Croatia is all the kinds of ridiculousness you’ve heard it is, singing a duet with himself in two different voices. It’s hilarious, none of which is intentional. There are guffaws from the press room when he swings round to deliver a vocal switch from one side of his face to the other. We joked as to whether this might be a staging mechanism, along with a dual-aspect costume, but he’s only bloody actually doing it! Right down his jacket, which is one part dinner, one part black leather biker. I kid you not.
The cheese factor is high from the off: the spoken introduction is at least a two-days over ripe Roquefort, but by the time the backing singers (the rather dishy backing singers, actually, we met them at the Montenegrin party) join him for a climactic tableau the cheese dials are over on your double Stinking Bishop.
The backdrop reminds me of the yellow brick road to the Emerald City and we head over the rainbow for the final shots, with a double rainbow effect as the physical frame of the stage is also rainbow-lit. In fact, some wag on Twitter photoshopped the original characters in. You don’t want to miss this next Thursday night: it might be the only chance you get.
Monty x