After a succession of audition episodes in which it felt to us like producers were just going through the motions, the attempt to make sense of this series was made even more difficult by a ridiculously rushed Six Chair Challenge. Acts were given little or no introduction, with very few reminders of first auditions, and virtually everyone was offered a seat, however temporarily.

Usually we go into judges’ houses having seen the acts three times – auditions, bootcamp and 6CC – and already with a pretty good sense of narrative around each act, and the likely pecking order. Not this year.

The series, and our comments section, briefly revived with a highly entertaining JHs episode for Simon Cowell’s girls category, where the music mogul arranged a whole room of luminaries for his wannabes, ending with Scarlett singing Diane Warren-penned ‘I Didn’t Know My Own Strength’ in front of Diane Warren. It may have been primarily about boosting Cowell’s ego by showing off the size of his Rolodex, but at least it was a new idea and fun to watch.

But with the other judges’ houses episodes, it was back to going through the motions again. It was disappointingly hard to discern much of TPTB’s usual amusingly playful psychological manipulation at this crucial stage of proceedings. Instead, it felt like mentors and their guests had been handed a random platitude generator.

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In the seven-and-a-half minutes of Sunday’s pimp slot, Shan shot to favouritism for this year’s X Factor.

Her audition ticked lots of boxes: an introduction to her supportive family, the childhood footage showing long-held dreams of singing, an emotional number from this year’s favourite ‘The Greatest Showman’ soundtrack, the standing ovation followed by fulsome judges’ praise (Ayda: “You are the strongest competitor we have seen yet”; Simon: “genuinely blown away”), Beyonce’s ‘Halo’ emotionally playing as she greeted family members backstage, while Simon contrived to repeat the word “magic” three times.

However, 3/1 seems a short price at this stage for a 25-year-old session singer, currently starring in the touring Whitney Houston tribute show, ‘Queen of the Night’. At that age she’d usually be appearing in the overs, and she’s yet to prove that she’s capable of writing hit songs which seemed a prerequisite last year, though her Instagram handle does claim she’s a “singer-songwriter”.

What she does have is a very natural likeability in front of the camera, as evidenced even in little moments such as her jig on receiving four yeses, and giggles when Simon agreed that he too was a “great role model”. My ears pricked at that perfect answer to the question, “what’s the big dream?” A great role model winning is great for a franchise, as Strictly recognised this year by eschewing ‘Love Island’ reality “stars” for a cast notably strong on female role models.

Continue reading X Factor 2018 Auditions Week 3: Is Shan The Plan?

Call us jaded old cynics, but somehow we doubt that this time last year Louis Tomlinson decided entirely on his own initiative to appoint himself as unpaid social worker to Anthony Russell. You have to admire the long-range planning evident in the Scouse scally’s Sunday pimp slot. It suggests not only that – as commenter Stoney argued – Ant is in this for the long haul unless he manages to Frankie Cocozza himself out of contention, but also that producers are still on the ball. This is reassuring, as we’d spent much of Saturday’s show wondering if for some reason they were trying to goad ITV into pulling the plug one season early.

The first audition, which introduced the winner last year, was this time notable primarly for Louis informing us that One Direction is a corny name – this was presumably intended to suggest that Louis is an independent thinker, rather than that the show cocked up even with their biggest success story. The coveted first audition show pimp slot (we may have to retire that phrase) went to Robbie doing a karaoke duet of ‘Angels’, having been shown as bored out of his mind by his judging duties as early as audition #2. And we’re still not sure why they brought Ayda in if they’re not going to give her better material to work with than “you sang ‘It’s A Man’s World’, well it’s officially a woman’s world” or “you’re not just the X Factor, you’re the every letter of the alphabet factor”.

Anyway, on to the acts. As usual, we’ll be focusing on those reported by the Digital Spy forum to make it through the six-chair challenge, so don’t read on if you’re averse to spoilers.

Continue reading X Factor 2018 Auditions Week 1: Mark Anthony