The Icelandic national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest took place on Saturday and viewers mostly agree that the show was outstanding. However things took a bit of an unexpected turn when the host of the evening asked one of the guests to show his “Eurovision inspired” drawings.
Host Ragnhildur Steinunn Jónsdóttir was interviewing cartoonist, writer and comedian Hugleikur Dagsson when the incident came up (“fast forward” to 1:52:02).
“Too good. Too much of an honor! I love you Hugleikur Dagsson!”
Hugleikur, who is known for his ironic drawings, has published three books with art work inspired by Icelandic “Eurovision-songs”, and Ragnhildur asked him to show some of his work to the audience.
Among the drawings that viewers go to see were Hugleikur’s interpretation of The Bank of Joy (Gleðibankinn), Iceland’s first contribution to Eurovision in 1986. He also revealed a drawing inspired by Is it true? that ended up in second place in The Eurovision Song Contest in 2009.
But when Hugleikur was about to show his interpretation of the song My Last Dance (Minn hinnsti dans) from 1997, Ragnhildur stopped him in his tracks. Judging by the expression on her face it seems that Ragnhildur simply thought that the drawing might be too much for the audience.
However, Hugleikur has now granted GayIceland permission to publish the “My Last Dance” inspired drawing that the public in Iceland never got to see on Saturday night. As it turns out the drawing shows a blindfolded man, dancing with a cigarette in his mouth, with four men pointing a gun at him, execution style.
Many people remember Páll Óskar’s routine in The Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, where he performed My Last Dance in black leather pants, backed by four latex-clad girls “provocatively frolicking” on a white leather sofa.
The act – which is by many considered a Eurovison classic – raised a lot of controversy at the time, much like Hugleikur’s illustration, with BBC’s commentator Terry Wogan saying that Eurovision would never be the same again and he hoped Páll Óskars’s mother wasn’t watching!
It should therefor come as no surprise that Páll Óskar loves Hugleikur’s drawing.
“Too good. Too much of an honor! I love you Hugleikur Dagsson,” the pop singer wrote on his official Facebook page, after the contest on Saturday.
Main photo: A still from the contest, capturing moment when host Ragnhildur Steinunn stops Hugleikur from showing his drawing on national television.