It happens once a year: we all gather around in one room, with our flags and our badges, knowing that what we are about to see is a show full of European pop-trash, over the top campness and sarcastic comments from the one and only Terry Wogan. It is the Eurovision Song Contest, and as much as we hate to admit, deep down we all love it and watch it. And that’s the main reason why Eurobeat, Almost Eurovision works so well. It’s a show parodying a European event which has become almost a parody of itself.
Mel Giedroyc steals the show as Boyka, the female presenter, and you can feel just how much fun she is having with her character. She knows how to calm the excited crowds, how to get them going, and has to deal with some awfully-hilarious puns from her co-presenter.
But as much fun as Boyka is, the real laughs come from the competing songs themselves, a selection of ten randomly selected countries which stretch the taste in good music to the limit. Italy’s performance is a mixture of opera, pop and rap, while Germany goes for a full 80’s nonsensical electronics rendition and Iceland gets a Bjork clone. Other countries highlights are Iceland’s Ronan Keating-wannabe, sickeningly sweet ballad, or the United Kingdom’s awful 2003 Jemini Eurovision entry sound-a-like. Not only is the music tackily fun, but the lyrics are fantastically ingenious and provocative.
With its tongue placed firmly in cheek (and a fantastic video cameo from Wogan himself), Eurobeat is not all about what’s going on stage, but very much about what the public does and wants, as it gets to vote for a winning country, which creates much furore amongst the stalls.
It might not be high class entertainment, but Eurobeat: Almost Eurovision is the perfect night out with your group of friends, and it gets as close to the beloved original contest as it possibly can.
5/5
Adrian G. Velazquez
