Sunday, July 18, 2004
Stars. In Their Eyes, Anyway.
It was car crash television on ITV last night - in the sense that you longed for a car to come crashing through the studio and kill, or at least seriously injure all those involved - as the latest Stars in Their Eyes: Celebrity Special was broadcast for our entertainment. We're not totally sure how they got away with using the term 'Celebrity' though, as the people involved were only just above the level of "Members of the Public" in the grand scheme of things. We're pretty sure that, thanks to our appearance in a Scotland Today news report when we were 14, we are more famous than at least two of the people involved. When rubbish news reader Penny Smith is your biggest draw then you know that you've got problems.
First up was Some Girl From Emmerdale, Or Was it Crossroads? who peformed Rachel Steven's Sweet Dreams, My LA Ex. And by 'performed', we mean absolutely murdered. She didn't even vaguely sound like the track's singer, i.e. Cathy Dennis, but did look suitably pretty in a black dress. Things can only get better we thought to ourselves, that was until Some Bloke Who We Have No Idea What He Was In came on stage and decided to dress up as Marti Pellow and do Love is All Around. Why? Out of all the fantastic music that exists in the world and all the popstars that you could dress up like and pretend to be, why on earth would you choose Marti Pellow? Even Marti Pellow wouldn't choose Marti Pellow. Wet Wet Wet were a band that were so godawful he had to turn to heroin to numb the pain of knowing that he was the lead singer in Wet Wet Wet, something we can totally relate to as we very nearly turned to heroin ourselves during Love is All Around's stranglehold at the top of the charts. Blokey doing him was almost as rubbish as Mr Pellow, which we guess makes his performance a success. He certainly had Mr Pellow's smug look down pat.
Penny Smith is allegedly a serious newscaster, but she does work for GMTV so her higher respectability level is only in relation to the shower of people that they insist on calling presenters. Even so, you'd think that she'd try and keep what little credibility she had left and not embarass herself on national television. Sorry, not embarass herself more on national television. As it was though, she decided to dress up as Debbie Harry and perform Denis. Badly. Lookswise she didn't exactly hit the spot either, her wig making her look more like Marilyn, and we're talking about the 80's popstar here, not Miss Monroe. Her dancing was even worse as the camera watched her as she jived arythmically behind the mic stand like... like... well, like Debbie Harry now, so at least she got part of it right.
Penultimate act was Tim Healy who, for reasons best known to himself, decided to dress up as Jack Nicholson from The Shining and perform Joe Cocker's You Are So Beautiful. The least said about this, the better, so we'll move swiftly on to the final act which was Kym Marsh's Boyfriend doing Justin Timberlake. Not in that sense of the word, although he did totally fuck over everything Justin has ever done. His performance basically consisted of him putting on a rubbish American accent, singing in falsetto and dancing quite badly. He'd apparantly asked Kym Marsh for advice on how to be a good popstar, though we reckon he'd probably have been better off asking his milkman and, judging by his performance, that was exactly what he did.
Winners? Well, officially Kym Marsh's Boyfriend won, but as The Audience, The Performers and Music Itself can all be said to have lost badly, it must be something of a pyrrhic victory. The only real winner was the host, Cat Deeley, who came out of it looking extremely attractive, talented and entertaining, simply by virtue of her not singing, so hooray for Cat! Hooray!
First up was Some Girl From Emmerdale, Or Was it Crossroads? who peformed Rachel Steven's Sweet Dreams, My LA Ex. And by 'performed', we mean absolutely murdered. She didn't even vaguely sound like the track's singer, i.e. Cathy Dennis, but did look suitably pretty in a black dress. Things can only get better we thought to ourselves, that was until Some Bloke Who We Have No Idea What He Was In came on stage and decided to dress up as Marti Pellow and do Love is All Around. Why? Out of all the fantastic music that exists in the world and all the popstars that you could dress up like and pretend to be, why on earth would you choose Marti Pellow? Even Marti Pellow wouldn't choose Marti Pellow. Wet Wet Wet were a band that were so godawful he had to turn to heroin to numb the pain of knowing that he was the lead singer in Wet Wet Wet, something we can totally relate to as we very nearly turned to heroin ourselves during Love is All Around's stranglehold at the top of the charts. Blokey doing him was almost as rubbish as Mr Pellow, which we guess makes his performance a success. He certainly had Mr Pellow's smug look down pat.
Penny Smith is allegedly a serious newscaster, but she does work for GMTV so her higher respectability level is only in relation to the shower of people that they insist on calling presenters. Even so, you'd think that she'd try and keep what little credibility she had left and not embarass herself on national television. Sorry, not embarass herself more on national television. As it was though, she decided to dress up as Debbie Harry and perform Denis. Badly. Lookswise she didn't exactly hit the spot either, her wig making her look more like Marilyn, and we're talking about the 80's popstar here, not Miss Monroe. Her dancing was even worse as the camera watched her as she jived arythmically behind the mic stand like... like... well, like Debbie Harry now, so at least she got part of it right.
Penultimate act was Tim Healy who, for reasons best known to himself, decided to dress up as Jack Nicholson from The Shining and perform Joe Cocker's You Are So Beautiful. The least said about this, the better, so we'll move swiftly on to the final act which was Kym Marsh's Boyfriend doing Justin Timberlake. Not in that sense of the word, although he did totally fuck over everything Justin has ever done. His performance basically consisted of him putting on a rubbish American accent, singing in falsetto and dancing quite badly. He'd apparantly asked Kym Marsh for advice on how to be a good popstar, though we reckon he'd probably have been better off asking his milkman and, judging by his performance, that was exactly what he did.
Winners? Well, officially Kym Marsh's Boyfriend won, but as The Audience, The Performers and Music Itself can all be said to have lost badly, it must be something of a pyrrhic victory. The only real winner was the host, Cat Deeley, who came out of it looking extremely attractive, talented and entertaining, simply by virtue of her not singing, so hooray for Cat! Hooray!
