Over The Rainbitch

Hope springs eternal

2010-05-23T18:02:00.004+01:00

Finale Results: 22nd May 2010

We're back, and we're live! This makes a nice change - I'm so used to getting the results at around 10.30pm on the Digital Spy forums, I don't quite know what to do with the prospect of actually seeing them announced properly and have it be a surprise. Well, "a surprise". Like Danielle isn't totally winning this thing. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Titles, for the last time ever. No more Andrew gurning terrifyingly into our living rooms every weekend. Unless he happens to pop round for tea and scones at any point, which is unlikely, but not impossible.

Back in the studio, the orchestra plays 'Ding! Dong! The Witch Is Dead'. Poor Lauren: talk about adding insult to injury. Graham arrives...on a bicycle, being gently lowered from the ceiling on wires. Are we casting for ET: The Musical next? I can't wait for them to shortlist a load of 22-year-olds and then sneer that they're too old to play Gertie. Graham reminds us that Sophie and Danielle are the two girls left standing, and we get a shot of Lauren, who is definitely not the most unpopular girl in the world (she's got to be several hundred places below Heidi Montag on that list, at least). We're reminded of Lauren's exit, and Backstage Lauren says that going out at this point is bittersweet, but she lost to two amazing girls, and the whole experience was amazing and she's going to remember it for the rest of her life. Which probably doesn't amount to much, considering she is SO RIDICULOUSLY OLD, eh Andrew?

Graham reminds us that the phonelines are still open, unless we want to vote for Sophie. The panel are reintroduced, but must share one collective round of applause, rather than getting individual bursts. Andrew's cuckoo-clock theme music plays again to remind us he has lost his power, then we're reminded of the performances from earlier in the evening. Sophie says she feels so much like a Dorothy now that she's going to be Dorothy forever. Or at least for the next 30 minutes. Danielle says that she knows she can do the part justice.

Graham's sitting with the girls, and asks Sophie if she ever expected to make the final. No, she didn't: she came here looking for experience, and she'll be happy whatever the outcome. Danielle says that all the girls are amazing, and she's very proud of everyone. It's so much harder to mock these people when you're basically left with two of the most normal girls in the competition. Curse you, voting public!

From there, we go to their final Dorothy mission, where they must learn to get to grips with Dorothy's most famous scene. Is it not a bit late to be wondering if they can do that bit now? What if neither of them can? I doubt anyone reading this saw any of Legally Blonde: The Search For Elle Woods on MTV in America last year, but in that show the contestants were tasked with the musical's biggest scene (Act One finale 'So Much Better'), on the reasoning that if they couldn't pull that off, it was better to find out sooner rather than later. I think this show could've taken a lesson from that. Anyway, Sophie and Danielle are each armed with a dog, but since DOGS LOVE DANIELLE, I think we know who will emerge triumphant. Sophie's accent is still a little bit peripatetic, whereas Danielle's is, I imagine, full of inner truthy goodness. Danielle says that 'Over The Rainbow', the song is very difficult because of the octave-leap and the fact that it's massively famous. She doesn't think she has to act Dorothy any more, she thinks she can just "be". Someone's been listening to Sheila. Sophie really feels that she is Dorothy, and would be so gutted for it to slip away at this point. Both girls talk bollocks about the Acting Techniques they will use to create Dorothy, and I can't imagine anyone cares so long as they get it together for opening night, am I right? [I don't really care anyway now. I wasn't all that fussed about this show in the first place, and I'm bothered even less now. - Carrie]

Back in the studio, Graham turns to Andrew and asks what we should be looking for in their performances of 'Over The Rainbow'. Andrew tells the girls that they must think why an audience would come to the West End to see them. That's an excellent question.

Sophie goes first, and it's hard to get used to seeing someone singing this song without trying not to cry. Them, I mean, not me. Sophie's voice sounds sweet and clear, and there's a real sense of wonderment and longing in her performance. The audience, goons that they are, cheer and applaud wildly at the key change. As well sung as this performance is, there's still something slightly lacking stage presence-wise with Sophie. She's got better, but I'm still not sure she's quite there yet. Without further ado, Danielle does the same song directly afterwards. Her accent is much more secure than Sophie's, and she's got lovely phrasing. She plays it rather more determined (whereas Sophie's was wistful), and there's an occasional yelly moment, but it's another good performance. There's not a lot to choose between them at this point, to be honest.

