“It’s better to be busy / and not be busy / whatever I do,
say / I have an eye / an eye has an eye, but what do I have? / who is studying me again / I’m definitely doing something
very good / and they hurt”…

Saturday, November 26, and Nikos Koklonis, at the peak of his television fame, sings his latest hit on stage, preceded in 2020 by the Christmas “Gutsu-gutsu”, which has sufficiently prepared us both for his aesthetic imprint and for his vocal abilities . And while he theoretically trolls himself as a silent host who has the audacity (or guts, depending on one’s point of view) to sing in the vein of Annita Pania’s rising Parasagudas star, he’s probably inadvertently talking about a future that isn’t as far away as whatever he wanted to believe that night.

The commercial recipe includes some Dolphinarium, some Balkan Bollywood, some Coastal Track.

Nikos Koklonis appeared on the Greek reality show on March 14, 2020 as the new host of the British-born singing competition show “Just the 2 of us”. The show moved from Mega to Open, with a new, “updated” jury, as well as a new director, a very experienced and well-known television Kostas Kapetanidis. The concept of the show, as it came from the BBC, wants a professional singer to team up with a glamorous show business name, competing with a new song every week to stay in the game and reach the final. It goes without saying that the more unpredictable and “similar” the name of the “star” of show business, the more audience curiosity, laughter and, of course, the spectacle of the show. For example, we mention the appearance of Tryphon Samaras in the first season or, this year, the president of the Association of Greek Actors, Spyros Bibilou.

Despite the promising performance of the March 2020 premiere on Nielsen machines, filming is immediately halted due to the coronavirus. The show returns on May 2, with the easing of the first lockdown measures, and now Nikos Koklonis can unleash his exuberant temperament. Over several Saturdays, an unknown former businessman becomes “Nikos”, “Nikolakis” or, simply, “Koklonis”. Shiny, with revealing jackets, shaved chest, toned arms, spontaneity and, let’s say, sweet “naivety”, the new TV star is not something we have seen before in prime-time Greek television. He not only creates his own caricature of the lead-producer-entertainer, but also constantly plays with it: he makes fun of himself, includes “artistic” criticism in a long performance, becomes on stage in his youth what his “enemies charge Him with (yes, those who “look down on him”): kitsch, unarmored, frivolous, lumpen, calliardo.

Not only does Koklonis make no apologies for the surrounding vulgarity served up every Saturday in a TV blockbuster package (a bit of Delfinario, a bit of Balkan Bollywood, a little show from a nice beach track), but he doesn’t miss an opportunity to exaggerate every weakness, the first and best of his obvious underachievements in singing. Of course, he will take the microphone, he will be the loudest and most inept of his rivals, and this open violation of the mold is the mold by which Coclony’s personality is molded: a neighbor’s kid, a little awkward, but sweet, familiar to our entertainer in the midst of a pandemic. Always straightforward and often emotional, as if he has nothing to hide, directly or indirectly speaks even about his personal affairs. Never making a “statement” of his sexual preferences, they are hinted at at every opportunity, but mostly through a series of lively confessions to a willing juror or when he sings some love song without feeling compelled to change gender on some occasions. critical verses.

Koklonis breaks not only the template of the presenter, but also the template of the show itself. For this reason, the same concept on the BBC has a duration of three hours, and in Greece … six. How does it work? Embedding your own show into the show itself. Thus, at the end of the evening, the viewer saw two parallel shows: a couples competition and a personal show of the leading producer himself. As my friend very aptly pointed out, Coclony’s TV show is both a show and a sitcom because it combines elements of both genres. In the show, he has songs; in the series, we observe the constant transformation of the main character-host.

Indeed, could we see Nikos Koklonis as a descendant of Giorgos Marinos of a different style and climate of the era? Marinos was a very good singer and a unique performer, those who are just angry at the obscene comparison will support and will be right. Marinos was a real artist, and Koklonis was just a TV presenter. Obviously. However, there are some interesting similarities in their stage presence, in the completely innocent way in which they present themselves, so that an unseen, less stressed judge might bring them closer than their vocal talent separates them.