BLOGS
The X Factor: week thirteen
- Posted at 1:30pm
- 16 November 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
I've seen We Will Rock You, the musical. It's an insult not just to sentient theatre-goers but to Queen fans: a scary female is introduced purely to get Killer Queen in, and the lead actor sings Under Pressure when he's under very mild strain. It has dialogue along the lines of: "So, the seas of Rhye. How many of them are there?" The busloads down from Essex disagreed but, trust me, it's a karaoke travesty.
The band having brutally trashed their own legacy, The X Factor Queen week was always going to feel less crass....
The X Factor: week twelve
- Posted at 11:40am
- 09 November 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
John and Edward are saving The X Factor. Simon Cowell put them through at Lucie's expense because they're the act we look forward to - if they win they may destroy Western culture altogether, but as everyone else this week was pure tedium, it's worth the risk.
The lack of costumes and dancers for the twins' Sunday eliminator song merely highlighted the comedy genius of their broken-puppet dancing, missed high-fives and the awesome moment where the one on the left leapt into the crowd, only for the song to end three seconds later. You can't...
The X Factor: week eleven
- Posted at 12:25pm
- 02 November 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
Leather, eyeliner, innuendo and metallic accessories: it's rock week!
Come Together by the Beatles was Olly's song, surprisingly billed as one of Simon Cowell's favourites. Perhaps Simon secretly loves fractured, counterculture whimsy, or perhaps it's just one of his fave melodies from his "Best of the Beatles" cassette.
Olly made gestures underlining the single entendre in the title, and chased the randy-nan vote by tearing his shirt open, suavely pulling off this manoeuvre after only a few seconds of fumbling. The way he gritted his teeth was just on the right side of the line between arousal...
The X Factor: week ten
- Posted at 10:40am
- 26 October 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
Big band week is never X Factor's best. It's old and cheesy, you can't hear anything above the sound of 46 farting trumpets, and young novices doing Rat Pack songs has the creepy, false atmosphere of a children's beauty pageant.
Even Sunday's guests were distressingly chintzy. We had Michael Bublé, the poor man's Harry Connick Jr (the real one was on Strictly Come Dancing), and there was a special treat for anyone who hates music and despises humanity: the black, sucking vortex that is Westlife, reciting their new single with robotic precision.
Back to the...
The X Factor: week nine
- Posted at 12:55pm
- 19 October 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
Intrigue, bombast and golden comedy this week, well beyond anything a regular singing contest could offer. It started with the judges: in the absence of Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue upped her game, going through two entire live shows without once saying something that made sense. Simon Cowell played a ruder, smugger, pantomime version of himself.
Simon made Cheryl Cole cry, referred to himself as "Mr Cowell", and contributed to some excellent Previews of Doom - those clips shown just before the contestant goes on, wildly overstating what's at stake. "This could be great, or...
Louis Walsh to miss X Factor for Gately funeral
- Posted at 4:07pm
- 15 October 2009
- by PaulJones-RT
Following the tragic death of former Boyzone member Stephen Gately last Saturday, X Factor judge Louis Walsh has announced he will miss both editions of the show this weekend to attend the funeral.
Walsh put together and managed Boyzone and was very close to Gately, whose death came as the reformed band were working with Walsh on a comeback album.
An official spokesperson for The X Factor said: "Due to recent tragic events, Louis Walsh will not be appearing on either the Saturday or Sunday live The X Factor shows this weekend as...
The X Factor: week eight
- Posted at 12:30pm
- 12 October 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
Saturday night was a one-man show. Danyl's odds to win had lengthened after his crazy boot camp performance, but that was then. This week, he was oceans ahead with a relatively understated version of And I'm Telling You, a song that if it gets any more ubiquitous will have its own talent show, where everyone sings it every week: And Britain's Telling You, perhaps. Or The U (and U and U and U) Factor.
There was jealous hating from the judges. We're used to Louis and his bitter, random pot shots: he primly told...
