NORTH Yorkshire’s own Olly Alexander takes to the Eurovision stage tonight – hoping to go one better than Sam Ryder two years ago.

Olly, 33, who was born in Harrogate, will be representing the UK in Malmo with his song Dizzy – which features an upside-down dressing room staging and cameras rotating to create a spinning feel.

According to the BBC, the lead singer of pop band Years And Years been given only a ‘one per cent chance’ of winning.

"But that's fine, it's better than zero," Olly’s dad David Thornton, from Sheffield, told the corporation.

Mr Thornton said his son, who was born in Harrogate, wrote his first song when he was seven and developed the instinctive inflection in his voice from copying pop stars on TV in the early 2000s.

The Eurovision Grand Final will be broadcast live on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 8pm tonight.

Graham Norton will host the BBC’s TV coverage, while Scott Mills and Rylan Clark will lead commentary on BBC Radio 2.

Olly takes to the stage at the half-way point of the show – he’ll be the thirteenth of 26 entries to perform.

And he’ll be hoping there is no repeat of the wardrobe malfunction which left him ‘confused and stressed’ at the first semi-final on Tuesday.

It was the first time the UK, which was already through to the finals as one of the competition’s ‘Big Five’ nations, had performed during the early stages.

When asked about being on live TV, Olly told Radio 2’s Scott Mills programme on Tuesday: “I did have a slight wardrobe malfunction in that my mic pack fell off in the second chorus, so I was confused and stressed by that.”

He described his staging as an “interstellar locker room, hurtling through space via the 1980s, in a boxing gym”.

More pro-Palestinian protests are expected in Sweden today on the day of the final.

It comes after Israeli entrant Eden Golan, 20, whose emotional song Hurricane was reworked from a previous track called October Rain, which was thought to reference the Hamas attacks on Israel, triumphed in the semi-final on Thursday evening in Malmo Arena.

Olly has previously said he ‘respects’ fans’ decision to boycott the song contest due to Israel’s inclusion if they feel they want to.

But the Years and Years star has also said he feels some of the language used against contestants has been ‘very extreme’.

Earlier this year he rejected calls for him to withdraw from the contest.

But in BBC documentary Olly Alexander’s Road To Eurovision ’24, which follows the singer as he prepares for the show, he opened up about making the ‘very hard decision’ to continue with the competition.

The 33-year-old explained: “A lot of the contestants and myself have been having a lot of comments that are like ‘You are complicit in a genocide by taking part in Eurovision’ which is quite extreme. It’s very extreme.

“I understand where that sentiment is coming from but I think it’s not correct.

“It’s an incredibly complicated political situation, one that I’m not qualified to speak on.

“The backdrop to this is actual immense suffering. It’s a humanitarian crisis, a war.

“It just so happens there’s a song contest going on at the same time that I’m a part of.”

  • The Press association is reporting that Dutch act Joost Klein will not compete in the Eurovision Song Contest grand final tonight while Swedish police investigate a complaint of inappropriate behaviour.