X Factor (Week 5) - Farce Makes Crusty Lose Interest

Week 5 of the competition arrived on our screens and this week was all about Movies.

The Ballroom was an inappropriate choice to watch such an extravaganza. As one has a 20 seat cinema in Crusty Hall itself, one thought there could be no better place in which to soak up the cinemalicious performances from our potential superstar poppets; nibbles were laid out and bottles of delicious Pere Ventura Cava was put on ice to enjoy throughout.

As the theme to Star Wars echoed out across the studio, the hangar doors opened and out stepped our four judges. Simon and Louise were well turned out again. Danniiiiii opted for the Princess Leia look without the oatmeal baps stuck to each side of her head and Cheryl y-nailed-it Cole successfully pulled off Chewbacca in black cocktail dress and heels.

As the judges were helped to their seats, the competition started and first on stage was Dolly Dagenham singing ‘Son of a Preacher Man’. Due to the nature of song - and the iconic stamp placed on it by Dusty Springfield - it was important for Stacey to become sexy and - despite not having achieved this himself - Yoda Friedman gave her a appropriately choreographed routine and wardrobe poured her into, what looked like, a PVC cat suit. With the accompanying cardigan draped provocatively down one arm she sizzled like a piece of sirloin steak on a George Forman grill, with equally delicious lines.

Oily Mares filled the stage next with an entourage of dancers, for the ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ song ‘Twist and Shout’, by the Beatles. As he belted out a comfortable interpretation of this well covered classic his little turkey legs were working overtime, like a pair of pinball machine flappers in leather upper footwear.

After the strong vocals of Oily, it was the time for he who hits 7½ on the tottyometer, Lloyd no-relation-to-Paul Daniels.

Chewbacca’s song choice for him was ‘Stand by Me’ and initially one thought it would be perfect for his vocal range and tone. However, Crusty was wrong and despite a valiant effort the song seemed flat and soulless. During the song, one saw him walk from the stage towards Cheryl and one shouted, in increasing crescendo,” Don’t you dare hold her hand, dear! DON’T YOU DARE! DOOOOONNN’T ….” And then he did! At that all important point of bile-wrenching, artificial sentimentality one is quite sure one felt a little bit of sick in the back of one’s throat.

Dannnniiiiii Minge (sorry, my keyboard’s sticking) pointed out that Lloyd had a certain range he could sing in (after that performance, dear the only range one could think of was a one with rifles in it).

Jamie Archer performed next with the Roy Orbison and Joe Melson classic ‘Crying’ from the films ‘Gummo’ (1997) and David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Drive’ (though in the latter it was translated to Spanish and titled ‘Llorando’). An adequate Aerosmith performance was produced (and minus table wear dragging along behind, which was a boon). Sadly, Louise thought the theme of the week was Movies that Louis Walsh Has Seen and accused Simon of cheating as he hadn’t seen the movies in question.

Our blossoming pop vixen of the valleys, Lucie Jones, was on stage next and gave an outstanding performance of a song from the film ‘Camp Rock’ (No, one hasn’t hear of it either, dear). She was totally at ease with herself and her voice was pop perfection. Even Simon told her it was the first time she had made herself relevant in the contest.

In the introduction to our next act, Simon told us, “It’s about time this got back to being a singing competition”; Danyl Johnson (he with a penchant for man-biscuit as well as lady-trifle) was up.

One has never particularly liked ‘Purple Rain’ when it has been sung by Prince (Thimble Jean, or whatever he’s calling himself these day) but one must say Danyl – dressed in his tight fitting black ensemble and his new short cropped haircut – gave Crusty a rather pleasing leg-buckler as one sat enthralled by his slot.

The Brothers Grime were on next and after murdering so many well known favourites over the weeks since the competition started, it was appropriate that they sang ‘Ghostbusters’. In true Jedward style, they failed to hit the cue for the start of the song, their voices never seemed to meet up at the cocktail party of harmony and it was quite hilarious watching them as they jerked to a pause to make sure both were at the correct marker before embarking on their next collection of Yoda-inspired dance steps. All with an albino Mr Blobby boogieing on down in the background.

As Daannniiiii gave her judgement over the noise of the audience, “You either sing or you’re crap”, she said.

One shouted, “Well, they’re quite obviously crap, dear!” Then Chu Me pointed out she’d actually said, “…or you rap.” Nevertheless, one still stands by one’s original verdict.

Suddenly, one began to feel a little warm and one was aglow with perspiration; one’s heart began to beat faster. One made a quick grab for one’s fan and cooling down, one wondered what on earth was happening. Then it all became clear … the final act of the evening was our gorgeous South Shields sexpot, Joe McElderry. During the video sequence he had visited – as had the others – the premier of ‘A Christmas Carol’ and as he stood on the red carpet, it was difficult to tell which was the brighter; the thousands of photographer’s flashbulbs or juicy Joe’s smile.

His interpretation of ‘Circle of Life’ was sublime and even my pussy, Crotchet, sitting in the chair at one’s side was flicking his tail in time to the music and purring loudly with contentment.

Louise was confused because it was a song from musical theatre (another film he clearly hadn’t seen, bless him). Then as the delicious Dermott responded to Louise’s comment, Ms Walsh threw her clutch purse to the floor and shouted, “You’re not a judge. I’m a judge and you’re a presenter!”

Outrageous!! Indeed he is a presenter, but I think Ms Walsh will find it is Dermott’s skill in that field that is keeping this rather piss-poor attempt at a talent competition from sinking into the abyss of poo it is sailing over. One can go to any bingo hall in England and drag out four people who could jibber-jabber and talk utter bollocks on a weekly basis and I think Louise should remember that or go back to reading Kerrang.

The results show arrived on Sunday evening and the acts in the bottom two were The Brothers Grime and the lovely Lucie Jones. An ideal opportunity to rid the nation of the Bill and Ben of pop had arrived. Simon assured the nation that they would forget everything that had happened previously and they would decide from their performances in the sing off.

Lucie sang a Whitney the Poo number absolutely beautifully and Jedward decided on Robbie Williams ‘Rock DJ’. They bounced annoyingly around the stage, their vocals being drowned out/camouflaged* (* - delete as appropriate) by the backing track and singers. Judges were fooled; “You vocals really came together”.

For some obscure reason the judgements followed in the same order; Louise, Dannniiiii, Cheryl then Simon. Then, for some even more obscure reason our mulit-million pound, musical, cut-throat genius Simon couldn’t decide between the fabulous voice of Lucie (‘it’s about time it got back to becoming a singing competition’ [Simon Cowell]) and The Brothers Grime (‘We’ve established you can’t sing’[Simon Cowell]), so put it to the public vote and DEADLOCK. Outrageous!!!

It was at that moment, Lucie realised what was about to happen and covered her beautiful face with her hands. Lucie was out of the competition!

The audience were incensed and so was Crusty. Indeed, Chu Me is still cleaning the residue of the thirteen smoked salmon and cream cheese vol-au-vents one catapulted at Simon’s face from one’s seat from the cinema screen.

Later, on X Factor Extra, Simon tried to justify his decision to Holly Wobbley in a smarmy, patronising manner attempting to make the audience believe if he had had money on it, he really thought it was going to go the other way. As voting had effortlessly kept Satan’s sons in the competition so far, one thinks he is either extremely naïve or not the music genius we have all been led to believe.