This week’s digs are simply somebody’s spare room. I’ve stayed in worse, but after a few weeks of this now I’m itching for my own – by which I mean an anonymous – space. The bed is a single, very springy mattress, but the get-in at the theatre was so tiring that I haven’t noticed that too much. What’s harder to ignore is the wiry pubic hairs, conspicuous on the bathroom floor. That, and the terrible smell of cat-shit focused around the kitchen, which is the reason, I assume, for the superabundance of Glade plug-ins, pumping out a continuous and sickly fug of poison, making the place seem like something from the set of Se7en*.
I’ve just stumbled on something I wrote almost exactly two years ago, during the first series of Britain’s Got Talent.
Britain’s Got Talent: you could be forgiven for hiding in anticipation of strangled renditions of Mariah Carey songs and people banging tea trays over their heads, and to be fair there have been instances of both of those kind of thing. On the whole, however, it’s been a refreshing take on the Pop Idol-format, with an interesting diversity of acts, providing some genuine entertainment. There’s been the good, the mawkish (de rigueur on this kind of show, of course, especially on ITV), and the woefully-deluded, but the mix has been good; held together by Ant’n'Dec, who excel in this role, celebrating the talented, sharing our incredulity and hilarity at the bad. The three judges, Piers Morgan, Amanda Holden, and Simon Cowell, have been less irritating than they might, also.
That all changed last night. Last night’s episode was the first of the semi-finals, moving into the studio from the theatres in which the heats had been held. Everything was bubbling along happily until Caroline Boyes entered. For those that haven’t been watching, Caroline presented herself as a hip-hop dancer in the heats. She wasn’t very good, but she certainly wasn’t the worst thing the judges had to endure; she was just having a go, chancing her arm in an open audition, and that’s hardly a crime. Anyway, the judges put her through to the next round.
Last night she presented a pastiche of Madonna’s ‘Vogue’. It was, yes, rubbish, but no one had cause to assume it would be anything else, following her initial audition. Anyone with eyes and ears could see that she wasn’t going to go through to the final, and that she was by far the least talented person on stage that night.
None of that excused the reaction she got. From her first appearance, the audience, who were disconcertingly rowdy throughout the show, started booing, and this became the soundtrack throughout her performance, and beyond. When it came to the judges’ comments, Amanda Holden seemed unnecessarily brittle and dismissive, while Simon Cowell was just cruel, in a way that went far beyond his ‘Mr Nasty’ persona. What had been a fun show suddenly turned sour. Ant’n'Dec encouraged Caroline to respond, but the poor woman was incapable of finding the words, cast, as she suddenly was, as the studio fool and pariah. The reaction to her was simply out of all proportion to what she had presented.
What ITV broadcast last night was the distasteful spectacle of a woman in her 50s, and of above average weight, being abused for her presumption in getting up on stage. Her talent, or lack of, should have been the sole criteria for judging her, but instead became a fig-leaf for a display of cruelty and misogyny that demeaned everyone involved, including the viewer at home. The producers should force the judges to watch again the performance and their responses, making it clear that they stepped over a line, and the audience should be reigned in, their contribution made more proportionate; even during those acts that they enjoyed, such as Paul Potts, one of the finalists, they screamed and wailed throughout, as though Jesus Christ himself had appeared with a promise for each of eternal bliss. They’re encouraged, of course, to respond in this way; it’s a cheap way of adding some sensation to the show, but it yields diminishing returns. If everything is met with riotous ecstasy, what response to give the truly brilliant? What response the untalented get has, sadly, been answered.
I hope the remaining episodes will display a different character. I hope the production team feel as I do; everyone involved should feel ashamed at their involvement. There is no credit in selecting a winner of a competition in which we all, by displays like last night, have made ourselves losers.
I don’t really need to draw the parallel. We’ve seen it played out again in extremis. Reading that again, it’s strange to think that I watched and, on the whole, enjoyed the first series, before it turned to wholesale bear-baiting. But watching that clip again was depressing – mainly for the calculated way that woman was elevated, purely in order to knock her down, but also for Amanda Holden’s astonishing, oblivious presumption in telling someone else that their fifteen minutes of fame were up. Physician, heal thyself!
In lieu of a conclusion, I’m going to point you towards this summation of the vile harvest Susan Boyle reaped recently, because it pulls it all together far better than I would, and remember that Clive James once wrote that people are not to be despised just because their dreams are cheap.
When I used to stage manage for a living, an easy way of easing a few laughs from the week was to turn to the back of The Stage and chuckle at the worst examples of the lookalike ads. Well, who needs paper anymore?
