Bootcamp Pt2. The Top 24

Lucy Spraggan gets to start Bootcamp Pt2 as the judges look at individual performances and we see much more of what some of the contenders can do. She comes out with another of her own sparky little compositions. She ought to work with Dennis Potter on some series with that witty and delightfully accurate observation of daily life. She'll make the Judges' Houses, I'm sure and could be an entertaining act on the live shows but it will be as entertainment rather than a potential winner in the Girls category.

Rylan's track is far too loud to hear his voice and it's not an impressive performance. He's a likeable character, playing the Essex card as well as the gay card well. Again, an entertainment act, not a winning act. Gathan appears and then disappears. Odd bit of editing.

Jahmene has a melt down so we see what's left of MK1 instead. Pretty average and uninspiring. the girl can do better than that, I'm sure. Again, no winner there.

Triple J, Melanie Masson, Chris Maloney and Carolynne Poole come go, all doing kinda OK acts and you get the feeling they're safe enough. Kye Sones, though, is the first real act that really hits you and makes you think Hey, this guy's good!

From Above won't survive, way out of tune. Jade Ellis seems nervous but has some touches of quality in the performance. Not sure what to make of her at the moment.

Joe Whelan has a good vocal performance, as do Times Red, looking and sounding pretty good.

James Arthur, in glasses and looking big and much healthier than before, is relaxed and just excellent. He has to make the live shows on how he's doing so far - a really talented guy.

Leanne Robinson we haven't seen much of so far but she's attractive and hits all the right notes too, with signs of more than just natural talent but some sort fo training and experience too.

Adam Burridge sounds cool. Not so sure where he fits in but a decent act.

Ella Henderson is the last we get to see. She sings Believe, the Cher track that first introduced the world to autotune. This was a stunning performance of the track, totally different and this girl is going to be extremely difficult to beat. Only 16, too. This week someone had sorted out her hairstyle so much better too so she looked more 26 than 36. I reckon it could be between her and James Arthur. I know they haven't even made it through Judges' Houses yet but they are both that strong.

Now we get to learn the actual Final 24. This is the really important cut when 24 acts will get a chance to perform and get to know their mentor and make a real impression as to what they're really capable of and show whether they've the range of talents to get through to the live rounds and the personality and reliability needed for shows where emotions will run high and the public will expect to be entertained too.

We also learn, through a call from Simon Cowell in the States, just showing who's still boss, who gets to mentor which categories.

Nicole gets the Boys:
James Arthur
Jahmene
Nathan
Adam
Rylan
Jake

In Xtra Factor, Nicole gives a clear indication that she thinks James is the artist, is hoping that Jake will be the one for the girls and eithet Nathan or Ryland for entertainment.

Tulisa gets the Girls
Ella
Amy
Jade Collins
Jade Ellis
Leanne
Lucy

Tulisa sees Ella as the clear winner and admires Lucy. My guess is that she'll add Leanne to the mix. Whether one of the Jades replaces Lucy at the end of the day remains to be seen.

Gary gets the Over 28s
Kye Sones
Melanie Masson
Nicola Marie
Brad Shackleton
Carolynne Poole
Christopher Maloney

Gary has some strong acts. He favours Kye, Chris and will need the third to be either Carolynne or Melanie. Nicola and Brad, I fear, can assume they've got as far as they're going to go.

Louis gets the Groups
MITSOTU
Duke
MK1
Poisonous Twin
Rough Copy
GMD3

GMD3 won through a sing off with Triple J. That was a close call. You had to feel sorry for Triple J. I wonder if they'll get the call when Rough Copy can't travel to Louis' place?

This is one mixed bag and not the make-up I'd expected at all. Rough Copy would walk away with winning in this category but won't so at present it has to be GMD3 that are likely to make the running. Duke we have seen so little of but Louis has high regard for them. MITSOTU too seem to have caught his eye but will he, as usual include the novelty act to bring on the fun? If so then we'll have to put up with Poisonous Twin a bit longer.

So now we know.

X Factor UK returns with more hair

So here we go again. Either Peter Dickson was speaking more quietly than usual or the letters were smaller but this was a classier start than usual and Dermot O'Leary is in there at the start, along with Olly Murs in fine form, on video at least, with Caroline and the judges.

This year for Kelly Rowland read Nicole Scherzinger which could be confusing for American readers, especially when X Factor USA kicks off soon. Nicole steered the excellent and not immediately marketable Josh Krajick to 2nd place in America's version, (Simon winning, naturally, with Melanie Amaro) and if she can actually make her mind up and keep back the tears a bit while she's over here then she's likely to be an improvement on her predecessor. Gary seems a little less desperate to impress, Tulisa looks older but still very pretty and Louis has more hair in several shades of grey. He is so fortunate that Simon isn't on the panel.

The show was under way really quickly and someone calling himself Sheyi takes the stage with a big smile, great manners and obvious talent. A natural entertainer but for some reason he rasped away in a bad impression of Louis Armstrong in tight trousers which no-one in their right minds would expect to get through. I'm convinced that this was some kind of set up - maybe they didn't have anyone amusing and reasonable for the first act so got this guy to act up for a few grand. Two reasons: one, when he dropped out of the rasping growl voice for the intermittent 'yay' or 'hey' you heard a decent and absolutely in tune voice, the sort you'd expect from someone like him and, two, my daughter tells me that he's Deputy Head Boy at Royal Latin School in Buckingham, or was last year, and that's neither his name nor his style. She also rather doubted that he worked at Nandos in London - Milton Keyenes, maybe - or came from Camden. Camden does sound cooler than Buchingham, though.

We moved on and someone with a name like Feckton sings Freedom pretty well, Rick's a fireman with red blotches and gets through as does Tasha with a nice tone and a first glimpse of some real talent. Then comes Jahmene Douglas. You think he's going to be the joke act and whine a lot or something. He has a nervous laugh at the end of each short sentence and long ones seem to be beyond him. The shiny grey suit is worrying too, looking like something someone bought for him and poured him into before feeding him up.

Then the guy sings. At Last is a pretty smart song at the best of times and he is just brilliant. Every note absolutely spot on, a totally natural singer. Outstanding voice but I don't know - despite all the raves from everyone there - how will he fare as the stages progress and can we really, honestly, imagine this chap dancing to an Abba song or whatever they get the poor contestants to do on the Live Shows? Writing this rather later than I should did give me the befit of a peek at some odds and the bookies have him as an early favourite so I guess he's safely through for a while yet.

We get a better chunk of Peter Dickson now with some competition that doesn't even have a question to answer. Eh?

Zoe does a Pink tribute not particularly well, despite a build up that made us think she'd be a good act. There's some nasty behaviour as she storms off and you do have to wonder whether the return of Brian Fieldman to direct the shows has had an influence on upping the drama.

Off to Manchester next and we get Scary Spice Mel B in various shades of strange orange being particularly grumpy with almost everyone. To be fair, they all deserved it and it was quite refreshing to see a judge telling acts that they weren't much good instead of pussy-footing around as most of the others have tended to do for fear of breaking some Single Equality Act regulation.

The one that didn't get the grumps was Ella Henderson who sang one of her own compositions. Now that's a brave move anyway but both her writing and her singing are damn good. Perhaps she will find herself aligned with Adele too much and it is to be hoped that she can pull herself away from that overdone genre. One class act and another tip for the top.

These are, though, very early days. It is, thank heavens, a long time 'til Christmas and the Final! I suspect there will be more contenders than the two everyone is talking about this week.

Lady Gaga to Kitty: "Let's Go Get A Drink!"

It really looked as though Janet might well have come to the end of the line but reliable sources tell me that she has, actually, been consistently top in all the voting polls throughout the live shows and so she stayed out of the bottom two after all.

That left Misha and Kitty to do battle. Kitty gave us a good but not really inspiring version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow and Misha produced a wonderful Who You Are, the Jessie J number in response that was better in all respects. I half hoped that it might go to deadlock with Kitty possibly getting saved with a higher number of votes but it didn't work out that way and it was her turn to go.

On the Xtra Factor later this evening, though, there was more than a little comfort for Kitty when Lady Gaga, in a wonderfully unscripted move, surprised everyone by giving her a huge sympathetic hug and then saying "Let's go get a drink!" And they did just that. any hope that Ollie and Caroline may have had planned to interview the superstar disappeared so I wouldn't be at all surprised if we hear a great deal more of Kitty and she'll get plenty of opportunities to put on some of the shows that I firmly believe she'll do well and, to be honest, she'll do just as well with a bit of help from Lady Gaga as she would from the show which she was not likely to win anyway.

The other news is that Amelia has now shot to become the bookies favourite, down to just 4-1 on Betfair, above Marcus after last night's amazing come-back. I still don't see where Craig fits in to all this and, if no-one does anything disastrous next week, that may be his last, leaving just Marcus to handle all the girls.

X Factor UK: Bootcamp 2 - The final 32 selected (and it's not who you thought)

Even if you paid attention during the second Bootcamp show and carefully listened to the judges, Olly and Caroline on Xtra Factor you still wouldn't have got the right list of acts going through to the Judges' Houses stage. In fact, you wouldn't have even seen Holly Ripton before but there she is - in the Girls last 8. And who's that with her? Sarah Watson. Who? Uh huh - another you won't recognise.

The shows did, though, at last, show us most of the chosen acts and enough of them actually performing to convince us either that they well deserved their places abroad for a few weeks or didn't but they're going anyway and we can just hope that they don't make the final 3 and appear on the live shows when idiots could start voting for them and they might stay even longer.

You needed to watch The Xtra Factor  to get the best information in what is proving to be a considerably better production than in previous years. 

So, here are the (possibly!) last 32 acts for X Factor UK 2011. If there are no more surprises then these should be cut down to a final 12 so this is as far as 5 acts in each set will go. 

Girls (Kelly Rowland)

Misha, Janet and Jade are the likely Live Show stars and I have a feeling that Misha and Jade will give us all plenty to giggle about in tweets about clothing.

Boys (Gary Barlow)

Frankie and James are the front runners in the Boys but every one except John Wilding and Luke Lucas are strong contenders and all of them seem to be able to perform well.

Groups (Tulisa)

Goodness knows what is happening in Group Land! The only original groups to get through are Estrella, The Keys, Girl v Boy and 2 Shoes. Thankfully Kendro didn't make it. So there has been a massive construction job with solo contestants that didn't make it to their respective last 8s. This has usefully given another chance to a few who deserve to be there although quite how they'll fare in bands which, from most of the quotes from the judges during the shows, have been decided on how they look together! Good grief. Even as we watched the last of the tears been wiped away at the end of the Bootcamp Show, however, we didn't actually have the full story.

Rhythmix is actually made up of Jade and LeAnn picked from Orion, a band that had been put together by the judges at Bootcamp. Jessie and Perry joined from Faux Pas, which had also been created from solo contestants somewhere along the line. Obviously neither Onion nor Faux Pas had worked and Rhythmix is a much better name anyway. You have to feel sorry for the other contestants in Onion and Faux Pas, though, not just for the names of the bands they were momentarily having to be in but having been given that 'lifeline' in Bootcamp 1 it must have been pretty sad finding half of their band went through and they didn't after all that.

Overs (Louis)

What can I say? Oh dear. Only Louis could possibly look pleased with this strange bunch. Kitty and Carolynn have a lot of potential. Terry and Samantha can sing well but just don't strike me as being the sort of act that sells records other than at Christmas. Johnny is hilarious to watch but surely we're not going to see him in the Live Shows? Joe and JonJo are decent enough blokes but they're lucky to have a free bit of sunshine. And, yes, there's Goldie. As Louis said "I can't imagine a show without Goldie!" That just about sums that up then. at least there's no Wagner.

  

X Factor UK: Bootcamp 1 Hello Goodbye

I hadn't realised that there was enough grass in Croydon, South London, for over 200 X Factor contestants in the 186 acts who'd made it through to bootcamp. But there they all were and, on cue, most of them did the jumping up and down bit when the judges arrived in black Jaguars (Ford getting in on the UK act too!)

Once they'd settled down 32 acts learned that they were already at the end of the road which may not have been great news for them but will be a great relief to viewers as they probably shouldn't have been there in the first place. The remaining 150 odd were then split into groups and given one track to perform in Wembley later that evening. Now that was a lot better organised than the American Idol farce when everyone was told to form themselves into groups and we had to watch the ridiculous nonsense of the eventually winner wandering around for virtually the whole of rehearsal time trying to find a bunch of competitors who weren't put off by Baby Lock Then Doors which seemed to be the only song he knew last year. Here in sunny South London each group dutifully went and sat under a tree and, when not being disturbed by Olly or wasps, attempted to put together some kind of performance that might keep them on track for another week.

With only 32 acts scheduled to get to the next stage, judges' houses, though, that's one hell of a lot of people who'll be not making it. Roughly 1 act per group by my calculations. You got the impression they'd done the same sums too as the idea of a 'group' performance was pretty much forgotten by those with any sense and the big personalities just did what they felt like. Occasionally that got really embarrassing: Goldie snaking about and heading in Louis' direction, making his day but spoiling anyone else's. Plenty of other examples but, quite frankly, there's no point listing them as the whole thing is really for the judges to view how people interact and perform and all we get to see is a few seconds' worth of a few people which makes writing anything vaguely intelligent damn difficult.

Something else that is difficult to figure out as we have seen so little of them is the groups. You only had to look at the expression on Gary's face to see that Kendro survive a little longer, or it may have been Two Shoes. The Keys got some airtime and Estrelle a short burst but that was it. A lifeline was thrown to some of those who failed in the the first section - with some manufactured groups being arranged as has become traditional now. Last year's 1 Direction kept us entertained well until the final. That may give people like the previously excellent Derry a chance but hopefully not too many also-rans. The lifeline may be more for the programme's benefit this year as we've seen precious little that looks like coming close to winning so far.

All we can do is wait till tomorrow when we find out who gets through, who gets which categories and we can start to concentrate on the actual potential stars there and who can join Amelia, Misha and Kitty to challenge Frankie and Janet for the prize.

It's the year of the girls on X Factor (and manufactured bands)

So we've now seen this year's X Factor winner. Whether it was after a long, drawn-out weepy back story intro or a brief glimpse of Louis leaning forward with his chin virtually on the desk and grinning "Yes" as whoever that was who was flashed before our eyes is yet to be seen.

Another weird show that I can only imagine was put together by some new guy recruited from BGT or deliberately promoted above his level of competence by Simon Cowell anxious to ensure that his X Factor USA compares well when it is aired here on Thursday. A couple of guys performed well and the far better Xtra Factor showed us a girl who apparently has only sung in a bingo hall before who would have fared well if she didn't find herself up against Misha, Janet and Amelia at bootcamp.

The boys seem an odd assortment this year but the ones we liked best may well finish up with some of the girls in manufactured boy and girl bands. And, hey, where the hell were the groups this year? Knowing who seems to have made it through, I fear we're in for a dire time in that department unless the manufacturers have done as good a job as they did with Wand Erection, which I guess is possible but unlikely to provide a winner.

Kitty in the over 25s should survive for a good while if she can regain some love from the public by calming down a bit on the announcements of how great she is. Otherwise she'll go the way of Katie W last year but hopefully give us some good TV moments until she's voted out.

So it's the year of the girls for my money and Dermot will be so pleased to be up on the main stage and well away from the anxious parents and what I suspect will be tears, tears and yet more tears during bootcamp and, worse, the final cut at judges' houses. Get yourselves ready for some heart-wrenching viewing at that stage. Bootcamp will be what bootcamp is - a farce as people try to form groups with people they hardly know and deliver tracks they may well have little interest in but have to do something with to get through. I feel so sorry for anyone with a really individual talent and style who'll have to choose between going with the flow and hoping they get selected regardless of what their new temporary 'group' does and attempting to stand out and getting panned for being inconsiderate or not 'working with the team'.

My guess, though, is that the judges already have a pretty good idea of who they want in the live shows - well, they have actually already decided but I mean in TV time as we see it - and it's largely a matter of who they'll put into those groups that needs to be decided. The next couple of weeks will not be a pretty sight but, of course, it will be unmissable TV and I'll be getting into trouble by writing exactly what I think again.

Check out XFNow.org and AINow.org by the way, over coming weeks as I've been invited to contribute to their news which should be fun and get me into even more trouble! Yes, Simon, I have been warned. and so has @kirrisdad.