Eurovision Week on Dancing with the Stars (RTÉ One, Sunday, 6.30pm) has a dark and stormy end for Joanna Donnelly as the meteorologist becomes the season’s first celeb to be eliminated via a dance-off. Her jive to Abba’s Waterloo meets a sticky fate, with the judges choosing instead to save the former Miss Universe Ireland Aishah Akorede.
Donnelly is disappointed to lose to Akorede but hardly surprised – she has been a straggler throughout the series and will have been pleased to reach the halfway mark in the competition. “I’ve had the time of my life learning to dance ... making those memories,” she says. The contest has been “hard work”, she continues, but what fun it’s been learning the ropes with her pro partner, Maciej Zięba.
Eurovision is all about over-the-top energy and absurd costumes – and that’s the mood conjured throughout a gripping episode that’s brimming with zany fashion and manic moves. The Olympic gold medal gymnast Rhys McClenaghan tops the leader board with his pro partner, Laura Nolan, courtesy of an exemplary quickstep soundtrack in Alexander Rybak’s Fairytale.
But for all their poise and grace, their thunder is stolen by another Olympian, the taekwondo champion Jack Woolley, who, together with Alex Vladimirov, brings a steam-rolling Eurovision spirit via a paso doble to Cha Cha Cha by Käärijä.
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Woolley goes for it, replicating Käärijä‘s lime-green “Hulk smash” armbands and beaming as if he’s performing in front of millions of Eurovision fans rather than serving up end-of-weekend RTÉ fodder.
“The song was called Cha Cha Cha ... You were dancing a paso doble,” notes a confused Karen Byrne, though she loves it – as does her fellow judge Loraine Barry, who deems Woolley’s legwork “fabulous”.
In a way it’s a wasted effort, because Woolley is immune from elimination, having received the highest score seven days previously. Still, he’s not concerned about winning or losing: it’s all about celebrating Eurovision. “I knew I was never going to win Eurovision ... Here I am dancing.”
Eurovision royalty past and present is in the house. Emmy, who will represent Ireland in Basle in May, pops along to declare the phone lines open. Meanwhile, the comedian Gearóid Farrelly dances to Niamh Kavanagh’s 1993 winner, In Your Eyes – and is cheered by the singer. Farrelly is thrilled she has come along to support him, but he still gets in a gag about her unsuccessful return to Eurovision, 15 years ago. “If I lose to Niamh’s song it will be the worst thing that happened since she lost in 2010,” he says.
After an evening of high-NRG camp, Dancing with the Stars takes a turn for the slushy next week, with a Valentine’s Day episode. Joanna Donnelly won’t be around for it – but, far from having her heart broken, she seems delighted to have made it so far. She may have met her Waterloo, but the meteorologist exits the contest determined to look on the sunny side. Good on her for that.
