After a little faffing around, the FIRST dress rehearsal of the FIRST semi-final has actually started. Our three hosts are on stage telling us all the housekeeping arrangements in English and French. Only very minimal German as far as I can tell. We’re getting all sorts of ‘spontaneous’ humour. We’ve also been told we can wote from the start.
The postcards look like they show ‘typical’ things happening in Germany, and end with a phrase in the language of the country next on.
Poland – Very slick choreography, but I don’t know why Magdelena has a large hand-held microphone when she’s joining in an energetic dance routine. We get lots of notes held for a long time towards the end of the song. Lively opener, but might get trounced by song 2…
Norway – Stella sounds a little flat but looks enthusiastic. Another slick and complicated dance routine. Looks like I could suffer death-by-arm-waving before too long.
Albania – First wrong caption (Aurela Ga). Very breathy and dramatic, becoming almost shouty. But doesn’t really go anywhere.
Armenia – Emmy’s still in her massive box…ing glove and red gown you see them all wear when they step into the ring. Lots of potential for mishaps when her and her dancers all discard said gowns. Very off key and the dance of the streamers – the necessity for any song fourth on in a first semi-final – didn’t go that well. And more arm-waving.
Turkey – We’re seeing the stage hands remove Emmy’s glove and bring on the band’s instruments. This is the best thing so far. It’s still legal to keep women in cages in Turkey, but they have to be globe-shaped. He needs to work on the messing about releasing his woman from her cage.
Our little break treats us to the performers singing ‘The Happy Wanderer’. It must have seemed a good idea at the time.
Serbia – The first song cursed with being performed after an ad break. Nina is a little off key but apart from that it moves along nicely.
Russia – It’s Danny Zucco as i live and breathe. We get a little sneaky-peek of the backing singers placed carefull behind the screens on stage. He does a back-flip and shouts for Düsseldorf to join in. He thinks he’s won this and it will get through to the final.
Switzerland – Now we slow things down a bit. I can’t help thinking the back drop should be a summery mountain scene, and not sparkly clouds. I like it – she does nothing wrong – but I think it doesn’t have that oomph factor to get it through to the final.
Georgia – We go from a sedate-ness to a kick in the eardrums in one simple movement. Eldrine’s menfolk had a few problems with their earpieces. Still not sure whether the bright piping on their outfits work, but there is something about it.
Before the next one is a little reminder to wote wote wote.
Finland – A song about this year’s favourite fruit. Why would Peter need to wait under an apple tree for one when we have 15,000 here. Oops, the feed went for a moment there. It’s another pleasant song, like the Swiss one. Can ‘pleasant’ win Eurovision? I’m not really sure.
Malta – I was just starting to miss the arm-waving, but now it’s back in spades. The back drop is actually quite effective in an odd kind of way. But I think Malta will be going home on Wednesday.
San Marino – The winners of this year’s publicity machine (after a closely fought battle with Malta) will struggle to qualify. She’s got rid of the Emanuel dress for something far less dowdy. She still looks a little odd, but I can’t work out why. I’m sorry to say we won’t be celebrating a victory by the Serene Republic this year.
Croatia – Hmmm. What’s gone wrong with Croatia. She was very off key – the resistance could be more in key than that. The pink dress is unnecessary. And the final change to the long metallic dress doesn’t go quite according to plan. Have we seen this years’ winner of the Diana Gurtskaya award for bad frock change.
Up next, Iceland.
celand – We had a pregnant pause here. Not sure why cos the stage was dark. This is more like it. Very effective camera work. It’s all stuff moving in and out of focus, and
And now, the Groon Reem. Go and make yourself a nice cup of soup while they get this inane banter out of the way.
Hungary – Dare I utter the unutterable and state categorically that Hungary WON’T qualify? There, I’ve said it. It suffers the curse of being after a break. It’s good, but it’s not right. One reason it won’t qualify is because it’s followed by…
Portugal – These people are as mad as big buckets of wasps and that’s part of their charm. I’ve been told that some of the phrases on their placards are wrong – can anyone identify any of the wrong ones? There might be a fabulous prize in it. It’s just daft enough to make it through.
Lithuania – Well she’s a pretty girl. And she can do sign language.
Azerbaijan – Now I won’t mention any members of the large cat family. They need to work on some of the camera angles on this one. It has arm-waving, off-keyedness and lots of white. You know they’ll qualify so I’ll say no more.
Greece – We never see Stereo Mike and Loucas stodd side by side cos there’s about a 3 foot height difference. How dframatic is this. You know this’ll qualify, but not just because it’s Greece. It’ll qualify because it’s a good song.
Now we get our three lovely hosts again. They tell us to wote in English and French before we get reprises of the songs. There’s also a little clokc telling us how long we’ve got left to wote.
Based on what I’ve just seen, the following look like they’re definitely through to Saturday:
Norway
Turkey
Serbia
Russia
Iceland
Azerbaijan
Greece
The remaining thee places will be out of Poland, Finland, Switzerland and Portugal.