Remember Monday are everything wrong with the UK at Eurovision ...Middle East

It was all going so well. Ten points from Ukraine and the Czech Republic, and that coveted douze points from Italy. And then the public vote, which any hardened Eurovision fan knows can change everything: nul points for the UK.

Graham Norton thought it was harsh. Perhaps you did too. It certainly felt like there were plenty of other injustices among the ever-unpredictable public voting: Denmark’s entry Hallucination was actually good, not just Eurovision good, and only got two points.

Malta, the internet favourite with the cheeky Serving (the next word, “kant”, was written out of the song, but we all knew it was there), only managed eight. On a more serious note, Israel’s mediocre song scored a whopping 297 public points, while protesters raged outside the stadium in Basel and their government continues to decimate Gaza.

And the three girls from Hampshire sure did nail those harmonies. It was more fun, more original, than the past two disastrous years since our lord and saviour Sam Ryder came second in 2022.

But throughout the show tonight, which was full of over-the-top apocalyptic pyrotechnics and outlandish innuendos, it seemed abundantly clear that country pop girlband Remember Monday could never triumph (we came 19th out of 26th).

They represent everything that’s wrong with the UK at Eurovision. Austria’s winning entry, Wasted Love by the extraordinary vocalist JJ, was daring, experimental and unashamedly strange. The UK, meanwhile, is beset with foolish overoptimism, internalised musical snobbery and an inability to fully let go.

This year’s competition was, as ever, a mixed bag. There was the bizarre but hilarious Italian parody from Estonia, an understated folk-inspired performance from Ukraine, Icelandic fisherman in silver dungarees, Latvian wood-nymphs clad in latex, a sauna dance from Sweden, a seemingly Dune-inspired ballad from France and, of course, the tour-de-force that was the sexual, stadium-filling Ich Komme from Finland. The sheer excessiveness of all of this, in both its scale and scope, is what Eurovision is all about.

But while the UK entry undoubtedly added to the variety, it also felt like an aberration. Remember Monday have brilliant voices; they harmonise beautifully; they are young and fun and don’t take themselves as seriously as some of the acts (I’m looking at you, Albania).

But their song What the Hell Just Happened? just wasn’t quite right. It was attention grabbing while at the same time trying to play it cool. It was relentlessly cheerful, yet somehow overly sentimental at the same time. It was supposed to be irreverent and winking but came across uptight. It was shiny and smiley but sexless and soulless. Yes, it could have been much worse, but it just wasn’t Eurovision.The UK’s music industry is virtually unrivalled in the world, save for that of the US. This, of course, is why we continue to handwring and worry about where we fit into the contest to which we also refuse to give due cultural credence.

It simply feels counterintuitive to lose at something we know ourselves to be good at. We’ve got David Bowie! We’ve got the Beatles! We’ve got Adele! How could we possibly not be better than songs us sensible English-speakers reserve for the novelty of apres-ski?

And this is precisely the problem. We are embarrassed to be there, not least because of the failures that have come before, but also cannot quite accept that maybe, in that case, it’s just not for us.

Instead, our recent entries have tried to prove, off the back of Ryder’s success, that no really, we can do it, by indulging in irony (Mae Muller, 2023), producing something too on the nose (Olly Alexander, 2024) or, this year, trying to do “quirky”.

But Ryder managed to break the cycle by performing a song that was entirely heartfelt, not at all overthought, and certainly not obviously written to win.

Post-Brexit, the UK has had a chance to refresh its Eurovision reputation. No longer umbilically connected to Europe, it could have evolved from a slightly useless musical appendage to the other big five countries (Spain, France, Germany and Italy) to one of those lesser known, unpredictable countries who might rack up some points with a runaway hit.

Unfortunately the UK is weighed down by its self awareness, its own musical past, and its relentlessly stiff upper lip. But then again, we are also a uniquely self-deprecating country. So perhaps there’s something down here in 19th place that works for everyone.

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