Vienna gets its second Eurovision night tonight, May 14. The Wiener Stadthalle show starts at 21:00 CEST, with fifteen entries competing for ten places in Saturday’s final. Austria, France and the United Kingdom also perform, but already have their final places. The official running order is your guide to the evening’s arrivals and departures.
Our interest is in the songs and stage ideas that might outlive the scoreboard. After our first-semifinal meme roundup and liminal listening picks, here are six acts on tonight’s watchlist.
This is a preview, using the released songs and rehearsal coverage. Stage details below draw on ESCXTRA’s May 13 rehearsal liveblog; tonight’s broadcast can still change the picture. The cat-ratings are entirely ours: purr means keen, unbothered means the cat has found a comfortable cushion. Neither is a prediction of the voting.
LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER, United Kingdom: Eins, Zwei, Drei
Sam Battle brings the welcome energy of someone whose studio might require its own electrical inspection. Eurovision’s song announcement describes his custom synthesizer Kosmo and inventions including a Furby organ. Battle says the song began in a session with its other writers and producers on Kosmo.
The track is built around escaping the nine-to-five, so an office is a fitting place to begin. Rehearsal reporting describes twelve desks transforming into an electronic setup around Battle. Corporate furniture finally has something useful to contribute.
What interests us is the connection between the artist and the staging: the instrument-builder gets to turn a workplace into a music machine. It gives the chaos a reason to be there. We are very much here for a chorus that sounds ready to interrupt a team meeting.
Cat-rating: purr. Synths, absurdity and a man with a history of making Furbys sing. The cat respects a committed hobby.
LELÉKA, Ukraine: Ridnym
Victoria Leleka founded her project in Berlin in 2016, after training and working in theatre in Kyiv. The official Vidbir report records her victory with maximum points from both jury and public. There is a substantial musical career behind this Eurovision introduction.
For the staging, Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne’s May 9 rehearsal preview shows light fabric moving in the air and bandurist Yaroslav Dzhus with a reconstructed, fragmented instrument. The broadcaster explains that fragmentation as part of the number’s visual meaning.
That gives the images something to carry beyond “large fabric looks dramatic on television,” although large fabric has an excellent Eurovision CV. This is our pick for viewers who want to follow an emotional build and the relationship between performer, instrument and camera.
Cat-rating: purr. A bandura, billowing cloth and room for a song to gather force. The cat can postpone knocking something off the table.
AIDAN, Malta: Bella
Malta supplies the zoetrope-inspired visual: arches, see-through screens and a figure appearing within the structure. ESCXTRA’s rehearsal account describes rose imagery on the screens, rather than a physical storm of petals.
The attraction is how the camera can turn a stage structure into an illusion. We want to see how clearly the idea reads on television, and whether its different views keep serving the song. A clever prop is most satisfying when you stop mentally looking for the joins.
Of these six concepts, this is the one that most tempts us to say “wait, rewind that bit.” Whether tonight supplies the perfect shot remains to be seen. The cat is already suspicious of the moving pictures inside the moving pictures.
Cat-rating: purr. Put an optical toy on a Eurovision scale and you have our attention.
Eva Marija, Luxembourg: Mother Nature
Eva Marija is twenty, as RTL’s May 8 report confirms. She arrives in Vienna with Mother Nature, a title whose stage interpretation does not leave the scenery department guessing.
Rehearsals feature a tree-shaped microphone stand, nature imagery and Eva with her violin. It is an easy concept to grasp at a glance: the woodland has booked a television appearance.
Our taste leans towards the stranger visual choices elsewhere tonight, but there is room for something more direct. The risk with an emphatic theme is that every detail starts answering a question the title already settled.
Cat-rating: unbothered. Pleasant forest energy. The cat is asleep, politely, somewhere under the imaginary tree.
SIMÓN, Armenia: Paloma Rumba
Armenia’s entry has a strong office-escape streak too. The lyrics on SIMÓN’s official artist page are largely English and rail against repetitive workdays. The Spanish-sounding title alone does not make this a Spanish-language song.
The rehearsal opens with SIMÓN inside an elevator prop, then moves into an office-box setup with energetic choreography. Think less glamorous executive suite, more resignation letter delivered by a very determined dancer.
SIMÓN’s background in dance makes the physical approach a natural fit. His official biography also notes that he studied economics before pursuing performing. Somewhere, a spreadsheet has lost a promising employee.
Cat-rating: purr. Boxes are excellent, office rebellion is relatable, and the cat would like to inspect the set before anyone clears it away.
Daniel Zizka, Czechia: Crossroads
Czechia takes a cleaner visual route. The rehearsal places Daniel in a moving circle of mirrors that opens and closes around him.
It is a useful contrast to the office mayhem: one strong geometric idea instead of a roomful of things trying to escape. Our interest is in what the camera finds through those reflections, and how much space the staging leaves for the performer.
For our particular watchlist, the mirror setup is the stronger draw. Your cat may have different musical preferences. Ours has previously given a cardboard box a standing ovation.
Cat-rating: unbothered. Good geometry; we are watching for the reveal.
Our Three to Prioritise Tonight
If you only have time for three, our picks are LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER, LELÉKA and AIDAN: the instrument-builder’s office escape, Ukraine’s fabric-and-bandura imagery, and Malta’s optical illusion. They offer very different reasons to stay in front of the screen.
The appeal of a Eurovision preview is that none of this has to become a prophecy. An idea can delight us and finish nowhere near the top; a quiet performance can suddenly take over the room. Tonight, we are leaving space for both. The cat has claimed the best seat.
