[2012124] Eurowision Adelaide 2012
CarCon @ Gluttony – Excess Theatre
11:55pm, Sun 11 Mar 2012
I love the Eurovision Song Contest, and only somewhat ironically; for all the giggles to be found via Eurovision drinking games, what with bloc-politic voting and terrible costumes and awkward hosts and whatever crap England decides is a sure-fire winner, there’s also a genuine interest in the production aspects of the programme… and the music. There’s been some cracking songs entered in the decade or so that I’ve been an ESC-aholic – from Lena’s winner (and gorgeously brooding follow-up) to Turkey’s only winner to Sopho’s amazing Visionary Dream, not a year goes by when I can’t pluck a bit of pop goodness out of the seemingly cheesy Eurovision lineup that I genuinely enjoy.
But mostly, Eurovision is all about the cheese.
So a late-night comedy show taking the piss out of Eurovision? I mentally bought tickets way before they were on sale.
Our two hosts (Golden Phung-ers?) were perfect in their roles, completely nailing the awkward banter of “real” Eurovision hosts whilst looking the euro-ethnic part. Their written parts were often deplorably bad – which is, of course, spot-on – with clumsy jokes and innuendo between the Eurowision acts.
Opening up the performances was one of the chaps from Comicus Erectus, representing Greece; strutting onstage with glitzy guitar, he only managed to play a few chords of Play That Funky Music [Greek Boy], before the audience fell apart in laughter. Jenny Wynter came out with a bilingual version of Down Under for Germany, with The Golden Phung representing Croatia.
Even though I’m not a massive fan of his standup, James McCann did a brilliant job representing France; Dave Callan and his Burlesque Beauties danced up a storm for England (which would easily have been their best entry in years… a pity that Callan is Irish, then). Svetlanka Seczskittenya cracked whips for Serbia, Jason Chong represented Russia (of course!) with a mighty mime of Trololo, and Poland (as defined by the Axis of Awesome) wrapped the Contest up with the fun Surprise Sex.
But the highlight of the show – as with any Eurovision event, of course – were the Postcards: little video interstitials used to introduce each country in the contest, using glowing footage from the hosting nation as a backdrop. Eurowision‘s Postcards were performed by Mark Trenwith, all-but-naked in his black bodysuit, via the medium of interpretive modern dance; they were universally silly beyond belief as he flounced with rubber limbs around the stage, punctuating every performance with a contrasting gruff announcement of the country. Brilliant!
Eurowision was good, solid, silly fun. I’d been expecting a slightly cruel exposé poking fun at Eurovision, but what I saw was more a celebration of its silliest aspects… and that turned out to be bang-on the money.