It was week 2 of the live shows and it’s hard to see any real stars in this lot who are any where near the standard currently being set by last year’s winner, Leona Lewis.
As expected, Sharon Osborne was back on the show after last week walking out. Not another cynical publicity stunt? No, surely not.
The common tactic of the judges now when wanting to attack each other is to slate the song choice. So rather than talk about the performance, they prefer to talk about the song choice, ie themselves. What with that and the whole Louis firing & re-hiring, the tabloid tales of rivalry between Dannii and Sharon, as well as Sharon’s walk out, you’d have to conclude that the drama is shifting to the panel this year because the talent just isn’t up to scratch.
That said, I did enjoy Rhydian’s mad performance and actually thought Andy’s version of Night Fever was excellent despite the panning it got from the judges for being just like a karaoke performance. Leon was much better than last week and was working the camera in fine style with his rendition of Michael Buble’s “Home”. Emily tried to put some more personality into her performance and I thought to myself after that I wished she hadn’t. And what was with those mad eyes.
After the votes were counted, the bottom two were Alisha (for the second week) and Daniel. Daniel looked bitterly gutted to be there and hinted he blamed the song but honestly, there was hardly any discernible voice there. Sharon suggested he’d be better suited to a boy band. If only he was still a boy, that may be half decent advice. The judges decided to send Daniel home.
Next week the theme is Big Band - I’m hoping Michael Buble might be the celebrity guest!
The unique Russell Brand started his new show last night with a look at childhood.
The program was brilliant stand up from the living legend himself, interspersed with TV clips, such as the rick pickings of old public safety videos, that Brand was able to tease every comedic angle out of.
It reminding me slightly of a high octane version of the Bob Mills’ classic, In Bed With Me Dinner. With all the tabloid shenanigans, it’s easy to forget that Brand is actually one of the funniest comics we have at the moment. Ponderland reminds us of what he does best.
Another knockout performance from Michael Buble, this time performing “It Had Better Be Tonight”, from his recently released album, Call Me Irresponsible. Did you notice the alteration he made to the song’s lyrics?
He should have sung:
For this poor Americano
Who knows little of your speech
Be a nice Italiano
And start to teach
But instead, it was:
For this poor Canadiano
Who knows little of your speech
Be a nice Americano
And start to teach
Cute touch! The album is amazing by the way - definitely one I recommend.
Eugh. Westlife. I didn’t mind them once upon a time, but what’s all this about: releasing a cover version of Michael Buble’s “Home”, which is only a couple of years old and their version is no different certainly no better. By all means stick some cover songs on your album as filler, but to release it as the first single of a new album is a bit pathetic. Have they really got so little to contribute musically that this is what they come up with?
Anyways, check them out singing it on Strictly Come Dancing recently. Notice how very little Nicky and Kian do, but how much effort they put into doing it. It’s actually quite funny.
I missed The Tudors on Friday night, and it thought it looked quite good so made a mental note to download it from BBC iPlayer. So I had a look on the BBC iPlayer website for it and what do I find? Nothing. The Tudors is not available to download through BBC iPlayer.
So rather than offer quality drama, that presumably we licence fee payers helped pay for, I did instead have available such delights as Dale Winton’s In It To Win It and some dross with Anthea Turner.
The BBC spent a long time developing and testing iPlayer but what’s the point of it if only selected programs are available. Pop over to ITV.com instead and never mind all the iPlayer pollava - just click and watch live TV from the ITV network, as well as recent and classic archives. Perfect.