This article is more than 1 year old

Lonely-heart Maltese techie vs Bonnie Tyler for Eurovision crown

32 years since that Bucks Fizz feelin'

Eurovision 2013 A hopelessly sweet song about a ruthlessly organised techie who gets the girl will fight with the ballad from rock vixen Bonnie Tyler and 24 other acts to lift the Eurovision Song Contest crown Saturday night.

Gianluca Bezzina will represent not just his home land of Malta but carry the misty eyed wishes of girl-shy geeks Europe wide with his 2013 entry, Tomorrow.

Bezzina, 24-year-old doctor and part-time singer, goes up against Believe in Me – team-GB’s Eurovision entry from veteran, big-haired Taff rocker Tyler, who's blown the lid off with desk drumming, air-guitar staples as Total Eclipse of the Heart and Holding Out for a Hero.

Looking like a soft-focus Baby Spice for Eurovision 2013, Tyler serves a balladsy, soft-rock mature reflection on companionship and commitment.

It's 16 years since Britain's last Eurovision win with Katrina and the Waves in 1997 and 16 years before that that Cheryl Baker and Jay Ashton opened El Tell's eyes by having their skirts whipped off on stage at The Hague. Statistically speaking, this should be our year.

Bezzina battles the odds with a Noah-And-The-Whale-like ballad to the misunderstood tech-toiling geek masses. Bezzina's Tomorrow opens: “His name is Jeremy, he works in IT. Never questions why he has been an extra careful guy - sensitive and shy. Risk assessment is his investment in a life of no surprise, until she walked into his life.”

Jeremy meets, loses, keeps missing and finally bumps into the girl. It’s like 2001's Serendipity, but shorter. In the video, Jeremy – like Bezzina and Co - looks more like an H&M-wearing Silicon Roundabout hipster type than any actual sysadmins or programmers we know, but you get the point and we can dream. It’s very sweet and we’re all misunderstood-but-well-dressed Clark-Kent types.

Bezzina faces a formidable array beyond Tyler, below.

Among those battling to avoid nil points are:

  • Five kilt-wearing, accordion-wielding Greeks pounding on about Alcohol is Free – something we’re told is a reference to the Greek economic situation
  • A Katie Perry-inspired trashy bride routine from Finland that involves a lesbian kiss, and
  • A deep-throated Romanian Rupert Everett-lookalike called Cezar who’ll make your eyes pop, as much from incredulity at his quick-change Farinelli vocals as his glam-vamp opera dress. Yes, you read that right, dress:

    In this year’s line-up, too, we have the standard array of Euro cultural oddities in various forms of national dress. They'll be strumming, plucking and beating their way to a backing track of opera and electronica, along with Celine Dion-style divas bellowing into a bottomless depth of a wind machine like it’s past closing time in the lounge bar at the Gatwick Intercontinental.

    Eurovision 2013 will be on BBC 1 starting at 8pm on 17 May. Vote with your conscience. ®

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like