Sunday 31 August 2008

X rated viewing

I spent some of last night cursing Clair Breen.

Any idea who she is? Thought not.

She is the producer of X Factor. I have no idea if this is the first time Ms Breen has taken on the task, and to research this would be a waste of valuable internet time which could be better spent gambling or looking for cheap holidays or women.

About three or so years ago I thought X Factor was one of the best programmes on TV, mainly because of the total destruction of wannabes that it engendered. The sight of seeing bright orange 20-somethings who've "always wanted to be a singer" yet never remotely entertained the idea of learning an instrument bought bile rising into my throat. The sight of Cowell taking those dreams and wiping his arse with them made me feel better.

But even with a multi-million pound brand like X Factor growth is needed, otherwise it becomes jaded. Yes, the singers are the stars and their faded brakepad voices are still funny, Cowell's putdowns are still funny, even Walsh's camp banter and hair that looks like a piece of toast can still be good, but in terms of production the whole thing is now very predictable.

To give you an example; Student Laura (20). Pretty, good figure, vacuous as the Wash. Comes in in garish outfit fished out of the drains near Primark. Gets excuse in early. Been training for two months but has bad throat. This is her dream. Goes in. Roars like a lion taking down a Zebra. Suspense. Cue sad music. Cowell says she is through "one million percent", after pausing interminably with his finger metaphorically floating over the "nuke dreams" button. Sad music changes to happy - "for a moment like this". She goes through. Leaves crying, just as I did the last time a job letter confirmed I was through to the last 5,000 applicants. As predictable as flying turds after a Jalfrezi sandwich.

It's as lazy as a retired old major in bed with his 30-something wife. A later example; three bints called "Dolly Mix" singing "I love Rock and Roll". At that moment I loved the idea of seeing their corpses being rolled above red hot rocks on a giant ironic spit, which can only be worked by putting another dime into an operating meter shaped like a jukebox. But as ever the producers didn't exploit their true awfulness. It was just singing, slagged off, complain about judges, bye bye. To give an idea of what they could have done (and bearing in mind these prgrammes are recorded months ago, so they would have had plenty of time to put this together) in American Idol last year there was a brilliant montage of no-hopers singing that very song, six of them howling together on one screen, blended by the producers into a choral arrangement that would make you want to bomb the church. Innovative, and really funny.

There's so much else that's wrong. Dermot is just an identikit Kate Thornton - the same old stuff. After a good act there's always the ..." and Jade wasn't the only act to thrill the judges in Manchester" followed by a procession of other tramps, camps, and scamps all battering out Hit me baby One more time. Cheryl Cole - face of a model, voice like a model car. And the porceleine doll sat next to her with her manga eyes...remind me what the point of her is again?

There were good points. A giant gay sumo lookalike called Jason paired with a tiny little old barmaid. They were known as guilty pleasures. If they're guilty, order the firing squad, although Jason's last supper might be a large one.
A goth-type "holistic vocal coach" called Ariel. Scary: tick. Pretentious: tick. Voice like Kate Bush with bi-polar disorder: tick. She stormed in and threw a piece of paper at Cole saying: "I am not a number". You will be one day love - you'll be holding it in front of you while a camera flashes.

As you will see from the rest of my blog entries I like moaning, so what I've written here is of no surprise. But I do actually like X Factor, I just think it could be so much better. The early stages offer so much opportunity for adventure, innovation and fun. Why not be more creative with graphics and camera work? Why not put some genuine jokes in for Dermot? Why not hold it in different, fun, locations?

The whole vehicle is just a giant cash cow for ITV and Cowell now, but alarm bells should be ringing. Apart from Leona the rest of the "winners" are nowhere (by the way if you fancy a bet the last two winners are Leona, Leon, so a cheeky wager on anyone called Leo, Len or even Eon if they enter a team, might be a good pick). They've gone because Leona was the only one who deserved to win (G4, Andy Abrahams, Rhydian etc were all miles better) and the others were all boring, limited and cliched.

Let's just hope the programme doesn't go the same way.

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