Just over a year ago, I wrote a piece about the BBC’s attitude towards ESC and the logic behind Bonnie Tyler’s participation. It began with the line “It’s frustrating being a British fan of the Eurovision Song Contest” – and I could have started this line-up check with exactly the same words following Bonnie’s poor showing on the scoreboard in Malmö. The trick of reheating older stars and sending them off to battle in Europe’s premier music competition failed once again, with the veteran Welsh songstress unable to change the United Kingdom’s fortunes. A country that can boast five wins and 15 second places in an illustrious ESC history has still only finished in the top ten twice since the turn of the millennium.

Where next for the BBC, then? Another internal selection, yes (we haven’t forgotten the horrors of Scooch and Andy Abraham just yet), but with a very different approach. This time, existing internal resources – namely, the BBC Introducing initiative for undiscovered and unsigned artists – were tapped to find a younger, fresher representative. The result is Molly Smitten-Downes, or just Molly as she’ll appear on the ESC stage, a 27-year-old singer-songwriter from Leicestershire who’s been dotting around the edges of the music business for several years, doing guest vocals here and there without ever quite making the big breakthrough.

It’s a daring move to choose a complete unknown in an internal selection, not least one who’s also responsible for the song, but it’s one that seems to have paid off: the response to Molly’s song among fans and at the bookmakers has been broadly positive, with the United Kingdom ranked among what might be called the extended circle of favourites to take the ESC title this year. Whatever else one can say, between its revised approach to selecting an entry and the dedicated Eurovision “radio station” that it will be running during ESC week, this does all suggest that the BBC is taking things a bit more seriously this year.

Now, cynics will point out that a quirky girl with a double-barreled surname is a trick that’s been used at Eurovision quite recently, and similarly Children Of The Universe is no attempt to reinvent the musical wheel; indeed, its choral cries of “power to the people” and the overall feel of the song wouldn’t have been out of the place in Frances Ruffelle’s national final 20 years ago. However, the 2014 version is accompanied by a studio production that is closer to Florence and the Machine than, well, Engelbert Humperdinck – and the composition is a bit more difficult structurally than the average Eurovision crowd-pleaser, which is good in terms of credibility if not necessarily when it comes to gathering votes.

So what’s my verdict? See, this is the thing. I’m no flag-waving fanboy, but I do fundamentally want my home country to be represented by a good song and a contemporary singer, so perhaps I tend to overrate the UK entry. Indeed, maybe that’s a fault everyone is guilty of – I liked a comment on the prinz.de blog to the extent that “in the ESC universe, a step forward is sometimes (over)interpreted as a quantum leap”. That’s very true, and just because the BBC have sent something competent this year after something fairly hopeless last year doesn’t mean they’re suddenly going to run away with the contest. Then again, people probably said the same thing about the successor to a certain Alex Swings, Oscar Sings…

In any case, I think the UK could be on to something here. The song’s stop-start structure could be problematic, but it does possess two strong melodic hooks and an engaging performer. Creating the right atmosphere is crucial with this kind of entry, but give it a second-half starting position and get the staging right – not a small ask! – and you just never know. In any case, I’m giving it a cautious green light for the top ten, though it still wouldn’t surprise me if it ended up at the wrong end of the scoreboard. But who cares? It’s just nice to have a “home entry” that I can genuinely get behind. And for that reason, if nothing else, I’m very much #TeamMolly!

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