The Eurobeat Pounds On... But I'm Tapping Out
A big shiny hit at the Fringe last year, Eurobeat the Eurovision musical, is set to embark on a run at the Ivor Novello Theatre in the West End. We sent one of our writers down to see it in preview and score their efforts... out of 12 I suppose.
By day the Novello Theatre looks just like any other West End theatre. An enormous glittery show board hangs over the main entrance accompanied by the usual celebratory daubings. The Times, for example, call it "Wonderfully funny", while the Metro give it five stars and proclaim: "This show's a winner!" So far it all feels pretty standard. However, come back at night time and the whole place buzzes like a great big fabulous beehive. Ushers with sequinned cowboy hats hand out little badges with the Eurobeat logo and the name of a country on them - these are important, we shall return to them later - excited theatre-goers scamper around all giggly and excited like they've had a little too much jelly and ice cream and even world-weary black cab drivers seem to slow down as they pass to see what all the fuss is about. We finally make our way inside and then are shown to our seats by other beaming young ushers who scoot around selling wee plastic flags and hand clackers and the like. In fact, a few rows in front of us a rather demure looking lady took to her seat and then very quietly took out from her bag all manner of patriotic paraphernalia. Tiny, glittery, Union Jack top hats and a flag of St. Andrew. I was half expecting her to reach into the leather holdall by her side and whip out a giant sponge finger-pointer... but it never materialised. Shame.
The stage is decked out in similarly sparkly garb. Huge non-descript flags hang from the ceiling and a great big rectangular screen hangs down centre-stage. It all looks a bit like a super camp international re-imagining of Family Fortunes, so I suppose Les Dennis feels right at home. As the auditorium starts to fill out, messages pop up onto said screen with advice on enjoying the show and short clips of Eurovision to, I suppose, whet one's proverbial appetite... or bilious disgust glands, depending on your attitude to the contest.
The premise is simple enough, we're watching a (particularly shoddy) Eurovision Song Contest as it is being performed in Sarajevo. The haphazard presenters, 'Sergei' (Les Dennis) and 'Boyka' (Mel Giedroyc) do their best to host the evening but their patchy English often falls into complete farce. They introduce each of the 10 acts from selected countries around Europe; naturally the United Kingdom are represented, so are Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Ireland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland and, everyone's favourite Eurovision contestants, Sweden. Now, remember those badges we were banging on about? Well, those teensy badges dictate your adoptive country for the evening and you're encouraged to shout and cheer when their act comes up.
Now, by the intermission all the acts have performed and the voting starts. This, I suppose, is Eurobeat's unique selling point; the fact that you, the audience, vote on who wins. What you do is text in your adoptive country and then place your favourite three entries. After the interval, when all the votes have been counted, the results are announced country by country, just like the real thing. The upshot being of course that, in theory, the outcome of the show can be different every time (well, from 10 possible outcomes) and little old you have the power to decide the winner.
How deeply empowering.
Well no, how frivolously kitsch; but you get the idea.
The acts are certainly all, well, vibrant. The Greeks get down to some seriously fruity pole dancing whilst the German entry is a rather bizarre piece of performance art. Iceland do a sort of homage to Bjork and Sweden, naturally, spoof Abba.
This is the part of the review where I feel I'm supposed to say that all the calamitous performances were the height of post PC wit and utterly hilarious. Unfortunately, they weren't.
All of the acts had fantastic performers. Their vocal and physical skill clearly outshine the odd intentionally dodgy dance step or bum note. Take the pair representing the Brits; their vocal talents were obviously outstanding but then, in a quite definite homage to 2003's disastrous Eurovision entry by Gemini, the pair slide around a harmony like a couple of drunk young giraffes gone ice-skating. The result, needless to say, is torture.. but pretty funny.
There is an example of the show working perfectly, a delicately-crafted shambles of a song that comes from clever observation of the country and its past Eurovision entries. Sadly though, this show is more miss than hit. The Hungarian entry comprised of three milkmaids called the 'Molnar Sisters' that sing in Hungarian (we are told) with a translation subtitled onto the big aforementioned screen. The result, sadly, is a good deal less than hilarious. Lazy, uninspired and frankly boring, the performances were strong as anything, but the writing was weak.
This is true of the presenters too. Both Les and Mel turn in confident, comfortable performances but the material just isn't there. Too often Mell relies on this maniacal European cackle to get a laugh and Les just readjusts his silly wig whenever the script falls a bit flat. The first few exchanges between them, peppered with 'unintentional' innuendo and semantic slip-ups are quite funny, but after six or seven performances it's tired and drab.
There is a lot of good here though. Like I say the performances were just great and some of the songs are genuinely hilarious but there's not really enough to keep the interest. Russia were brilliant for example, as were the UK and Ireland, but that's pretty much it. The audience voting is a nice idea but about halfway through the results being announced I must admit that I was waiting for the end. It's not awful by any stretch and if you're the kind of person that likes Eurovision then I'm sure you'd love Eurobeat, in fact, I couldn't recommend it any higher. But really, for those that find the Eurovision Song Contest an evening of intolerable cruelty then this musical is just not cutting enough.
It's funny, just no way near funny enough.
Published by: Nathan Brooker
Subscribe to the Show and Stay Blog RSS Feed