Both girls run over to join Graham, who reveals that the winner will be releasing that song as a charity single. Quick, run to iTunes now! Rather than turning to the panel, the girls are instead given a chance to talk directly to the viewers and say why they should be Dorothy. Ooh, it's just like The Apprentice! Bonus points if either of their answers include a variation of "I'm just like you when you were younger, Lord Webber". Sophie goes first, presumably speaking directly to WALES WHERE SHE IS FROM, oggy oggy oggy, and says that she really feels she's grown, and she hopes she's the Dorothy that the public wants - and she really likes wearing gingham. Heh. Danielle can't believe they've been doing this since January, and says that she used to have to search for who and what Dorothy was, but now she feels that it's her.

Now time for the panel's responses: Sheila thought they both captured Dorothy's emotion. John is very proud of Sophie and the way she has blossomed. Yes, yes, John, we've all noticed her rack. He thinks Danielle really is a star. Charlotte thought they both did the song justice, and she thinks the song really suits Sophie's voice, while Danielle has been captivating from the start.

Despite Sheila's protestations last week, it is now time to see who has the nicest grandparents. Sophie's dad is so pleased to see his daughter doing what she loves, while Sophie's mum has 100% faith in her and thinks this is where she's destined to be. Sophie's grandparents think she's always been a little singer even since she was wee. Sophie's mum gets tearful about how Sophie doesn't need their help any more, but it's sweet rather than creepy.

Danielle's nan thinks she's Dorothy because she looks the part. Danielle's mum thinks she deserves to be there. Danielle's nan recalls her singing and dancing as a child. Are we picking up a theme yet? Danielle's mum thinks she's so natural. Danielle's dad thinks the stage will not need lights because Danielle's smile and eyes will light it up by themselves. Aww. Though I suspect he's risking a severe rebellion from theatre technicians at the Palladium with comments like that.

It's time for their final performances: in each case, the girls have picked what they believe was their best performance from the series. Sophie has picked 'Reflection', which I think is the best option she had, though it's a shame she's reprising a performance we only saw last week. That said, the idea that her best performance is her most recent one does fit her "journey" narrative rather nicely. It's a very strong performance again - quite possibly better than last week. It's at this stage I feel slightly saddened that it took Sophie so long to find her mojo, otherwise we really could have had a competition on our hands. Danielle reprises 'Mambo Italiano', despite the unfortunate implications that she peaked halfway through the series. Again, I can understand the choice, because her performances have all been of a fairly consistent standard, but this was probably the most memorable, and at the risk of sounding cynical, it's probably the most obvious vote-getter of the bunch. Again, she does a fine job with it, despite the challenges posed by SINGING AND DANCING AT THE SAME TIME. Continuing my general theme of attempting to re-stage the competition, I wish they'd given Danielle more numbers like this that allowed her to let her hair down, rather than bogging her down with solemn truthy truthy performances, because I like this Danielle much better.

Graham's with the families. He points out that Sophie's mum is her spitting image (and she really is), and Sophie's mum is thrilled at how much she's grown. As a performer, I assume, not in a literal sense. Danielle's nan is reminded that Danielle turned 18 during this competition, so have they seen her grow up? Danielle's nan says that she's seen her grow in confidence (though not BAD CONFIDENCE like Lauren has, I assume).

The lines are now closed! The audience gasps, as though this is some kind of shock. While the votes are counted and verified to make sure Danielle's definitely the winner, we get to recap the series. Huh. Someone really doesn't appreciate all the hard work Carrie and I have been putting in since the end of March. How rude. We begin back at Top 20 (Camille! Yay!) as the Top 10 were selected, and then there was the horror of Emilie being selected as the wildcard. Random performance highlights are recalled, including Jenny's 'So What', Steph's 'It's Oh So Quiet' and Jessica's 'There You'll Be', which was world-class lest we forget. There are also the group performances to recall, and the mash-ups that weren't. Seeing the awesome Gaga medley again is pleasant, seeing the ill-advised mental health medley (and within it, focusing on Emilie's vocals) is not so much. Hey, remember when the missions had winners? Yeah, so do I, distantly. Then came "the ultimate test" - working with animals. Look out for that bus, Jenny! SPLAT! Too late. Also, apparently there was a search for Toto, but only about six people in the entire universe cared, and most of them owned one of the contestants. Then there were singoffs, as we dispatched: *deep breath*: Amy, Bronte, Dani, Emilie, Stephanie, Jenny, Jessica and Steph. And then the sing-out, on the moon. I shall miss that.

