As we look forward to the first heat of SongHunt 2022 and recover from a marathon Super Saturday of national final viewing, it’s time for escgo! to round up what’s happened in the world of Eurovision since our last update and the allocation draw.

Our Italian host broadcaster RAI swiftly followed the allocation ceremony with the announcement of the hosts for the 2022 contest: Pictured above, they are Italian TV mainstay Alessandro Cattelan and well-known singers Laura Pausini and Mika (pictured above). A power trio for sure! All eyes then remained on Italy for the week-long delight that is the Sanremo Festival, which was won by 2019 champion Mahmood and his duet with Blanco, “Brividi” (Shivers). The pair wasted no time in confirming that they will also be representing the home nation at this year’s ESC, and their song is already climbing the charts in several countries.

Several of the most recent national selections will have representation in the first heat of SongHunt, underlining the fact that – as so often – “fan favourites” (or, in our case, chatroom favourites) have missed out on the ticket to Turin. Take Spain, for example, where the televote was overturned by an international jury that tipped the balance in favour of Chanel’s “SloMo“. The revived Benidorm Fest was great fun, though, and we hope the hostile reception to the results among a certain segment of fans won’t put them off.

In a low-key selection process, Moldova held what essentially amounted to a televised audition session that resulted in the internal selection of their 2005 and 2011 entrants, Zdob şi Zdub. This time they team up with Fraţii Advahov to sing the praises of trains and folklore and rock ‘n’ roll with “Trenulețul” (The Little Train).

Marginally more prime-time was Ireland‘s return to a national final after many years of internal choices, although the integration of the preselection into the established Late Late Show format always makes it feel a little low-key. Nevertheless, between a varied selection of songs, a jury keen to lavish praise on even the most mundane entries and a memorably enthusiastic audience member from Ballydehob, a fine time was had by all. Brooke Scullion is duly tasked with bringing the Emerald Isle back to the grand final with her punchy “That’s Rich”.

North Macedonia followed in the Czech footsteps with a largely online preselection, although this one did culminate in a TV show (albeit one with no actual performances…). Our chat’s favourite, “Circles” by Andrea, was also the favourite of the international jury – and they got the final say, overruling a strong local televote for the more polarising “Superman“.

The latest winner of Israel‘s X Factor, Michael Ben David, will represent the country in Turin with the punctuation puzzler that is “I.M” – while Austria are also playing the punctuation game with the announcement of DJ LUM!X as their representative. Together with vocalist Pia Maria, they will perform “Halo”, although the song has not been presented yet.

And then there was that Super Saturday. It began in mid-afternoon, or so it felt, with the Vidbir show in Ukraine. Almost inevitably at a time of such conflict in the region, the winning song – “Tini zabutykh predkiv” or “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Alina Pash – has immediately run into trouble concerning the artist’s travel through Crimea and potentially falsified documents. The situation remains unclear at time of writing, but in any case, her national performance was a memorable one so it deserves to be documented here even if we don’t end up seeing it (or Ukraine?) in Turin:

The other three countries to select on Saturday night were the Baltic trio of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In Eesti Laul, repeat trier Stefan finally got the ticket to ESC with the cowboy-themed “Hope“. The voters in Supernova were unable to resist the comedy charms of Citi Zēni and their censored but still a little controversial “Eat Your Salad“. And the lengthy Lithuanian process ended with a winner in the “probably doomed but certainly charming” category as Monica Liu took the expected victory with “Sentimentai“.

And finally in this update… what can we say about San Marino and their nightly Una Voce Per San Marino shows? The decision to let almost everybody into the competition, providing they have the will and the wallet, has given us some memorable moments to enjoy in the chat – including entries that received negative average scores… We won’t share the love by repeating any of the more remarkable moments here; suffice it to say that you can check out the hashtag for yourself on Twitter if you really want to know more.

What would life be without these glorious moments of the Eurovision on-season though, really? Don’t forget to join us in the chat this Saturday for another incredibly busy night of national final shows – see you there!

title image credit: eurovision.tv