TV: The lurid, loud contest that turns me into a Europhobe

Eurovision is a gallimaufry of ever-more lurid digital special effects, crazy acts and songs that range from incoherent chicken-clucking to faux heavy-metal to winsome little ballads that seem lost in a mad world of national flag-waving and constipated patter

Ryan O’Shaughnessy, Ireland’s entrant to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, on RTÉ and BBC Four

Reviewed This Week

Eurovision Song Contest RTÉ Two, BBC Four

Nature Live RTÉ One

Genderquake Channel 4

The Great House Revival RTÉ One

In writing about Eurovision, it’s difficult not to seem at times like a Europhobic Brit, backed into the red, white and blue corner together with the hyphenated, high-falutin’ likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and much of England’s underclass, who are likely to slip further down the disadvantaged slope after a full-blown ...