Knock Knock Who’s There?
Bianca Nicholas is from Beckenham and in 2014 competed in the blind auditions of The Voice UK performing “One” by Mary J. Blige, but sadly none of the judges turned. Alex Larke is a long time member of tribute band The Rolling Clones.
Making Your Mind Up
In October 2014 the BBC Eurovision producer Guy Freeman invited submissions from all and sundry for the UK entry for the fiftieth Eurovision, although for the fifth year in a row a televised final to choose song and/or singer was ruled out very early. All contributions had to be in video form, and performed by the act intended to travel to Vienna. The entry would be selected by an internal panel of experts and was revealed on the BBC Red Button in a short “special” show on March 7th.
I Love The Little Things
Performed fifth of twenty-seven in the largest final yet seen at Eurovision. This was due to Australia being granted a direct final place on their debut meaning an unprecedented seven direct finalists plus twenty semi-final qualifiers.
Since the exact running order was changed from a completely random order to one decided by the show producers, 2015 is the only year so far when the UK has performed in the first half (which half a country performs in is still determined by a draw).
That Sounds Good To Me
Result: 24th of 27 with 5 points.
“Still In Love With You” got votes from just three of the other thirty-nine countries voting. Its top vote was a three from San Marino.
Where Are You Now?
Both Bianca and Alex have busy Twitter accounts. Post Eurovision Alex went back to The Rolling Clones but in 2017 has released a solo single “Shine On”.
Flying The Flag
I still vividly remember being sat expectantly on the sofa awaiting the red button reveal, and when it came on being rendered speechless for three minutes (which is unique in itself). A tour de force of a slick, opulent video with a cast of thousands (OK dozens) and a cheesy but catchy song. “Electro Swing” indeed. Whatever we were expecting, it certainly wasn’t this. It was all wonderfully entertaining but once the OMG subsided you started to think of it in a Eurovision context and then all the worries crept in. Live vocals, a maximum of six people on stage, limited props, and so on …..
Bianca and Alex both came across as lovely people and gave of their best in Vienna but were saddled with an early draw and having to recreate that quite special video with the enforced limitations of the ESC stage. Also a cheesy retro style entry in a contest with arguably the best top five songs of any contest in this millennium (and modern song too) was always going to struggle. But perhaps the overarching question of the BBC strategy for Eurovision 2015 is why the video approach was used. Was there a killer song out there performed by a bloke with headphones on taking a shaky video of himself with a Nokia?. I guess we’ll never know.
