Charlotte's Eurovision dream is over

Charlotte's Eurovision dream is over
Charlotte's Eurovision dream is over

Teenage singer Charlotte Finlay-Tribe has become the second person to be eliminated from BBC1's Eurovision show Your Country Needs You. The 17-year-old - the youngest singer in the final - escaped elimination on last Saturday's show after being saved by Andrew Lloyd Webber, but her luck ran out this week after she found herself in the bottom two for the second week's running. Lloyd Webber said he was in an "agonising position" after having to choose between the theatre school graduate and five-piece group Emperors Of Soul who were also in the bottom two. "The talent we've seen tonight has been completely and utterly first rate, and I mean that," he said. "On the one hand we've got the Emperors who are very experienced and we've got Charlotte who has got huge and infinite opportunity ahead of her." In the end however, he chose to save the Emperos, telling a tearful Charlotte, that he thought she would find Eurovision "very difficult". However he also made her an offer. "If you come back in a year's time I will see you again and I think you will have a serious career, I think you need to get all the experience you can get," he told her. Four acts - Emperors Of Soul, Mark, Jade and The Twins now remain in the competition, with the winning act going on to represent the UK at this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow in May. The winner will sing a song at the contest composed by Lloyd Webber with lyrics by legendary songwriter Diane Warren - who made a guest appearance on Saturday's show.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.