaughter last year
BBC One’s commentator Graham Norton gamely chortled at the ‘clothing shortages’ and the mad choreography that saw one performer ‘thrown around like a bag of laundry’. But even he had to concede at the end that it had been ‘a very different sort of Eurovision’.
To add to the discomfort, Olly Alexander put on the most distasteful performance ever staged by a British entrant – writhing with dancers on the tiles of a washroom that dripped with black mould and dirt.
It looked like the shower block of a third division football club’s changing rooms.
But how this dross could represent our nation at the most prestigious pop event in the world defies all understanding. How can we field the brilliant, inspirational Sam Ryder, then do this two years later?
Wearing a pink miniskirt and a bolero jacket sewn from gauze ruffles, Switzerland’s Nemo danced on a spinning satellite dish
The song was dross too, and Alexander’s performance was turgid. Whether he had technical difficulties, or whether the pressure was too much for him, those three minutes were so bad that his musical career may never recover.
All the 150million or more watching must have been similarly horrified, because Alexander received no votes at all – compared to 226 for Nemo, who ‘identifies as non-binary’ and prefers to be ‘them’ rather than ‘him’… a distinction Graham tried but didn’t always succeed in observing.
The Code was the one really great song of the night, if you don’t count last year’s winner Tattoo by Loreen or Abba’s Waterloo, both performed during the interval.
Wearing a pink miniskirt and a bolero jacket sewn from gauze ruffles, Nemo danced on a spinning satellite dish and hit notes so high they haven’t been heard since the heyday of Kate Bush.
Most of the other numbers were cynically formulaic. Croatia’s Baby Lasagne sang gibberish lyrics, Rim Tim Tagi Dim, to a heavy metal beat. A bunch of punk rappers from Estonia shouted ‘Hey!’ a lot. Teya Dora from Serbia wore rags to croon a wretched dirge about the end of World War II.
Intermittently, Petra and her co-host Malin Akerman tried to lift the mood with ‘jokes’. It turns out the Swedish sense of humour is about as light-hearted as being clubbed around the head by the haft of a Viking battleaxe.
But even their quips were subtle compared to Finland’s entry, No Rules by Windows95Man – featuring a middle-aged bloke, naked but for a crop top and a pink posing pouch, waggling his bare bum at the cameras.
Ghastly and grim, the whole thing. Eurovision will no doubt recover and with luck be back to its best by next year. But this was a night to bleach from the brain.