It’s a long way from Baku to Helsinki, it’s even further if you throw in random stormtroopers, waving cats and a fancy frock. But the guv’nor went above and beyond to bring you a flavour of Eurovision 2018 today. Enjoy these edited highlights.
Previous reviews: Day one | Day two | Day three | Day Four
Azerbaijan
It looks professional, and now has on-screen graphics. It’s still choreographed until it begs for more, although now the lighting cues are in it looks less messy.
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Iceland
The performance is very static and isn’t helped at all by the Israeli-esque coming together at the end.
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Albania
On Monday, Eugent was in third gear and was clearly going through the motions. This time round he’s moved it up one.
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Belgium
Sennek has upped her game since her first rehearsal but, quite frankly, that wouldn’t take much.
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Czech Republic
The question rather than is this qualifying? is – for me – is Mikolas strong enough mentally and physically to overcome this and give this the performance it deserves?
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Lithuania
It looks and sounds – as they say – on point, and is beautifully staged. Ieva does a cracking job of underselling this song by building to when she walks over a rainbow bridge to her husband (her actual husband, mind) … and you feel that you totally believe her and buy into the concept of someone passing over and gathering memories along the way.
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Israel
The Israeli team has literally polished a turd. This really was substandard on Monday, and served to confirm all my conscious bias towards ‘Toy’. The delegation has gone away and talked.
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And if you’re a fan of mash-ups …
Belarus
Someone, somewhere, must have had a dissenting voice. Surely somebody said: “What will Europe think if we present this?” No?
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Estonia
The televoters of Europe are going to look at this in the context of everything that went before (and will come after) and think ‘erm, no’.
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Bulgaria
It’s all shot darkly and looks very negative – and a little bit weird, with too many effects for its own good.
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Macedonia
I believe we told the delegation on Tuesday that the dress that revealed a bit too much was somewhat revealing … and we were assured that Marija had seen the rehearsal footage, realised it was indeed unflattering, and that she would get this sorted.
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Croatia
I believe we told the delegation on Tuesday that the dress that revealed a bit too much was somewhat revealing … and we were assured that Marija had seen the rehearsal footage, realised it was indeed unflattering, and that she would get this sorted.
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Austria
He’s still being very Kanye West-a-like on the stage, and there is a moment where the camera pans back to reveal him on the background, so he can unhook himself from his contraption.
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Greece
There are some rehearsals that make you question why you bothered to turn up and watch. And that’s how I felt through the last twenty minutes.
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Finland
The Finnish performance has got a lot tighter and it looks less like amateur hour at the Eurovision, and more like a polished show.