United Kingdom 2021 - Dominic Frisby - I'm Going To Marry Gary

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It looks like it's going to be a quiet old year here at Eurovision Apocalypse, what with so many of the acts already chosen, and what few national finals there are remaining being, for the most part, the more staid and fun free events. We suspect that we're going to be picking the few rare tasty morsels that do exist out of the straw at the bottom of the cowshed for the most part this term - which is why we got vaguely excited when this dropped into our mailbox last night.

It's long been the tradition for us to post the first competing song that we hear in a season - whatever it may sound like - just to kick things off. We'd even considered putting up Dami Im's dreary nearly-was effort - and we might still have to if things get sparse. But this chirpy little ditty made us seriously reconsider that tradition.

Taking just the song in itself, it's a whimsical little singalong tune, presented by a performer with an easy comic charm. The rhymes are just the right side of groan inducing, and the video is very nicely filmed and paced. However, the subject matter itself is where it become problematic.

Had this been performed by an act like Kunt & The Gang you'd know exactly where you'd stand with it (and if you've not heard of them before, tread carefully in your Googling!). But the middle-aged-blokes-down-the-pub mocking their mate for fancying a cross dresser really doesn't sit comfortably, and as innocent as their intentions may have been in order to chuck in a few lumpy puns, the way it's been received in the comments section only goes to underline these fears.

Clearly there's a few people in there trying to be deliberately ironic, but these sit uncomfortably alongside the cries of "Woke!" and "PC gone mad" in pre-empting its reception from the "lefties", which only goes to underline that however simple your intentions, as soon as you put something like this out into the public sphere, people are going to see it in the way that best suits their world view - however much that may happen to vary from your own.

But aside from all that, just sticking the words 'UK 2021 Eurovision Entry' in the title of your video is about as pointless as me mocking up a fake sticker and pretending I played for Zaire in the 1974 World Cup - that is unless the intention of this song was just to annoy or provoke the fanbase and trans community, which were that to be the case, would be even more puerile and mean-spirited than some of the jokes the video contained. 

***STOP PRESS***

Further examination into this artist's body of work suggests that this is very much his kind of thing. Oh well.