WORTH A LOOK?: *****
OUT: 27/2/21
Dotter, real name Johanna Maria Jansson, has written 2 of the most impressive singles of the last 12 months bringing to mind Florence and the Machine with Bulletproof and now Robyn.
WHEN?: Thursday 4 March 2021
It’s the afternoon before Lucy Spraggan finds out whether her new album will fulfil its midweek chart position of number 5 and she’s understandably nervous.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE?: Curve Leicester RUNTIME: 150 minutes (10-minute interval)
WHEN?: 2/3/21 runs to 7/3/21 available digitally
Update: now extended to 16/3/21
You won’t find a review of this musical on this site until now but 1 of Team monstagigz did see Cynthia Erivo’s Tony Award-winning role as Celie on Broadway in a production that had originated at south London’s Menier Chocolate Factory.
WHEN?: Saturday 13 March 2021
WHERE?: Annexet, Stockholm
HOW TO WATCH?: SVTPlay
We’ve enjoyed this Melodifestivalen more than we have for many years which may in part be due to the extra time lockdown has afforded us to obsess about it.
WORTH A LOOK?: ***
WHERE?: Cadogan Hall, central London
RUNTIME: 135 minutes (including a 10-minute interval)
WHEN?: 28/2/21
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 book by F.Scott Fitzgerald about the insubstantiality of the American Dream that has been made into a film four times starring most recently both Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio in the titular role.
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
OUT: now
Team monstagigz is celebrating a birthday today and so it seems fitting that our newly-crowned song of the week is by this 2021 Melodifestivalen finalist who was also crucially the last Eurovision winner of the 20th Century.
WHERE?: Annexet, Stockholm
WHEN?: Saturday 6 March 2021
WHERE DO I WATCH?: SVTPlay
One of the genius ideas that makes Melodifestivalen the greatest show on earth is that the quality of the songs is so good that eight of those which narrowly missed out on the finalen deserve a second shot at four places in that final.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
OUT: 27 February 2021
Heat 4 of Melodifestivalen didn’t disappoint in the quality of its songs but we would have loved for our favourite – the debut solo single by a third of Alcazar – to have done better than 5th.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
OUT: 26/2/21
TRACKLIST: Flowers; Roots; Sober; Run To The Hills; Heartbreak Suites; If I Had A God; I Spent A Night In The Desert; You’ve Let Yourself Down; Animal; Wild; Run; Choices (Don’t Be Afraid); Why Don’t We Start From Here?
If you’re familiar with singer/songwriter Spraggan it may well be thanks to her song Tea And Toast which was a top 20 hit before she’d even appeared on TV’s The X Factor live finals in 2012.
2020 was the Eurovision-that-never-was and Freyr’s Think About Things was judged by many to be the song most likely to have won if Covid-19 hadn’t caused its cancellation. Like many other competitors Freyr has been selected to compete in 2021 and his song 10 Years drops 13/3/21. Freyr’s last single Feel The Love was a song of the month for us in January.
