Eurovision - All Kinds of Everything

Devised and performed by students at Liverpool Community College
Directed by Eddie Chinn
Liverpool Community College G2 Theatre
Wednesday 16th to Thursday 17th May 2012

Reviewed by Jeremy Hawthorn

This play is based on one awful truth. All over Europe, on a Saturday in May, people hold wild parties. And watch the Eurovision Song Contest.

We all know the Eurovision and its innumerable statistics. Only Liechtenstein and the Vatican have never entered. The Irish have won it so often that they now deliberately lose, Norway have scored 'nul points' more times than anyone else and so on. So it's easy to get into this well-researched play, devised and performed by students at the Community College. Is the title familiar? It was the winning song in 1970.

This party's at Lymm, near Warrington (cue audience laughter). Kevin (Brandon Cross) and the bourgeois Christina (Beth Munro) have a long guest-list and the food has to be just right. They invite ‘celebrities’ Cindy (Jackie Byrne) and Bert (Bradley Walker) who scored just three points for Germany (with a song no one can remember) when Abba won it in 1974. None of this impresses neighbour Mark (Jamie Vere) who tries to stop his wife Janette (Jodie Morton) from going.

The guests are, well, all kinds of everything. Dan (Josh Quigley) pretends to his partner Trish (Lola Blease) that he is on a night out because he's ashamed to admit to being a eurovision fan. Sam (Jessica Loren-Price) and Grace (Emily Alacan) are a lesbian couple with very different ideas about having a baby between them. Kolin (Nathan Tunstall) and Erik (Robert Schofield) are two loud and laddish lads. Star of the entire show is Peter the trannie (Lewis Bray) who brings along Lily (Sophie Taylor) and plays Agony Aunt to everyone else.

As the evening unfolds the strains in these various relationships are explored. Short sketches are held together by some generalisations from a Narrator (Paul Holliday) and some manic songs (mimed) from previous Eurovisions.

Jeanette and Mark have come to the party after all and Mark is superficially polite to all but his wife. But the tension simmers and finally he takes it out on Peter. The audience who have whooped and cackled through this performance suddenly gasp in horror as Mark calls Peter a queer and rips off her wig before storming out.

Peter is taken off for a drink by Kolin and Lily who have got lucky. They're the night's winners. The rest have got some thinking to do.

You may or may not want to watch the real Eurovision after this. But let's give 'douze points' to these performers.

Printer friendly page

Sorry Comments Closed

Comment left by Dennis Rice on 30th August, 2012 at 11:40
Nerve Magazine more and more since its conception, continues to capture the more opaque cultural events across Merseyside. And long may that continue.Trawling through the whole back archive of cultural events etc, I came across this review for a play at a local college.I would have thought it would have been more fitting for the college website/ blog, as there are many of these types of productions going on across Merseyside at any given time. Whilst Radical cutting edge theatre needs encouragement,there could be a danger for Nerve, that people begin submitting reviews of relatives, family, etc who are appearing in local Christmas nativity plays.