Welcome to the last day of runthroughs! A short day today with only 6 rehearsals before going into the second week, starting with the opening ceremony and then – how is it time already? – dress rehearsals and live shows.

Israel
If you’re going to write a song that is trying to be The Greatest Showman, at least make the presentation match, I guess? With the camerawork coming together a lot more, this Musical vibe comes across quite clearly in that staging, which helps Kobi’s antics and facial expressions feel less out of place. He looked more comfortable as the runthroughs went by, too, and while alternating between going for some of the big notes or deciding against it, he was always perfectly in key.

I don’t think they could have done much more with that performance, but this song is still this song, but if that’s your thing this performance will work for you.

France
Bilal is not a morning person, so his limited vocal abilities were slightly clearer this morning, but he’s covered well by his backing singers. That aside, it’s more or less the same, but the visuals were adapted a bit to make the back stories of the dancers easier to understand – especially the deaf one, which I didn’t catch in the first rehearsals until someone pointed it out to me.

It’s definitely something that is going to catch the televoters’ attention, especially as they are watching it for the first time. I’m still not sure how I personally feel about the entire thing, but it’s very effective in its entirely non-subtle ways.

Spain
Someone in the Spanish delegations is reading the blogs! They’ve changed a massive amount of shots, so the entire thing is shot now in a way that highlights Miki way more and focuses on him and not in wide shots that show off the prop instead. The cropped shots also make the backdrops look considerably nicer than they look in those wider shots from the first run throughs. It also looks like the cringe kiss cam moment has been dropped in favor of a more standard audience shot that will be on the backdrop behind them for a few seconds but now it doesn’t steal the focus away from the song.

Paco (that’s the puppet for you) is still a bit unnecessary, the backdrops still look like they were made in paintbrush and it’s still overall way too colorful (and that’s coming from a person who has hair in 7 colors), but that was a giant leap from the first runthroughs and therefore wins my “country which made the most progress from first rehearsals to the second” award.

Italy
Italy has made some adjustments to the camerawork and also made sure to have more light on Mahmood so it doesn’t look as dark as it did before. The choreography was also more cohesive and more in sync with the backdrop. The entire feel is gloom, though, as expected with that kind of song, which was always going to be its struggle with viewers. But it now has more visual moments connecting the staging to what the song is about and definitely so memorable visual moments as well.

United Kingdom
It seems that in between the first rehearsal and this the Brits have discovered the stage can do things, so now the small triangles on the ceiling go into frame at some point, the big triangles move right before the backing singers join and the columns in the back turn around as well. But as nice as it was to see them utilizing the stage more, it pretty much looked the same as before, X Factor staging and all that, and Michael is as appealing performer as he was, which is to say: not very much. I wish the staging was a bit more daring, because the song does have the potential in it, but you need a bigger than life performer and that’s not him.

Germany
I really want to be nice about this because I like the girls and their enthusiasm so much, and to be fair: the staging isn’t their fault. They do their best and they do what they are supposed to do well: they sing and harmonize wonderfully. But the entire concept is useless and very Geramny-in-Eurovision whenever they finish last, which very much feels like where this is heading to.