Nul points for Eurovision judges who ignored our girl’s bravery when she ignored stage invader: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s TV

Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Rating:

Midsomer Murders 

Rating:

She didn’t win but, if points were awarded for sheer courage, the British singer SuRie would be the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 (BBC1).

After a stage invader in a bandana, who had apparently escaped from a Bruce Springsteen tribute band, seized her microphone, SuRie clapped and danced to the backing track — then sang her heart out for the final chorus. The song was no classic, but she made it sound like an anthem.

You may have noticed that the five Vikings from Denmark who followed her, stomping round the stage in biker boots amid a swirling snowstorm, didn’t attract any protesters. Nor did the shrieking Hungarian death metal act with their flailing fists and guitars.

She didn’t win but, if points were awarded for sheer courage, the British singer SuRie would be the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 (BBC1)

She didn’t win but, if points were awarded for sheer courage, the British singer SuRie would be the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 (BBC1)

After a stage invader in a bandana, who had apparently escaped from a Bruce Springsteen tribute band, seized her microphone, SuRie clapped and danced to the backing track

After a stage invader in a bandana, who had apparently escaped from a Bruce Springsteen tribute band, seized her microphone, SuRie clapped and danced to the backing track

Predictably, it was a lone young woman who was the target. The international judges should have saluted her bravery by each giving her at least a couple of points, in an act of solidarity.

It wouldn’t have made any difference to the overall score, because Israel would still have rocketed to victory with a colossal 529 points from viewers. That win was well deserved: bouncing star Netta, with what seemed to be two balls of knitting wool pinned to her head, performed easily the best pop number of the night, Toy — and the best arm-flapping dance, like the Birdie Song having a panic attack.

There was no ballad as pretty as last year’s winner, Love For Two. But little else was missing from the Eurovision box of tricks, starting with a Ukrainian vampire at a grand piano on a plinth, surrounded by a staircase of flames.

A Moldovan trio in primary colours danced though doors in a white tile wall, that looked like the loos at a railway station.

A Lithuanian girl in a pink Crimplene nightie sang about her family, while clips from home movies floated in the air.

Most spectacular was the Estonian opera singer whose huge dress became a galaxy of swirling stars and a volcano that erupted in rose petals.

Graham Norton’s commentary was wryly witty throughout, and sometimes laugh-aloud funny. The bearded Serbian act, he remarked, had ‘the slight look of a cult leader with his three sister-wives’.

The song was no classic, but she made it sound like an anthem

The song was no classic, but she made it sound like an anthem

Just watching the three-and-a-half hour show (including an interminable 45 minutes of voting) was tiring enough. Keeping up a stream of amusing asides must have been exhausting, though it sounded as though Graham was being cared for quite well: by the end, the words weren’t so much tripping off his tongue as tripping over. He took three attempts to say memo . . . mania . . . ‘many’.

The only thing more ridiculous than Eurovision’s costumes was DCI Barnaby wearing a Napoleonic naval uniform and a waist sash, as he investigated murder at a Jane Austen house party in Midsomer Murders (ITV).

A journalist was lying dead in the woods, stabbed with a poisoned quill pen, but this is Midsomer and no one lets the odd corpse or three cause too much disruption. The suspects in their empire gowns and frock coats continued to dance quadrilles, while Barnaby sipped his port and studied their motives.

Neil Dudgeon as the gloomy detective always wears a grimace that hovers between disapproval and embarrassment, as though he’s noticed that the killer’s flies are undone. That’s appropriate because, in Midsomer, murder is not really a crime, just a social faux pas.

As usual, a splendid cast — including Claire Skinner, Karl Theobald and Georgie Glen —had us far too preoccupied spotting familiar faces to guess the killer.

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