Welcome to the press centre, home of free coffee (bliss!) but not free water (boo!). Another quietish night at the lovely EuroClub building – there was a Swiss party elsewhere in town, apparently, but it was just a brief live session in a jazz club so we weren’t too sad to give that a miss (not deliberately – we were delayed by the vagaries of Germano-Italian restaurant service). Things will pick up as more journalists, fans and general hangers-on arrive towards the weekend, anyway.

So let’s focus on the fourth day of rehearsals. It’s hard to believe that, once today is over, we’ll have seen all but five of this year’s ESC entries in rehearsal. But will we have seen a winner? Time will tell! As always, keep us bookmarked and keep checking back, as we’ll be updating this page after every act has taken to the stage.

IRELAND
Jedward are barely singing this, which is an entirely sensible thing to do. The routine is relatively simple, which is also sensible given their limited capacity for rhythmical movement and synchronisation, although apparently they still couldn’t be bothered to learn it before travelling to Germany. And the lighting, LED screens etc. are doing exactly what you’d want and expect them to do on a song like this, including an attempt to indoctrinate the world into the CULT OF JEDWARD with dozens of huge clones of the terrible twosome in the background. If I’m allowing Saade the benefit of a “first rehearsal” free pass, then John and Edward have to be given one too – and assuming they can get the routine together without compromising on their vocals (the ones they’re not leaving to the backing singers, at least) and they don’t make a mess of the somersaults at the end (speaking of which, was one of them bollocks in a wheelchair recently) then, as much as it pains me to say so, this is most likely qualifying.

DENMARK
I’m getting a bit bored of saying “this was just like the national final”, but then you didn’t expect anything else from this professional outfit, did you? It’s the big stadium rocker, it has a prime draw, it has a great chance of winning this semi-final, and yet you still wouldn’t be surprised to see it land outside the top 10 in the final simply because they’re not really that interesting. Very good rehearsal though, no question about it.

LATVIA
Much as we knew it already. For better or worse, it stands out somewhat just for being so different to the rest of the competition – whatever it is it’s actually trying to do. There are some unfortunate close-ups that will hopefully become less unfortunate when more make-up is applied, although it’s possible that the first few seconds will turn people off altogether. If they stick with it, though, there’s almost a certain unexpected element of humour (or at least fun) about this performance that I think works well – I just can’t put my finger on why exactly. Not a bad rehearsal at all, in my eyes.

BELARUS
To their limited credit, they haven’t tried to camp it up – she just stands there and sings it (poorly), the only nod to gimmickry being some pyrotechnics at the end. Unfortunately, this only goes to confirm the suspicion that they mean the whole thing entirely seriously. Yuck.

ESTONIA
Hmm. Not convinced. The setting is nice enough – the same rubbish cardboard skyscrapers from the national final, but the LED screens are filled with impressive and colourful cityscapes during the chorus (and the London Eye during the verses, for some reason). There’s just something about it all that doesn’t hold together. The song is disjointed in the first place, so it needs a cohesive performance – instead, it’s got a lot of different and diffuse gimmicks, a lot of standing in different places, no discernible big defining moment. Getter is squeaky and lacking in charisma, while the backing singers that are apparently meant to propel the song along (they even sing some of the “1-2-7-3” lines by themselves – not something I’d advise) are downright out of tune in places. On the other hand, it is a cute production of a song with a catchy chorus, and in this fairly even semi-final, this shouldn’t be another case of “song 15 = fan fave fail”. Should it?

ROMANIA
Well, it’s a competent and professional rehearsal with no hint of vocal difficulty, just as you’d expect. I still think the stage looks a little empty for a band performance, or maybe it’s just that the instruments are too far apart. They fill up the space with some dancing trumpeters instead (just when you thought you’d seen the last of them after Serbia got rid of theirs – these are female, mind). David is wearing a tartan-backed jacket – haddaway and shite man, you’re from County Durham! – and black-and-white stripey trousers that look more like pyjama bottoms, or maybe something a sad clown would sport. The stage is as colourful and relentlessly positive as the song, though there are some unfortunate shots of a rather disinterested-looking piano player. All in all, they’re playing it more as a pop song than a Big Stadium Rocker, which is probably sensible since Denmark would stomp all over them in that respect.

SLOVENIA
It’s nice to see a performance gradually come together over several rehearsals within a session, just as it should do. Maja started off focusing on her vocals, then attention switched to the routine – which involves a bit of Israeli sideways-strutting by the backing singers, but mostly revolves around Maja herself pacing the stage. She’s still working on finding the cameras, which she’ll need to do in order to avoid coming across as some angry girl who’s just shouting a lot, but I’m reasonably confident that’ll come with further practice. She looks great, too, with flowing hair and a silvery dress that exposes a decent portion of boob, and the stage backdrop is an appropriate “roses and thorns” motif in dirty pink and purple. Meanwhile, the backing group are vocally powerful – how much would it cost for Hungary to hire them? – and the whole thing is certainly working very well as a song right now. If the staging and performance refinements keep coming, then, there’s no obvious reason this shouldn’t see Slovenia safely through to the final – and maybe even a bit further than that.

ISRAEL
Thirteen years ago, a transsexual singer from Israel performing a 90s disco-trash song on the ESC stage was newsworthy. Revolutionary, even. It’s testament to how far the contest and the gay world in general have come that, in 2011, only Dana International and a handful of greying old queens think this kind of thing is remotely entertaining. She stands, she “sings”, it’s exactly as it was at the NF (costumes aside), and the whole thing is just terribly, terribly tedious.

MACEDONIA
The backdrop is stunning – a kind of rotating cuboid with huge depth to it, including the phrases “RUSINKA” and “MUZIKA” in Cyrillic. Vlatko is Vlatko – good at scowling and growling, still not particularly likeable, and an entirely unconvincing guitarist. And there’s Macedonian dancing – aerobics and general foolishness that eventually mutates into Ehlena-style line dancing for the “lai-lai-lai” section at the end. It’s not all bad, but it distracts more than it enhances, I’d say. They’re also doing the pointless “first verse in English, rest of song in Macedonian” thing, which I don’t get at all. Hmm. It sounds like I’m being relentlessly critical here, and I’m really not – I like the song, and I still suspect it might have more of a niche audience than people realise. But there are enough little things wrong with the whole package that I suspect it’s on its way out.

BULGARIA
Decent start to the day, this. Had to scoot over to the arena as the video feed wasn’t working (for the third day out of four, it kicked in at around 10:30), but I’m assured the sound mix was good enough, and it’s certainly visually impressive with a backdrop of falling rain and plenty of flashing lights. Poli is backed by a male/female band including a lady on a baby grand piano. This, though, is where I think it falls down a bit – they’re going for a classier kind of vibe (think Vanilla Ninja at a wedding), with Poli starting the song in a long white dress that she eventually discards (see below) in favour of a shorter “rock chick” number. It makes the whole thing a bit too well-behaved when I’d prefer her to go down the straight-out dirty rock route. Still, it’s a strong song performed well, and there aren’t many of those prior to Bulgaria in this semi-final, so I’d file it under “strong borderliner” for now.