Like most genres of cinema, really all if we’re being totally honest, romantic comedies march solidly and determinedly to a set and little varied formula. It makes sense – if people are watching you for an idealised vision of falling in love and the romanticised delights of happily ever after, Continue Reading
Eurovision 2021
Book review – Over My Dead Body: Murder at #Eurovision by Christoph Fischer
The Eurovision Song Contest, as befits a singing competition marking it 65th anniversary this year, is a great many things – gloriously and deliciously over the top, a great promotional vehicle for aspiring singers or those looking to revive their career, as camp as Christmas and a brilliant way to Continue Reading
#Eurovision 2021 cultural festival: 5 Dutch music artists – Pink Oculus, De Staat, Fatima Yamaha, My Baby, BEA1991
The Eurovision Song Contest 2021 is delivering a ton of great and quirky music in the Netherlands’ city of Rotterdam but what about music made in the country itself? Some of it will be featured during the semi-finals and grand final, a nod to the Eurovision tradition of showcasing the Continue Reading
#Eurovision 2021 cultural festival TV review: Toon (season 1)
If you have ever felt that life is sweeping you fiercely and rapidly along to some great moment that is undeniably wonderful but most definitely not of your choosing, then you will find much with which to identify with the titular protagonist in Toon, a 2016 TV comedy from Dirk Continue Reading
#Eurovision 2021 cultural festival book review: The Pelican by Martin Michael Driessen
It may not be wholly or completely so but there is good case to be made that life is, simply by virtue of its underwhelming existence, more than a little disappointing. Quite what it is most of us are expecting is never really clear but if pushed, there’s a good Continue Reading
And the possible Eurovision 2021 winners are … my top 10 picks for semi-finals 1 & 2
In one of the many wonderful scenes that make up 1965’s The Sound of Music, the nuns muse at great musical length in one scene about how exactly you solve a problem like Maria; it seems like an impossible thing to fix, far beyond the reach of even, it seems, Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2021: Week 7 – The Big 6 – France, Germany, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, United Kingdom
What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2021: Week 6 – San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine
What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2021: Week 5 – North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia
What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2021: Week 4 – Ireland, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova
What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading