Pineapple-shaped hole

Jedward may be out of The X Factor but there's hope yet for Sunday night talent-show TV
SWITCH ON: This touching band of home-grown acts is just what we need

What are the chances of next month's Budget stumping up for a Jedward helpline? Not high, I imagine, what with the biblical floods and overstretched welfare system rattling their collection boxes.

Fans of the terrible twins will have to deal with withdrawal symptoms on their own, bolstered perhaps by their appearance at a supermarket opening near you.

To paraphrase Jedward's special rendering of the Ghostbusters ditty: So now who you gonna call?

Luckily, RTE have stepped in to fill the pineapple-shaped hole left by Jedward's X-it from X Factor. Behold, they give us: The All-Ireland Talent Show!

That sounds sarcastic but it is absolutely not meant to be.

While Jedward prepared to make their last contribution to the gaiety of the nation on Sunday night, RTE One were airing the first episode of this season's All-Ireland Talent Show. RTE have cleverly scheduled their show to be over by 7.30pm so it's not in direct competition with the 8pm X Factor kick-off. That would be plain dumb.

And -- whisper it -- it wasn't half bad. I would go so far as to say that the All-Ireland Talent Show is what we need from reality TV right now. It's like the anti-X Factor. (In the same way that Daithi O Se is the anti-Simon Cowell. Who is in turn the anti-Christ. Maybe.)

The X Factor can be tiresome and nasty. Who needs to hear another sub-Mariah poppet with acrylic hair extensions warbling her way through a power ballad? Jedward went from jeers to cheers because they challenged the jaded cynicism of the show. They smiled through the vitriol and abuse.

Maybe two years ago we would have been mortified by them. Look at those eejits making a show of Ireland, we'd have thought. But I guess in the end we admired their mindless good cheer.

On the basis of its first episode, the All-Ireland Talent Show is going to take that perky perspective and run even further with it.

The star of Sunday's show was a middle-aged man whose dream was to win €50,000 grand prize so he might help his children, several of whom have been consigned to the dole by the current economic crisis.

He told his story quietly before unleashing a sweet, soulful voice only slightly vibrating with nerves. Blathnaid Ni Chofaigh and her fellow judges asked why he had waited this long to let his voice be heard.

"I didn't have the confidence," he said, clearly embarrassed by his own modest ambitions.

It was a touching moment but never got to the point of sentimentality. It felt very good indeed to watch people being treated with respect, dignity and sensitivity. Similarly, an incident where Blathnaid welled up was not over-milked. A young woman sang an old tune that reminded Blathnaid of her recently-deceased father. Blathnaid, normally the epitome of the stern mammy, had a little cry, dabbed her eyes and the show went on.

I hope the Talent Show doesn't prove me wrong in future episodes, but it doesn't seem to be going for the usual array of mentally unstable unfortunates that the X Factor likes to showcase in its early auditions.

The scope of its 'variety entertainment' brief helps. Not everyone who comes on it wants to be the next Leona Lewis or Shayne Ward. Which is a blessed relief because if I hear one more take on Eva Cassidy's version of Over the Rainbow I might have to go out and punch some bluebirds.

There are hip-hop dance groups, family acts and trad performers, six-year-old cuties belting out Bon Jovi hits and gentle old men taking a tentative chance. Some might think it's parochial; I think it's quintessentially Irish.

This is our community and now, more than at any other time in the past 20 years, we need to be rooting for each other. Go, team Ireland!
- Susan Daly

From The Evening Herald, http://www.herald.ie/opinion/jedward-may-be-out-of-the-x-factor-but-theres-hope-yet-for-sunday-night-talentshow-tv-1952111.html

Simon Scowl - oh yes he is

So I find these yes/no opinion pairings in news analysis pages a lot of fun to write. Okay, so the X-Factor isn't exactly *hard* news - but it did give me the chance to go head-to-head with Evening Herald TV critic Pat Stacey yesterday.

The topic was : ‘It’s real’: but while the tears and tantrums make for great TV, is any of it real?

I was to argue on the YES side...

http://www.herald.ie/opinion/lsquoitrsquos-realrsquo-but-while-the-tears-and-tantrums-make-for-great-tv-is-any-of-it-real-1938667.html

By Susan Daly

Tuesday November 10 2009

It's easy to presume that there is nothing natural about The X Factor. Jedward's hairstyles, for starters, utterly defy the laws of gravity.

So much of the programme has to be about the glitz, the costumes, the half-naked dancers, the pantomime boos and cheers. This is, after all, the biz we call show.

Everyone's on show -- but that doesn't mean that everything is for show. The judges stand accused of making up their on-screen spats to garner headlines and create drama. What we might forget is that The X Factor is just a day at the office for the likes of Simon Cowell and Dannii Minogue.

Okay, most of us don't go to work in a cocktail dress in a fog of dry ice. But that doesn't mean that what happens on The X Factor is totally unreal -- it's just a heightened form of reality.

The office politics on the show are essentially the same being played out in workplaces across the country. Petty jealousies, bitchy remarks behind the boss's back, style wars between the women: we can all relate to those everyday irritations.

As far as Cheryl Cole was concerned, when Simon Cowell attacked her song choice for her boys Rikki and Lloyd in Diva Week, it was an attack on how she she was doing in her first job away from Girls Aloud. Hers weren't crocodile tears. When Simon likened his female judges to strippers, did they really need an autocue to tell them to be offended? Dannii's brow furrowed in disgust and, let's face it, that's not going to happen on demand.

Even the whole Simon Scowl persona is the real deal: Cowell did not get to where he has in the music business without reminding everyone exactly who's boss.
If Simon is the villain, Louis Walsh often gets accused of playing the pantomime dame.
In his years on The X Factor, he's had a drink thrown over him by Sharon Osbourne, he's been fired and rehired -- all good publicity.

But when he defends himself, he's defending his career. When he accused Cowell of bending the brief of Big Bands Week to suit his own agenda, he had a valid point. (Simon allowed his own charge, Jamie 'Afro' Archer, to sing U2, who are not what you could describe as kings of swing). It is not only the contestants on stage who want to win X Factor, there is a cachet in it for the judges too.

As for the latest row, in which Louis, a music manager for 30 years, slapped down host Dermot O'Dreary with: "You're not a judge, you're a presenter" ... Well, isn't that the hierarchy in workplaces everywhere? Stick to making the tea, young man.


AND this was Pat's big fat NO back at me...
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/lsquocome-off-itrsquo-but-while-the-tears-and-tantrums-make-for-great-tv-is-any-of-it-real-1938712.html