Back in the studio, Graham tells us that our votes have raised over £430,000 for the BBC Performing Arts fund. How many years at college will that buy Bryony? Finally, it's time for the results, as Sophie and Danielle are welcomed back to the main stage. Sensibly, they do not at this point ask the panel who should win, having been so roundly embarrassed two years ago when the voting public disagreed with the majority verdict that they'd had to drag CamMac in to secure. Even now I half-expect him to burst through the studio doors screaming "Jessie is Dorothy! Call off the search!" before being bundled into a secure van and driven to the nearest padded room. Both girls look very sombre, and Graham reminds us that they are young, not like that CRONE Lauren. The winner is....

...Danielle, of course. To her credit, she's really not expecting it, judging by the look of absolute horror on her face. Hee. Sophie hugs her and tells her well done, then kisses her on the cheek and attempts to book it off to the sofa - presumably having assumed she was supposed to scarper and give Danielle her moment, but of course Graham wants to talk to her, so he grabs her and pulls her back to take a bow before rejoining her family. Everyone's on their feet and cheering for Danielle. "You're a West End star!" Graham tells her. "I'm not!" she scoffs. Danielle says that she doesn't think "thank you" is enough for everyone who's supported all the girls throughout the competition. It's not the most articulate speech I've seen a reality show winner give, but it's definitely up there with the most gracious ones, so points for that. Andrew's very pleased with the result of course: "the nation has never got it wrong yet", he says, despite the fact that they didn't vote for the Nancy he wanted last time. Still, justice for Jodie is better late than never, I suppose. He tells Danielle that the hard work starts now, but she knows how to act from the soul. Danielle must hand her shoes to the Lion, but gets to replace them immediately with the ruby slippers that have been sitting in Andrew's crystal ball all series. They fit. "CONSPIRACY!" scream a thousand people on the internet. It is quite funny though, as the whole studio looks on anxiously to see if her shoes will fit, and Danielle turns to the audience and confirms "I'm in!" with a look of mock-relief on her face. Bless. There's a shot of Sophie's mum crying, though with pride or sadness I guess we'll never know.

Having been crowned the nation's Dorothy, Danielle gets to sing 'Over The Rainbow' one last time, with all of her truthy truthy truthiness, while looking faintly overwhelmed by the whole situation. Instead of climbing onto a moon this time, however, she's led into a basket filed with balloons, which gradually raises her up as the rest of the contestants flock onto the stage to wave her off. She bottles the final note very slightly, but the look of "OMG!" on her face immediately afterwards as her victory sinks in is brilliant.

So there we have it! Andrew got the Dorothy he wanted, and in all fairness, she probably was the best candidate for the part. Hopefully we'll all be here again next year to sift through a new batch of West End hopefuls (can we have some boys again next time please?) - but whatever happens, we'll be back for The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing in the autumn, so I hope you'll join us then.

There's no place like home

2010-05-23T09:15:00.005+01:00

Final - part 1
Tx: 22nd May 2010

Now, you may not know this, but Andrew Lloyd-Webber has been looking for a girl to play Dorothy, and people auditioned and were put through and sang on live television and were eliminated thanks to your phone vote and NOW IT'S THE FINAL. Ready?

Titles!

Graham marches on, and the girls aren't made to stand around on steps clapping along. They are elsewhere. Notably, Sheila is clapping but she is refusing to clap in time; she is merely applauding the appearance of the show's presenter. Anyway, he introduces the audience, the panel and Lloyd-Webber, and once more recaps the entire concept of the show before calling on the final 11 Dorothys who perform a Wizard Of Oz medley. Danielle, Lauren and Sophie descend on swings with roses entwined up the cables. Then some children appear to be munchkins, dancing round with the girls, and Graham fakes playing a gay-rainbow-pride violin. Incidentally, the Lion costume looks like it's been at the back of a wardrobe somewhere for at least three years. Jessica pulls some crazy faces, of course; it's nice to have her back.

Graham explains YET A-FUCKING-GAIN what the point of the show is. As with the previous series, the third-placed girl will be eliminated at the start of the first programme, and the final two will fight it out in the results show. And then he introduces the panel again, even though they will be doing pretty much nothing tonight, but it is worth noting that Andrew is wearing a brooch in the shape of ruby slippers. We're also supposed to be getting excited about the fact that there will be a Toto selected tonight. Yes, for ONE BLOODY PERFORMANCE. Anyway, the phone lines open.

