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The X Factor

The X Factor judge Cheryl Cole
  • Posted at 12:39pm
  • 22 August 2008
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 3 comments

In Radio Times magazine I recently foreswore The X Factor on the grounds that if I took just one hit, I would be hooked. You know what I'm going to say next.

Largely because I couldn't be bothered to switch channels after a particularly bracing You've Been Framed, which featured many delicious and painful-looking mishaps involving skateboarders (always my favourites), I drifted into The X Factor, girded by a nice bottle of prosecco.

Of course, that's it. I might as well be chained to the immersion heater every Saturday night from now until Christmas, because I'm not going anywhere. The tears, the sob stories, the abject humiliations. It was wonderful. And presiding over it all was Simon Cowell, the upper part of his head like that of a supercilious hippo rising from a morass of stinking water.

Faced with the deluded and the deranged, new judge Cheryl Cole looked nonplussed. "It's not what I was expecting," she muttered, in that strangely dead voice of hers. What was she expecting, I wonder? The Huddersfield Choral Society? Kiri Te Kanawa?

All of the acts were terrifying, even the good ones. A dim couple known as Ant and Seb were the night's designated comedy misfits because they were both hopeless and impossible to shut up. A 26-year-old mother of five, Rachel, made herself, and everyone else, cry, though she frightened me to death when she opened her mouth to sing, because Rachel is A Belter. Leona Lewis has a lot to answer for with all of that warbling over-emoting, because everyone's doing it now, even the boys. I had to check that tiles hadn't fallen from the roof by the end of the show.

Heartbreak story of the night was Nikk, a former Popstars: the Rivals hopeful sprung on former fellow contestant Cole, who simpered and sobbed and walked off the panel. Nikk was a Ken Loach film just waiting to happen. He sings at northern bingo clubs, still convinced he will make it big. It was wretchedly sad to watch as Cowell gently told him: "It's time to stop chasing the dream."

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times.

**

Go behind the scenes of The X Factor with Dannii Minogue in our photo gallery.

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Comments

  • Posted on 20 November 2008
  • at 6:36pm
  • by becky

cool

  • Posted on 09 November 2008
  • at 5:56pm
  • by angel

If the x-factor and their ilk were genuinly making programmes about finding previously undiscovered talented people I might be persuaged to watch but I refuse to watch a programme that knowingly seeks out the foolish and mentally disturbed so that they can have their foibles torn apart by smug, so called talent scouts for the amusement of the slavering masses. Talentless fame seekers, the odd and those with obvious mental issues should be weeded out prior to recording as we all know those that appear before the judges are pre-selected after an initial audition so it's a deliberate act on the part of the programme makers to ensure there are "fools to laugh at". The whole thing reeks of ancient Rome and the taunting and unpleasant tearing apart of victims in the ampitheatre for the blood thirsty audiences. I've had enough of programmes like this where it's deemed ok to laugh at those less fortunate than ourselves. Shame on those that commission such programmes and shame on those that love to laugh at people whose delusions are ones that should be dealt with more appropriately away from the public glare.

  • Posted on 24 August 2008
  • at 11:58am
  • by Neil

X is near the back end of the alphabet. X Factor is just about the last thing on the telly I would voluntarily watch. Isn't that smug row of teeth in a tight-fitting T-shirt not rich enough?

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