Olly Alexander is gearing up for one of many greatest weeks of his profession up to now because the UK’s 2024 Eurovision Tune Contest entrant – and he plans to make it “as homosexual as potential”.
On Tuesday night time (7 Might) Alexander will take his track, the Danny L Harle produced pop bop “Dizzy”, to the Eurovision stage in Malmö, Sweden, for the primary time throughout the first semi-final.
Followers have already had a style of what’s to return due to footage from the rehearsals, and his staging appears, for need of a greater time period, homosexual as hell. And that’s precisely what he hoped for.
Chatting with PinkNews and different media, Alexander describes why he wished the staging he has – which incorporates him performing in a dirty post-apocalyptic locker room, surrounded by shirtless males in skimpy boxing shorts.
“I feel in the event you’re going to take a track to Eurovision, the very last thing you must do is be secure. As an artist, I really like to impress a bit of bit, simply trigger a bit of bit of debate, intrigue,” he shares.
Olly Alexander has kind for upsetting depressing prudes watching the BBC: again in 2021, nearly 200 folks complained that he was being “too sexual” throughout his efficiency with Kylie Minogue and The Pet Store Boys throughout the BBC’s Large New Years & Years Eve Get together.
As he stated again then, and he maintains now, he won’t ever cease incorporating queerness into his performances.
“I stated proper to start with of this course of, I plan to be as homosexual as potential – and what’s gayer than a locker room?,” he laughs.
“I simply need primarily to entertain folks and to offer a very fab efficiency. After all, not everybody’s gonna find it irresistible. However I feel that’s an indication of a robust efficiency, actually.”
Anyway, this isn’t Alexander’s most daring efficiency look to-date, not by a protracted shot: he’s sporting a tatty white singlet, pink trousers, and boots.
“It’s not my most outlandish outfit I’ve ever worn, nevertheless it’s extra consistent with the story and the narrative, this form of post-apocalyptic locker room,” he explains.
“It’s distressed, perhaps I’ve been by way of a combat and I fought my approach to the Eurovision stage, able to slay with my boxing fitness center boys.”
Eurovision 2024 is already set to be one of many queerest within the contest’s historical past: alongside Alexander, there are two different non-binary artists in Eire’s Bambie Thug and Switzerland’s (front-runner) Nemo. Different acts together with Drag Race Belgium choose Mustii, Australia’s Electrical Fields, Lithuania’s Silvester Belt, and Denmark’s SABA additionally determine as LGBTQ+.
Being surrounded by queer power has been crucial for Alexander all through the method.
“Traditionally, Eurovision has been an excellent place for queer performers, clearly for queer audiences,” he says.
“This 12 months, I’ve actually made associates with plenty of contestants, however I’ve positively linked loads with Bambi, with Nemo, with Silvester. Simply having that neighborhood with one another has been actually vital. We’ve been capable of assist one another loads.”
Regardless of Eurovision being dubbed the homosexual Olympics, Alexander is aware of that queer artists nonetheless face judgment from viewers exterior of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood, whereas a number of the international locations taking part are much more illiberal of LGBTQ+ folks than others.
“We all know that, clearly, all of us as contestants once we’re within the highlight, we’re going to get judged harshly. For the queer performers, we’re going to get plenty of backlash and hate only for being queer and only for being type of on the market seen,” Alexander displays.
He and his fellow queer performers received’t be cowed by what any viewers need to say about them, although.
“There’s plenty of worth in being your genuine self, being out on a stage and being happy with who you might be… we’ve all had some actually good discussions about what it’s taken for us to return right here to carry out at Eurovision. Having one another, it’s been actually good.”
Whereas participating in Eurovision is what counts, the query of successful isn’t off the desk but both, regardless of what some betting odds are saying.
Alexander urges followers to not “depend [him] out but” however in the end, however he isn’t feeling the strain about bringing the Eurovision crown again dwelling to the UK.
“I’m simply not going to deal with the place I place within the last as a result of so long as I simply do a efficiency I’m happy with, do my finest, then that’s all that issues,” he says.
“After all I’d like to have an excellent outcome, however you simply by no means know what’s going to occur on the night time. So many issues are out of your management… so, no matter will likely be will likely be, and I’ve made my peace with that.”
Olly Alexander will carry out on the first Eurovision semi-final on 7 Might, after which once more on the Eurovision last on 11 Might.