Slovenia: can ManuElla mix her blue and red together as clunkily as she’s spelled her name? I know that’s the first thing on your minds this morning, dear reader. It turns out it was easier than she thought, she just had to ask the lighting engineer for some purple. All that fretting for nothing. Out she comes, starting in a spot light and silhouette, in a simple, long white dress, slashed at the bust and laced together holding her ample charms within. Let’s hope there’s not a quick tug costume change for this one, if they pull the wrong string she’ll be cascading out.
There’s no costume change, but towards the end there’s a topless man with a big pole trolling his way onto the stage behind her. What is he going to do with it? Some wonky pole dancing as it happens: it’s plonked down and creates a 45° spinning pole and he’s up there writhing around it as ManuElla carries on like she’s not even noticed him.
There’s a backdrop of closes ups of eyes, and we’re cheekily wondering whether they’re cropped from a picture of Taylor Swift. The comparison is clear, and might win or lose ManuElla votes depending on how much you like her. However many she does win I don’t think it’s going to be sufficient to see her still mixing her palette on the Saturday.
Edit: Ooh, ooh! In the last run through we have some pyro fountains around the perimeter of the stage. They haven’t thought the gymnast through though and he realises that if he does his moves he’ll be spinning right into the sparks and singeing his nipples. He looks a bit sheepish. Off to the viewing room for plan B…
Monty x