Eurobeat - Almost Eurovision

This was my first experience of Eurobeat - Almost Eurovision by Craig Christie and Andrew Patterson which is not your usual musical comedy show, it is actually an original musical pastiche and a glittering musical homage to the biggest annual song contest in Europe the Eurovision Song Contest. It is fast-paced and features all the things that we all love or loath about Eurovision. In Eurobeat we are transported to Sarajevo where the contest is being held and the show is hosted by Boyka (Jen Corcoran) a former Olympic pole vaulter and co-host Sergei, (Lee Butcher) a superstar of Bosnian-Herzegovinian children's TV. The performance begins with a welcome from your BBC host Ceiriog Llewellyn ( Chris Baker) followed by an endorsement projected onto a screen from Terry Wogan who for many years hosted the Eurovision Song Contest for the BBC. The show follows the same format of the real contest however in this case there are ten countries competing, each country producing a performance in the style that we have come to expect from them which include a Russian boy band, a pastiche of Byork, Hungarian folk singers and an Abba-esque group from Sweden among others.  A big mention must go to the fantastic ensemble cast who played multiple roles and performed with lots of energy, enthusiasm and also worked as a team producing some very funny characterisations.  There was superb Choreography by Jackie Morris which along with some impressive vocal talent guided by Musical Director Sarah Nicholson resulted in a great party atmosphere. The audience cheered waved the flags of the competing nations which they had been given on arrival and generally made lots of noise throughout clacking their clackers enjoying themselves immensely. When the final entry had performed the audience were invited to get out their mobile phones and text vote for their favourite acts. As we waited for the votes to be counted we were treated in true Eurovision style to a Bosnian-Herzegovinian spectacular from our hosts. When all the votes are counted, we are whisked across Europe’live via satellite’ to each of the participating countries, where the results are announced on screen by some very funny characters all played superbly by Corinna Davies and Peter Forshaw. Because the audience chooses the winner the end of the show changes every night which means the production is reinvented  for each performance and  once the winner is identified they return to the stage for a triumphant reprise of their winning entry.  Costumes were very colourful, well thought out and added to the comedy.  It is clear that this is a very technical show so a very big well done to the sound, lighting and stage crew as they were crucial to the success of this production. There is a great deal of audience participation in this show and in this case they all appeared to be enjoying a great party night out.
Congratulations must go to Stephen Hughes-Alty and to all involved in this production including front of house and thank you for inviting my husband and I we had a very enjoyable evening.

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