Join me, Richard, to bring you all the action from today’s first dress rehearsal here in Valletta and all of the participating nations take part for the first time in the same day. If you don’t know the drill, come back from 10:00CET/09:00GMT and refresh the page on a regular basis for all the updates.

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And we are off – 20 minutes delayed, but it is a technical rehearsal after all. After a tour of Malta where people certainly #embrace, we are welcomed to Malta by Destiny. Then the flag ceremony takes place during the performance of the official song Embrace.

Ireland

Zena has improved no end time after time. With added effects, we now see a lot more drama in the stage performance.

Armenia

A polished performance, now with an added costume change in the final thirty seconds.

Albania

I’m not sure what has happened since yesterday, but there seems to a lot more power in this performance.

Russia

Another strong performance delivered by the Water of Life Project. Can’t fault this.

Malta

Really strong from the host participant. Just realised the backdrop is a dissected version of the logo.

Bulgaria

Add a gospel choir to the final third of this performance and it would be perfect.

Macedonia

Martija appears for the first time in her costume – an all in one sparkly catsuit and boots. Works well with the backdrop.

Poland

Impressive and faultless.

Belarus

This performance by Alexander shows why Belarus are so good at JESC – they need this production team behind ESC too.

INTERVAL BREAK

It’s Poli Genova with If Loves Was A Crime!!!

Ukraine

A safe ballad as I’ve mentioned before. Still not sure how this will place with either juries.

Italy

This is so classic and will fit in with the adult juries and hopefully some of the kids jury. This has the Vincenzo effect written all over it.

Serbia

Now the hoverboard is not used in the last third of the song, the camerawork is a little less messy.

Israel

I still can’t get pass Denmark 2010 in the Eurovision Song Contest. If I had my eyes closed and wasn’t watching, it would work.

Australia

Alexa needs to rest her voice to avoid a disastrous jury final tonight. Bella over sung in her rehearsals last year and suffered as a result.

Netherlands

A very good performance and is just polishing those final tweaks.

Cyprus

George is in a good place on the running order. I felt there was a bit too much arrogance on his face this morning though which he needs to lose before this afternoon’s jury final.

Georgia

Even though we’ve been saying how classic and nostalgic this entry has been over the week, I can’t see the kids juries raving about this.

They crossed to the experts and then Destiny to perform her new single. Then we get the comical performance from Jedward – my new friends! Destiny then returns to perform Not My Soul. Destiny joins all the participants to perform a common song called “We Are”. We then go into the voting and close the show with the winner.

In the mock voting, Malta won, followed by Italy and Macedonia.

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Author: Richard Taylor

Source: Eurovision Ireland