Sunday, November 07, 2004
2 Have Gone
Last night 2 To Go lived up to their name and were booted off the show quite unceremoniously, failing to get even the support of their own manager in their face off with Voices With Soul, but then, they're probably better off without it as Louis seemed intent on turning them into a cabaret act - had they got any further, we'd have put good money on feathers beginning to get involved in Emma's costume - and his patronising comments towards Peter - "The poor guy is blind and he can play instruments - really didn't help matters either. Of course, what else didn't help was the fact that their performance wasn't about to set sparks flying and was more likely to encourage people to pick up their remote controls rather than their phones. It was also tempting fate somewhat to perform a song, I've Had the Time of My Life, which would synch up perfectly with a montage of your best moments once you've been kicked off of the show.
Voices With Soul weren't much better, to be fair. Their performance of Bridge Over Troubled Water was distinctly lacking in harmony, although judging by the apparent silkiness, their collection of haircare products certainly wasn't, but they were certainly in a different league to 2 To Go, even if that league is more Vauxhall Conference than First Division.
As for the rest of the show, picking highlights isn't exactly an easy task, though we did think that Kate Thornton was looking very lovely in her red dress. The acts themselves seemed to be performing at a very low level, with only Steve doing a good job with his rendition of Smile. Sharon's Cassie, did Say a Little Prayer with all the heartfelt emotion you'd expect of someone who doesn't have a great deal of life experience while Louis's final act, G4 fell off the tightwalk of talent into the safety pool of novelty with their version of Britney's ...Baby, One More Time. Rowetta bellowed out Somewhere Over The Rainbow with all the subtlety of an angry warthog and Tabby decided to open the show with Addicted to Love performing with all the skill and talent of the singer in a vaguely competent covers band and looking for all the world like he was just about to utter the dread phrase "And now we're going to do one of our own songs". Also, his squealed "I'm addicted!" just before he went into his guitar solo may well rank as one of the most cringeworthy moments on television this year.
The show does seem to be stumbling from strength to kitten-like punyness, turning, as all these kind of shows end up, into a slightly more profitable pub kareoke competition. We're still wanting G4 to win, as they're the only people there doing anything that even vaguely stands out, but even so, our enthusiasm is gradually being sapped by the utter banality of the show, and we don't know how much longer Kate looking pretty is going to hold our attention...
