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Jun. 27th, 2007 10:40 amWent to London yesterday for the 'Eurosedos Song Contest'. I love this little show. It's put on by the London Stock Exchange Dramatic Society - an amdram group of professionals working in the City - and presented just like a Eurovision Song Contest. There's a pretty girl and a funny foreign guy as hosts, and commentary from a Terry Wogan soundalike. The cast perform a number of Eurovision winning songs, dressed as the original artists, and giving the same stage performances - and I assure you they get the costumes exactly right. Then during the interval the 75 audience members who paid the extra to be on juries cast their votes, and in the second half those votes are read out Eurovision style to the presenters on stage, complete with a scoreboard. It's an absolute treat for any fan of the Contest.
There's still no in-flight TV on National Express coaches :( Arrived in London fairly early, so after a bite to eat on Victoria Station, once I'd located the Bridewell Theatre, passed the three hours till doors opened in the splendid St Bride's Tavern nearby, which served Old Speckled Hen and Greene King IPA, reading Private Eye and casting the odd glance at Wimbledon and BBC London News on the big screen.
Queuing to get in, they were waving the non-voting audience members straight on through, while we jury members had to be told where to sit by a young lady in a black Bridewell Theatre T-shirt with a clipboard. Her list had me down as a member of the French jury, but when I arrived at the French table, down at the very front, and moved to sit in the only empty chair (which had a lady's cardigan draped over it), I was told that seat was taken and they already had a full five people. I went back to the lady with the clipboard and explained the situation, adding my theory, that maybe their friend had a non-voting ticket but they'd sneaked her onto the jury table with them. The lady just said "There must be confusion as it's the first night," and pointed me to a row in the stepped seats and said "There, sit in the Belgian jury." A group of two guys and a girl, who also appeared to be without an allocated place to go, were shown there a couple of minutes later. Clearly the Belgian jury was reserved for waifs and strays.
Most of the singers sang the songs superbly. I was most impressed by "Séverine" (1971 winner) and "Helena Paparizou", a beautiful lady who gave a very sexy and faithful performance of Helena's 2005 winner "You're My Number One". "Johnny Logan" had the vocal support of a group of Irish people in the hall, and there appeared to be some Swedes present, who roared encouragement to "Abba", "The Herreys" and "Carola". Before every song, a screen on the top right of the stage showed 'postcards' of sights of London, while "Terry Wogan" offered witty comments about the places being shown and the singer being introduced.
At the interval, my fellow Belgian jurors were quite happy for me to do the work of adding up our marks to produce our overall 1 to 12 points. The couple next to me weren't over-knowledgeable on Eurovision; they'd come because they were friends of "Ruslana", who'd opened the show with a suitably wild "Wild Dances". When I confessed to being a Eurovision nut, their friend asked if I'd ever been to a Contest. I replied yes, Birmingham 1998. He said he had a pal in Dublin who was a serious fan of the Contest and actually travelled to it every year. To my delight, our overall favourite turned out to be Helena, and my maximum mark to Séverine helped her land our 10 points.
Alas, few of the jury spokespeople read out the votes in proper Eurovision style; nearly all of them said "10th place", "9th place", etc. followed by the country. The atmosphere was electric nonetheless. By the time one of the Bridewell ladies led me to the little vote-casting room underneath the seats to read out the votes of the Belgian jury, it was already a two horse race between Johnny Logan and Salome, with Johnny steadily inching towards victory. We were the penultimate jury. I did the whole thing in French, making sure to tell the girl presenter, Gabrielle, how ravishing she was looking. Our 6 to Johnny and 8 to Salome kept it alive - just. On the way back to my seat, I passed "Agnetha" sitting at the side just under the stand. We exchanged smiles. When the last jury, Croatia, gave Salome only 5, Johnny had won, prompting boos and chants of "Fix, fix, fix" from some people sitting on the other side of the stand! "Johnny" was presented with the 'Silver Note' (actually a silver treble clef) and did his reprise, during which all the others, still in costume, came back out to stand behind him, while credits rolled on the screen.
As we all filed out, the group who'd been chanting 'Fix' began singing that bloody awful Scooch song!!