The X Factor: week seven
- Posted at 1:25pm
- 05 October 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
It wasn't really "judges' houses" this year. It was more like holidaying with the judges: Cheryl Cole went to Marrakech as an excuse to wear African prints, Louis Walsh visited Lake Como because even he's noticed that Dublin is embarrassingly low-key, and Dannii Minogue fitted in well in plastic, featureless Dubai.
In Italy, Louis was flanked by Ronan Keating, who sported a strange right-to-left hairdo: a Lake Como-ver. Project A were as bland as their Top Shop clothes, Harmony Hood couldn't harmonise, and brace-wearing best friends De-Tour looked like dancers from a Yazz video, and...
The X Factor: week six
- Posted at 11:10am
- 28 September 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
Boot camp! The cream of Britain's inexhaustible talent pool, whittled from 200 to 24 in an intense festival of perfect performances. That's the theory, but even with 99.9% of the original applicants already rejected, there were scores of tone-deaf chancers left. So the judges bashed through the acts three at a time, eliminating 100 straight away.
Making the contestants form trios had unexpected results. Three shouters who weren't all-that individually became a girl group, Miss Frank. Less fortunate was Sian Paley, who was landed with John and Edward - Beelzebub's answer to Bros, with their...
The X Factor: week five
- Posted at 11:44am
- 21 September 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
Well, who isn't glad that's over? This year's audition shows lasted approximately eight months, were made as blaringly vulgar as the rest of the series by the live audience (here's a thing I only noticed this week: it's killed the judges' banter about the contestant just gone) and had, as usual, a good deal of laughing at the sad, the unfortunate and the vulnerable.
The double-header before boot camp was two more episodes too many. On occasion, though, this weekend's X Factor had warm laughs and hit cheesy, shameless highs.
Richard Green had a very scary...
The X Factor: week four
- Posted at 12:25pm
- 14 September 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
This week's X Factor may have been broadcast by mistake. Mild eccentrics, merely OK singers and weird people with animals are supposed to be on The Xtra Factor on ITV2, not primetime ITV1. Either there's been a mix-up, or this year's auditions are running out of gas.
There was a woman who brought Louis Walsh a present, but sang badly. Someone else sang badly - but they'd travelled all the way to Glasgow from Bristol! A middle-aged woman sang badly, clutching a dog - she'd claimed it would sing with her, but it didn't. Zzzzzzzzzz.
The X Factor: week three
- Posted at 10:51am
- 07 September 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
Dermot O'Leary, the unsung star of The X Factor, really earns his money during the auditions. How does he keep a straight face when he's interviewing the comedy contestants? However much you complain about the show humiliating the talentless, you can't say you wouldn't have laughed at Allan Busby telling you his stripy top was the reason he'd sung so badly.
Perhaps Dermot has a soundproofed, padded room he retires to hourly, closing the door behind him and roaring himself into a spasm before emerging, in fresh leisurewear, ready to dish out another round of honest man-hugs....
The X Factor: week two
- Posted at 9:22pm
- 30 August 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
So, the formula so far is to save the obvious finalist for last. This week, it was Jamie Archer, a 33-year-old dreamer whose afro was so overgrown, it had gone past cool and was now just a bit floppy and forlorn - a sign of how long he's been plugging away in small clubs.
Suddenly finding himself playing the O2 Arena, Jamie attacked Kings of Leon's Sex on Fire like a showbizzy grizzly. He was a poor man's Danyl Johnson but the judges said he was a good "performer", and even if they hadn't, he'd...
The X Factor: week one
- Posted at 1:20pm
- 24 August 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
The X Factor likes to start each series with a little crisis. Remember Louis Walsh being sacked and rehired? This year it was Simon Cowell suddenly getting bored of singers singing in a closed room, and switching to tryouts in packed live venues. It sounded like media-friendly theatrics, but it's changed the auditions completely.
The show has never properly dealt with concerns about deluded auditioners who are chosen for humiliation, paraded for our entertainment. But the derision used to arrive months later, in distant living rooms and on sarcastic, readerless blogs.
Now, people like...
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