12 January 2008

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I really tried. Honest I really tried my hardest. I didn’t tell anyone and this year my resolution was going to happen. Previously I have blabbed all about weight loss programmes and going cold turkey on the cigarettes but this year I thought I would keep it quiet and not put myself under the pressure of failing to keep my new years promise. I decided that 2008 was going to be the year that I stopped caring about halfwits on the television and talent shows generally. Live and let live. This year I was going to be more tolerant of idiots. I said to myself, what does it matter? Live and let live. Stop getting worked up that the public at large on these shows get my back up? What does it matter that programmes like the X-Factor drive me crazy showing deluded people performing like some Victorian freak show? It’s their life; let them get on with it. Then I watched the new BBC ‘talent’ show – The One and Only. Could it possibly be that we have now reached the nadir of reality talent shows? The premise of this padded out monstrosity is that “ordinary” people get the chance at the “big time” by pretending to be famous people. That’s right "Tribute Act Top Trumps." It’s a bit like Stars in their Eyes, except its different. Oh yes, in most respects it’s exactly the same. Donna from Walsall will still be dressing in a mini-dress, putting a wig on and belting out Nutbush City Limits like a crazy nana on a gin rush at a barbecue, however this time she could be going to Las Vegas. To put on a mini-dress, get wigged up and belt out Tina Tuner classics in front of depressed gamblers. Night after night after night. To get her ready for this Groundhog Day like existence the BBC are preparing her by making sure they stretch it out to almost unbelievable like lengths. I’m not a television scheduling expert but my guess is this show will run until just before the next Andrew Lloyd Webber advert for his latest musical, sorry search for a West End star is about to start. I don’t know what they are planning to do next after the success of his shows to find leads for the Sound of Music and Joseph - How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and Any Dream Will Do. My letters of suggestion seem to have gone unanswered. I said he could find a new bloke for Jesus Christ Superstar. Imagine it, Saturday night, 6.30 credits roll for “Jesus – The Second Coming!” Graham Norton bounces on to the stage and asks with a cheeky wink – which is our new Messiah? Will it be Darren who funnily enough is a carpenter’s son? Carl who this week has done that much promotional work all over the country looking for votes he’s almost omnipresent? Or will it be Yusuf? Who despite having the correct skin tone and appearance to play a man who lived in the Middle East probably won’t win because the West End audience really wouldn’t be able to stomach a Muslim playing the lead in a musical about our Lord and Saviour. I haven’t got the heart to write in with my suggestion that the next Phantom should be chosen only from a short list of really ugly people so they could at least enjoy wearing the mask. The whole of “The One and Only” could have been done and dusted in about twenty minutes flat, it was only televised karaoke, but no, the thing took over the whole of Saturday night. The lucky winners representing Tina, Freddie, Frank etc were chosen after a sing off by a panel of “Superfans” for each of the tributed acts. I know tributed isn’t an official word – I’ve just made it up, it feels right. Superfans it seems were just one police caution from being stalkers. Frank Sinatra’s panel included a woman who delivered a deliciously heavily laden hint that she despite being the wrong side of ugly and looking like she smelt of cats had had it away with Ol’ Blue Eyes himself. She splattered at he camera that she had met the man and he was “all man – I can tell you” really? I thought Frank Sinatra was at least a third giraffe? My favourite superfan was a camp guy on watching someone perform as his heroine Madonna noted “the way she held her mic – it was a mirror image of Madonna on the Like a Virgin tour 1985” Spooky hey? A tribute act – acting like the person they’re supposed to be tributing – see it works that word doesn’t it?

In the end my tether was reached when a ginger white kid with glasses won the Lionel Ritchie spot. Even the woman in the “Hello” video would have seen he couldn’t be less like Lionel. Lionel Blair perhaps but not Lionel Ritchie