On the coach home, we had Magic FM on the radio, until the driver inexplicably turned it off at Heathrow Airport. If one of the three random young guys who just rolled up and got on the coach there, after having to pay the driver £10 each as the driver had no change, asked for it to be turned off, then may he rot and burn in Hell. So the remaining arduous two and a half hours of the journey passed in deathly silence :(
There's still no in-flight TV on National Express coaches :( Arrived in London fairly early, so after a bite to eat on Victoria Station, once I'd located the Bridewell Theatre, passed the three hours till doors opened in the splendid St Bride's Tavern nearby, which served Old Speckled Hen and Greene King IPA, reading Private Eye and casting the odd glance at Wimbledon and BBC London News on the big screen.
Queuing to get in, they were waving the non-voting audience members straight on through, while we jury members had to be told where to sit by a young lady in a black Bridewell Theatre T-shirt with a clipboard. Her list had me down as a member of the French jury, but when I arrived at the French table, down at the very front, and moved to sit in the only empty chair (which had a lady's cardigan draped over it), I was told that seat was taken and they already had a full five people. I went back to the lady with the clipboard and explained the situation, adding my theory, that maybe their friend had a non-voting ticket but they'd sneaked her onto the jury table with them. The lady just said "There must be confusion as it's the first night," and pointed me to a row in the stepped seats and said "There, sit in the Belgian jury." A group of two guys and a girl, who also appeared to be without an allocated place to go, were shown there a couple of minutes later. Clearly the Belgian jury was reserved for waifs and strays.
Most of the singers sang the songs superbly. I was most impressed by "Séverine" (1971 winner) and "Helena Paparizou", a beautiful lady who gave a very sexy and faithful performance of Helena's 2005 winner "You're My Number One". "Johnny Logan" had the vocal support of a group of Irish people in the hall, and there appeared to be some Swedes present, who roared encouragement to "Abba", "The Herreys" and "Carola". Before every song, a screen on the top right of the stage showed 'postcards' of sights of London, while "Terry Wogan" offered witty comments about the places being shown and the singer being introduced.
At the interval, my fellow Belgian jurors were quite happy for me to do the work of adding up our marks to produce our overall 1 to 12 points. The couple next to me weren't over-knowledgeable on Eurovision; they'd come because they were friends of "Ruslana", who'd opened the show with a suitably wild "Wild Dances". When I confessed to being a Eurovision nut, their friend asked if I'd ever been to a Contest. I replied yes, Birmingham 1998. He said he had a pal in Dublin who was a serious fan of the Contest and actually travelled to it every year. To my delight, our overall favourite turned out to be Helena, and my maximum mark to Séverine helped her land our 10 points.
Alas, few of the jury spokespeople read out the votes in proper Eurovision style; nearly all of them said "10th place", "9th place", etc. followed by the country. The atmosphere was electric nonetheless. By the time one of the Bridewell ladies led me to the little vote-casting room underneath the seats to read out the votes of the Belgian jury, it was already a two horse race between Johnny Logan and Salome, with Johnny steadily inching towards victory. We were the penultimate jury. I did the whole thing in French, making sure to tell the girl presenter, Gabrielle, how ravishing she was looking. Our 6 to Johnny and 8 to Salome kept it alive - just. On the way back to my seat, I passed "Agnetha" sitting at the side just under the stand. We exchanged smiles. When the last jury, Croatia, gave Salome only 5, Johnny had won, prompting boos and chants of "Fix, fix, fix" from some people sitting on the other side of the stand! "Johnny" was presented with the 'Silver Note' (actually a silver treble clef) and did his reprise, during which all the others, still in costume, came back out to stand behind him, while credits rolled on the screen.
As we all filed out, the group who'd been chanting 'Fix' began singing that bloody awful Scooch song!!
On the coach home, we had Magic FM on the radio, until the driver inexplicably turned it off at Heathrow Airport. If one of the three random young guys who just rolled up and got on the coach there, after having to pay the driver £10 each as the driver had no change, asked for it to be turned off, then may he rot and burn in Hell. So the remaining arduous two and a half hours of the journey passed in deathly silence :(
