EastEnders adds in reference to Sam Ryder's Eurovision success at eleventh hour

The UK was overjoyed when Eurovision act Sam Ryder came second after years of misfortune in the international singing competition - such was good news, it even got a cheeky mention on last night's episode (May 16) of Eastenders.

Callum (Tony Clay) and Frankie (Rose Ayling-Ellis) opened the programme where the topic of Eurovision came up in conversation about Frankie's relationship as the pair sat in the kitchen.

In a bid to cheer up an upset Callum, Frankie cracked the topical joke: "This is about the Eurovision isn’t it? But Ukraine deserved that win and there’s always next year."

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To which Callum replied: “I never used to watch it, and then Ben got me into it and… nul points every year, the one year we don’t watch it together we get second.

As many soap fans know, scenes are typical filmed months in advance so given the UK's previous poor track record at Eurovision, it's extremely unlikely the writers of the show predicted Ryder's Space Man would finish in second place with 466 points at the weekend.

And so it means that the scene was filmed at the last minute in time for Monday night's episode - a pretty impressive feat to pull off.

It's not the first time Eastenders have made particular references to real-life events such as Brexit, and England's Euro 2020 defeat as well as the royal family.

Meanwhile, Ukraine was this year's Eurovision winner with Kalush Orchestra sweeping a whopping 631 points to be victorious with the Sam Ryder giving the UK their best result in 20 years.

There's more good news for the Essex singer as Space Man is currently closing the gap on Harry Styles' hit As It Was in the race for this week's UK number 1.

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