Maps by Lesley Roy
Despite only using the term maps as a metaphor for inner soul searching, Lesley Roy’s been packed off to a windy hillside with some soda bread, a bag of Tayto and a copy of the Ordnance Survey for County Wicklow and told to find her way back to the Late Late Show studios by half past nine.
She’s got quite a jolly song to keep her company, probably a stronger one than last year, and many people seem to enjoy this. Just as I’d need a map to find my way around Ireland, I need a lyric sheet here to decipher what she’s saying. Nice as it sounds, it’s impenetrable without the words written out, and with muddy diction and the tendency for a rather static performance style I have to wonder whether Lesley has the performance elements to pull this off live. She doesn’t need to be handed a ton of choreography to think about, but this could benefit from some stylised camera cuts rather than leaving it to a more traditional live band setting.
I’ve heard the “this is the way back home” line described as evoking the Celtic spirit and you feel she could benefit from the support of the wide Irish diaspora ringing in their votes. If I were Irish, this is certainly an entry I could feel proud of. Whether it is an entry that will qualify remains to be seen. I feel it could too easily go either way.
My marks: 7 points
Will it qualify? Maybe