Edinburgh Fringe 2026

Carys Should be the UK’s Next Eurovision Entry

Carys Jeffrey Evans

Genre: Theatre

Venue: theSpace@Surgeons Hall

Festival: Edinburgh Fringe

Low Down

Review

Bangaranga is Jamaican patois meaning uproar, commotion, noise, or a state of joyful chaos. It gained a broader audience when Bulgarian singer DARA (yep, she’s an all capital letter girl) paraded it at this year’s Eurovision.  And won.  Come on, come on, stay with it.  Eurovision – the annual song competition where everyone goes for a laugh and most of the performers accept that they’re going to be laughed at.  And that they’ll probably garner next to nul points, which these days doesn’t even guarantee them notoriety, given that over 40 entries have now scored sod all in the 70 year history of this parade of musical mediocrity.

You can probably tell that Eurovision is not high on my list of “must watch” events, given the artificiality that predominates these days – more cheese than in a cheese shop.  Give me the days of Sandy Shaw, Cliff Richard, ABBA or even good old Bucks Fizz.

So I’m in awe that there’s someone out there prepared to spend an enormous amount of her spare time building a carefully researched and targeted marketing campaign designed to propel her to the front of the orderly queue that’s bound to form somewhere in the bowels of the BBC for the UK’s 2027 selection process.

But the really odd thing is that there is no UK audition process – so BBC, darlings – with that venerable institution relying on an opaque ritual involving music industry experts, record labels, publishers, and platforms like its own BBC Introducing to choose both the artist and the song.  Choosing the next Pope looks transparent compared to this.

All this is meticulously explained by Carys Jeffrey Evans in her whimsical and entirely believable forty-five minute pitch that she should be the UK’s 2027 entry.  And, surprise, surprise, Carys Should be the UK’s Next Eurovision Entry does exactly what it says on the tin.

The lights go down, the music plays and the wannabe next UK entrant bounces onto the stage, delivering a cover of the aforementioned winning DARA entry, with surtitles for the hard of thinking and a wonderfully ironic voice over describing the bleeding obvious in a style made famous by the late Terry Wogan.  This is followed by a gentle wander through the history of the competition, the key elements of what she believes will be the backbone of her winning entry and how she will then deliver said song to the millions that (allegedly) make the mistake of tuning in when she finally realizes her dream and steps out onto that glittering Eurovision stage.  Nothing like a bit of misplaced optimism.

It’s a nicely conceived and delivered treatise on what’s essentially a Marmite-like event, aided and abetted by set of a Powerpoint slides that left nothing to chance.  Jeffrey Evan’s does a nice line in self-deprecation and has dived deep into the history of this annual sing-a-long, educating (this reviewer at least) at the same time as she entertains.

And she’s going for it.  Make no mistake – this Fringe run is a pivotal part of her carefully designed campaign to come out as top of the pops.  She might be in the early stages – no song, no band, no idea of how to get there and she needs to work a wee bit on her vocals – but, hey,  her exit petition is now running to many pages and I’m sure there’s a lot of online signature searching going on as well.

Her engaged and appreciative audience certainly appreciated her chutzpah and, given the quality of recent UK entries, Jeffrey Evans got my vote.

If you’re looking for something non-taxing but entertaining and informative, this is a good mid-afternoon show to go for.  If all things Eurovision has you reaching for the sick bucket, probably best to give it a body swerve.

Published August 17, 2026 by Tim Wilcock