And yet we still get no singing. Instead we go to Lloyd-Webber's big fat Tory house, for a fake-out Dallas title montage. Sophie is the first to get her own VT, and bless her, she wheels out a bunch of cliches about "being Dorothy"; Lauren cannot believe she is in the final three, and is excited about recreating the role (shouldn't she be redefining the role?); Danielle says she has never wanted to do anything else with her life. You're 18. You've barely HAD a life.

Lloyd-Webber has chosen the girls' first set of songs. He delays the performances by having a quick thank-you session for the production staff and the girls, and then listing all the qualities his winner should have, which surprisingly does not consist of the two-word answer "Be Danielle".

Sophie is first to perform, and in her VT she finds it hard to believe that she is in the final, and reminisces about the scariness of the audition process, playing rugby, and all sorts of other useful skills you need to be a West End leading lady. [Maybe she's auditioning for the role of Hazel in Up 'N' Under: The Musical? - Steve] She knows that she can do it. And the way Andrew Lloyd-Webber has chosen to illustrate this is by asking her to sing the most famous song ever sung by a red-headed girl, 'Tomorrow' from Annie. Sophie is standing on circular perspex steps, and employs a bit too much rubato for my tastes, but some of her top notes are very nice indeed. She's even getting the American accent dead-on. Incidentally, John Partridge is SINGING ALONG. Interesting acting choice from Sophie for her last note, opting not to belt, but going for a quiet whisper for "away".

Sophie reminds us that she is from Tonypandy, and she gets a VT from Dame Ruthie Henshall, who tells her that she is a winner regardless of what happens. Sheila says Sophie has true glamour, not in a "WAGgy, blingy way, but old-fashioned allure", and her transformation is amazing. John says he has been her harshest critic but he is very proud of her and WALES WHERE SHE IS FROM HAS A WINNER IN HER. Charlotte says Sophie looks pretty and has an emotive face and WALES WHERE SHE IS FROM SHOULD BE PROUD OF HER, "good girl". Andrew says WALES WHERE SHE IS FROM SHOULD INDEED BE PROUD OF HER and 'Tomorrow' is also sung with a dog. Seriously. That's what he says.

Lauren's next up. She has been in the bottom two a gazillion times and she is worried that she is the most unpopular girl on the planet. She thinks the public haven't warmed to her because she hasn't shown vulnerability. But she shoehorns in some humility, saying she never thought she'd be here and thanks Andrew for saving her.

For some reason she is singing 'I Could Have Danced All Night' from My Fair Lady, beginning by sitting on the Brian Friedman Memorial Chair Of Shiny Seating. Brilliantly, she points to her head when she sings the word "head". And for an even more opaque reason, the audience decide to clap along. WHY? It is the least clap-along-able song in the history of musical theatre. Lauren's last note is DEMENTED - she goes for the top B flat rather than sticking to the F (I believe), and she's very shaky, though the range is clearly there. [I love how we're 0 for 2 on closing notes at this point. MOST TALENTED GROUP EVER! - Steve]

Lauren does the humility thing again, then she clearly wins at life because Sheridan Smith does a VT for her - "I feel like a proud mother. Well, big sister" (adorable wink). John says Lauren is definitely not the most unpopular girl on the planet. Resounding praise there. [I was half expecting him to say, "look, Amy's over there." - Steve] He says she is a leading lady and she is ready for the challenge; and if he was producing the show he'd have cast her weeks ago. Well, that would have been a little bit naughty to break the rules of the competition. Charlotte lies that the top note was gorgeous and that she is jealous of Lauren. Then Sheila reminds us all why she is the best reality TV judge around by saying that she initially thought that Lauren was all "eyes, teeth and tits" and when the idiot audience gasp, she dismisses their horror with, "I don't care, it's the end of the show, they can't sack me." Incidentally, Stephanie's face when Sheila says "tits" is something to see. Andrew says it was the first top B flat on any of the shows, so well done for that. But it wasn't a GOOD one, was it? [I'm not even sure it was actually a top B flat. - Steve]

Danielle reminds us that she is a little girl from Urmston [there's two ways to get to Urmston - Steve] and has had to make a HUGE decision between education and performing, because of course they don't let you back into college after the age of 17. She is scared that the public might not be behind her, and then hilariously says that as a performer you have to be able to handle rejection, despite the fact that she is 18 and has never auditioned for anything before.

Holy moly, she's singing '76 Trombones' from The Music Man. She seems to have some backing vocals from somewhere. I really don't understand why she shouts so much; is that her Acting, or is she going for volume? Also, at the key change, her "Se-ven-ty-SIX trom-bones" is a HIDEOUS ROW. On the plus side, she can certainly dance.

