Welcome to another week and another newsletter from the ESC Insight team. This week’s edition can be read through this link.
This week we are looking on the surge of interest and hype about Australia’s entry as well as reviewing some of the highlights of the Eurovision Academic Conference held in London over on Friday. In addition our weekly column Robertson’s Reflection, gives the latest Eurovision insight from the world of our Newsletter Editor Ben Robertson. This week he tells us about his role in producing his school’s Eurovision competition and the pride he has in his winning entries.
The winner was something we’ve been working on for a year. One year ago Rebecca finished 2nd in the school competition and did great, however I was mesmerised by her brilliant voice. I knew exactly the song that would show it off and I will admit when she was performing I completely fanboyed. She made ‘Quedate Conmigo’ her own and I now love the song one hundred times more than I did in Baku. Her performance was breathtaking for somebody who is just thirteen. We’ve worked hard on it but it’s such a pleasure to see her do well. I think Tine was impressed, and another one of the interval acts also caught her eye and it would be amazing if something comes of that in the future.
There is something so fantastic about the culture we’ve created with our school contest that takes it so seriously yet is incredibly self-depreciating. We start the show with a dance-off between me and a child in a Fox costume (that was last year’s winner) which is as ridiculous as it sounds, but then with the crowd warmed up we break into song 1, a piano ballad (I had no choice, I had all ballads!) and you could hear a pin drop in the room. We then flip back to gags with our very own Filippa Bark soundalike creating green room havoc before we go back to the stage.
For much more from Ben and the rest of the newsletter read online here, or alternatively sign up for it to come straight into your inbox for a weekly review of the Eurovision news.