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MALTA – Serving – Miriana Conte
Let me take you back in time, dear reader, to the heady days of the early 1980s. Lady Di has just become become a princess (which went well), Ken Barlow recently married Deirdre Langton (which also went well – ask your Mum. No, ask your Gran), and beloved anarcho-comedian Kenny Everett was about to bring his brand of chaos to prim, primetime Auntie BBC. We’ll meet wholesome characters like Gizzard Puke, General Cheeseburger, and (there IS a point coming here eventually) B-Movie actress Cupid Stunt.
Cupid. Stunt. On the BBC. In 1981. Do you see what he’s done there? Swop a few letters round and she’s called Supid Ctunt. And it was all done in the best POSSIBLE taste. And the reason why he got away with it? Because he DIDN’T SAY what everybody knew he wasn’t saying. Well, nearly everybody. I was still relatively innocent in those days and unfamiliar with the mischievous ways of Doctor Spooner.
That’s all it is. That’s ALL it is. You hint, you suggest, you can even absolutely telegraph the naughty thing that you’re not saying, but crucially important is that you DON’T. ACTUALLY. SAY. IT.
IT IS NOT DIFFICULT. I mean, even this whole Nick “does” 2025 arc is pointedly leaving the reader to work out exactly what Nick is “doing” to 2025 – though by this stage you really do have to suspect that 2025 is never going to be the same afterwards. It’s – as I said – not difficult.
Well, no, apparently it’s difficult. Team Malta have been all over the shop on this one ever since January. “Oh no my dear loves, our song is a very lovely and innocent one about ‘serving singing’ with one word in English and one in Maltese, because that’s absolutely a very normal thing that we’ve always done in Malta, and how very disgraceful of you for thinking any different?”.
Tsh and pshaw! Away from the controversy, musically and lyrically it’s actually a reasonably strong effort – albeit retreading spectacularly well-trodden themes of strength, empowerment and that’s about it really – but they’ve so badly misjudged the central conceit that they’ve scuttled their own ship in the process. Some televoters might go for it, but by god if it gets to the Saturday show the juries are going to nuke it from orbit.
(Disclaimer – when I wrote all that it was still called Kant, and in theory they’ve largely taken my advice since, but frankly the whole pantomime has irritated me so much that I’m not rethinking my score)
Nick’s score: 2