Danielle reminds us ONCE AGAIN that she is a little girl from Urmston, and then loses at life because Tamzin Outhwaite does her VT and says, "If I was as good as you at your age, I'd have been laughing." To be fair, Outhwaite, if you were as good as her now, you'd be laughing. John says Danielle has always been a contender; Sheila is grateful to the public for picking up on her ability; Andrew argues that the song is witty and THE AUDIENCE AT HOME SHOULD REMEMBER THAT DANIELLE WAS DANCING DURING THAT NUMBER.

More VT bollocks at Lloyd-Webber's house. He has found a dog from somewhere, and sits on a bench with Danielle and the dog so DANIELLE LIKES DOGS AND THEY LIKE HER, REMEMBER THAT, THANKS. When Lauren sits at the table with Lloyd-Webber, the dog is sitting on the lawn, about five metres away. Andrew advises Lauren to forget all her training. Right. That sounds good advice. And when it's Sophie's time for a little chat, the dog is nowhere to be seen. OK? Have we all got that? Understand?

Recap. (See above.)

Time for the girls to perform side-by-side with the Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow. Danielle seems to have developed a really irritating habit of flicking her hair back, for which I judge the hair department. I also get sidetracked at the thought of Toto possibly chasing the Lion's tail round the stage. Sheila says Lauren was fantastic; Charlotte says Danielle is one of the most remarkable talents that has ever emerged from these shows; John says that nine weeks ago, Sophie couldn't even walk down the stairs in her shoes. Andrew says he is purring away (ew) and all three girls could be Dorothy.

Oh, for fuck's sake, Toto montage where all the crazy owners talk about how lovely their dogs are, which I'm sure is true, but seriously, this is for ONE PERFORMANCE. Or as Dani and Pirate Jessie would sing, ONE NIGHT ONLY. How much time and money has been wasted on this? Anyway, the panel sit down and talk about the dogs, and Lloyd-Webber is there too, despite not being a dog-man. Also, they say that Spider would be the first performing beagle ever, though I feel Snoopy would take issue with that.

So, who will be Toto? It is Dangerous Dave! The Prenj comes on with him and says how awesome he is and then fusses him. Love the Prenj. [I wish she'd been on the real panel rather than on the stupid dog search. - Steve] She wishes the girls luck. And then she and Dave go away again.

And the lines are now frozen! So while the votes are counted, time for another VT of all the eliminated Dorothys, who go to see Sheila in Sister Act. Sheila wants them all to have a good, well-planned future - Emilie has a scholarship, Steph has some auditions, Stephanie has an agent, Dani is doing her A-levels, Bronte looks like she was actually in Chicago as Roxie. Amy Booth-Steel looks really, really odd, and says that I'd Do Anything opened so many doors for her; for example, being in a show that closed after three performances.

Back in the studio, the former Dorothys sing Empire State Of Mind while leaning on black boxes. Emilie is fucking awful and cannot do melisma. Add that to the list of things to cover in those well-publicised singing lessons, please.

So, time for the results. Danielle could still be Dorothy, of course; and so could Sophie. Lauren is out in third place, and does a little curtsey as the audience and panel rise to their feet to applaud her. Danielle is clapping too, while Sophie is flapping about like a lunatic, though she does eventually get herself together. Lauren says she has learnt a lot about herself and made some friends for life. Yeah, we'll see, girlie. Andrew says he is not surprised by the result because she is SO VERY OLD but he will be in touch with her in the future. Fnar.

Graham's autocue seems to break at this point, or he's being shouted at through his earpiece, and he is really odd. Anyway, Lauren has to hand back her shoes and sail off on a sparkly moon. The Lion applauds. I wish I knew who that was. The Tin Man and the Scarecrow are on their feet at the end too.

So the lines are open again, all votes will be carried over...and Steve will be here shortly to recap the results!

Let me be your Dorothy. No?

2010-05-16T23:06:00.003+01:00

Semi-final results
Tx 16th May 2010

Graham welcomes us, resplendent in a shiny spludge-coloured jacket. He advises us to get tissues ready (fnar) and the girls swing into a repeat of their song that is not from The Wizard Of Oz. Steph is getting significant screams and whooping from the audience. Sophie looks like she is going to slip over in one of the little quick-step routines.

