With crushing inevitability, the United Kingdom came last in the Eurovision Song Contest. Our entry – Eins, Zwei, Drei by Sam Battle, a 37-year-old YouTuber from Lincolnshire who performs under the name Look Mum No Computer – received the dreaded nul points from the audience vote.
From the international juries, it bagged a single point, courtesy of Ukraine, leaving it 515 points adrift of Bulgaria’s winning song Bangaranga and confirming it as the UK’s poorest performance since 2021, when James Newman received no points whatsoever. So how did it go so wrong – again? Let me count the ways.
1. The performance
On the big night, the performance fell as flat as a pancake in Vienna’s massive Wiener Stadthalle arena. Battle’s live vocals had no bite and the accompanying thumping bassline just echoed about inconsequentially. The song was a mash-up of styles: a bit synthpop with a shouty chorus that looked to pander to the European audience while remaining “wackily” British. “Eins, zwei, drei / Darlin’ I need something salty / Eins, zwei, drei / With a slice of pepperoni,” Battle sang, sporting a pink boiler suit, before going on to mention roly-poly with custard.
The staging saw Battle surrounded by dancers with fury boxes on their heads as he sat in a recreation of an office, pretending to be bored, then clowned around on rows of desks. While they were clearly aiming for a deliberately lo-fi aesthetic, the whole thing appeared pitifully underpowered: the poor guy looked lost. He did his best, but it felt excruciating at times.
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