Bulgaria

Illusion Krassimir Avramov

"It feels so wrong..."

Some countries seem incapable of choosing a song or singer for Eurovision without becoming embroiled in a national scandal, but none is quite as consistent at it as Bulgaria. Still a relative newcomer to the contest, none of its entries to date has managed to be selected without generating melodrama or controversy. What is particularly impressive about this year's backbiting, however, is that the Bulgarian broadcaster is almost single-handedly responsible for it. Whereas a delegation would normally deflect or defend criticism of its artist or entry, BNT was the first to level it at overwhelming public favourite Krassimir Avramov and the touché-worthy Illusion. Never before has a broadcaster been so vocal in its lack of support for and belief in its chosen performer.

And fair dos to them: rarely has there been so much scope for so many things to go even more spectacularly wrong than they already have. It's not pulling any punches to say that the term 'car crash television' seems to have been coined for Illusion; you haven't even donned your boxing gloves and slipped into your silky shorts. I'm not sure whether it's a case of delusions of grandeur where Krassimir's concerned. I'm not sure Bulgarian TV's sure either, but it's clear from even a cursory listening to the studio version that the whole falsetto thing just doesn't work. It certainly doesn't help that Mr Avramov, all bone structure and designer stubble, lays on the drama in a manner scarily reminiscent of Norway's Haldor Lægreid. His overall, overreaching approach clearly rang the alarm bells with the powers that be at BNT, and I can't see it doing anything else with the unsuspecting viewers of Europe.

Which is a shame really, since the camouflage job the broadcaster necessarily instigated has muddied what was - bar the lead vocals - a fairly decent slice of upbeat Eastern-tinged trash. The backing vocals, the ironic highlight of the original version, have been simultaneously promoted and suppressed (with Ani Lozanova, Albena Veskova and Petia Buyuklieva individually or together giving us their best Anabel Conde in La Mirada Interior breakdown), leaving little left to admire about the song than the occasional aspect of its composition. Of course, three minutes of programmed bass and synths is never going to support a performance as fundamentally undermined from the outset as Illusion's. I hope the threatened guys on stilts are insured.

I can't imagine what it must be like to be in Krassimir Avramov's shoes at this point: going into a competition without the backing of the very people who gave him the opportunity to do so, and whose attitude towards the situation seems to centre on salvaging what they can from it rather than making the most of it. We've seen before, with David D'Or in 2004, how quickly a performance like this can deteriorate, and that was without the overt pressure of a broadcaster instructing you to bring as little shame upon your nation as possible. In a way I'd love for Krassimir to prove them wrong by at least qualifying, but I'd say that scenario's as illusory as everything else about the entry.