We are reminded that Andrew has a bulging collection (seriously, it's double entendre week) and one more Dorothy will be adding to it later. Graham introduces the panel, and Charlotte looks like Morticia Addams. He previews another non-mash-up and Sierra Boggess is the night's special guest star.

By the way, I've looked ahead, and there will be a LOT of time-wasting Toto action tonight.

Recap of last night - Sophie was really very good, and was over the moon with the nice comments; Steph was underwhelming with an unimpressive song, but couldn't have asked for better comments from John, who said she was the girl he was looking for (except not like THAT, obviously); Lauren's mum thought she was good; Danielle's vocals were FLAT until she threw in some vibrato but was thoroughly praised anyway. Sheila has been wrong every week, she says; Charlotte thinks they could all be Dorothy (isn't that the point of the show?); John is biting his nails.

Back in the studio, Charlotte says she wouldn't have a clue who should be Dorothy if she was watching at home. Some cruel people might say she doesn't have a clue when she's watching right there. Lloyd Webber looks deranged and makes a really odd gag about swallowing chipolatas. And then he realises what he's said and crumples in his seat with a fit of giggles. Anyway, this is all a prelude to the mash-up/medley/megamix, which is of songs to do with raining, starting with Singin' In The Rain, leading into Umbrella. Sophie struggles with the steps again. And interestingly with the vocal leaps in Singin' In The Rain, it is very evident who has range (Lauren, mostly) and who doesn't. Weirdly, Lauren is in yellow, Steph is in pink and Sophie is in green. Partridge is dancing in his seat, like he wants to rush the stage and join in.

Oh, time for a lot of footage of the search for a dog to play Toto in one single show that about 2,500 people MAXIMUM are going to see. And it's not even new footage, it's a montage of drivel we've seen earlier in the series and I'm really not recapping this. Sorry.

...

...oh, and there isn't even anything new,there'll be another VT later. Seriously, more dogs?

On the Dorothy bleachers, Sophie is beaming and would like to get to the final; Danielle is worried she might be in the bottom two and spouts some cod psychology; Steph did the best she could have done and hopes it was enough; and Lauren thinks it would be brilliant if Lloyd Webber wrote a musical for her and Danielle because they would be GREAT. [The musical itself, on the other hand, would probably be shit. - Steve]

More filler - the Over The Rainbow "live events", where people around the UK have been singing with Jodie Prenger, and reject Dorothys Amy, Dani, Bronte and Emilie. Emilie? REALLY? Teaching other people to sing? [She's had lessons! She KNOWS HER CRAFT! - Steve] People says how much they like the Prenj and the girls. And that's it. Weird VT.

And here's another weird VT - Sierra Boggess observing the girls in rehearsal and then sitting down for a little chat. She's a little less miserable about EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK than Outhwaite, saying that it isn't a job, it's a lifestyle, but seeming quite positive that it's a great life to have. She advises the girls to act more, like Lauren needs that particular tip.

Oh, gosh, and now she's in the studio and singing Love Never Dies, partly from the West End show of the same name and partly lifted from The Beautiful Game. Anyway, this is not the best showcase of the score, so fuck knows why Lloyd Webber keeps wheeling the poor girl out to sing it. She puts in about half the required amount of consonants, though, so that's a progression.

Not had enough canine action yet? Why, fret not! Time for another task - "acting out Toto's big scene". After a trip to the dog grooming parlour. Really? Is my licence fee really paying for slices of cucumber to be put on a dog's eyes? REALLY? The dog trainer lady reckons that these dogs are now household names. Oh, dog trainer lady. Your self-delusion will go down in legend. Anyway, the dogs are acting out the scene where they pull the curtain back to reveal the Wizard, aka Lloyd Webber himself. Some dogs can do the trick, some cannot. This is prime-time entertainment, kids. Lloyd Webber gives his award for the day to Troy; the panel give their award to Eddie. Now, tell me honestly that you know which dogs they are just from their names.

There's time for a quick VT in which the girls talk about why they want to be in the final. It's the usual platitudes - cut-and-paste the stock phrases of "fighting", "upping my game", "don't want my journey to end", etc etc.

And the panel are asked who is not Dorothy - Sheila says Steph; John says Steph (WHO JUST A FEW HOURS AGO SAID SHE WAS HIS FAVOURITE) [bloody turncoat - Steve]; and Charlotte says Steph. The audience howl their disapproval. The girls are given a recap of their comments they got earlier, and then it's time for the results - Danielle is OF COURSE the first one through (and Lloyd Webber surreptitiously hides his mobile phone under his chair, satisfied with a job well done); