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Olly Alexander review – part night creature, part light entertainer
The singer and actor hints at an outre new synth-heavy sound, drawn largely from latest album Polari. He stops short, though, of scaring his daytime TV fans
The red tights and codpiece from the singer’s Eurovision outfit are paraded around with a kind of wistful fondness The gravelly tones of Ian McKellen provide a few booming Polari phrases during the show’s opening sequence; the great man himself occupies a box up to the right. Photograph: Andy Hall/the ObserverGamely, Alexander keeps Dizzy, his Eurovision song, in the set, but performs it at the piano, accompanied by two backing vocalists whose dulcet tones and dance moves flesh out the night’s bare bones set-up (a drummer and a multi-instrumentalist are housed behind a strip of feathery pampas grass). Harle’s fondness for hi-NRG and Eurodance tropes were a good match for Alexander and his desire to pay tribute to the gay club sounds of the past (and fully author his own work – no band members, no external writers, just two people in a room).
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