It’s not often that a non-winning ESC entrant takes up column space in the UK tabloids. But a rather unusual performance from Mando (Greece 2003) has been causing a stir for all the wrong reasons lately.

Mando has been appearing as a contestant on the popular Greek TV show Your Face Sounds Familiar, a musical impersonation competition amongst celebrities, which will be known in its various international guises to many European viewers. Some weeks ago, Mando appeared as Stevie Wonder, complete with face make-up, dreadlocks, and even requiring a guiding hand to assist her into position on stage.

It was a performance that won the hearts of Greeks, who voted her top of the crop that week – but, weeks later, the waves of the Internet have landed her performance at the doorstep of British tabloid The Daily Mail, and the paper, in full-on reactionary style, is not happy.

PC stupidity

“Is this the most tasteless talent show performance ever?” The Daily Mail asks in its headline. The article reports a “bemused” Twitter backlash, quoting one user calling it “the least acceptable thing ever”. However, the newspaper’s online readers express a mixture of reactions in their comments, with many supporting Mando and condemning “PC stupidity” and asking the authors to “lighten up“.

The original article dubs Mando’s Stevie Wonder take ‘bizarre‘, but many readers may be applying the same judgement to a UK newspaper trawling up a weeks-old overseas story and presenting it as news. Read the original article and its comments here to judge for yourself!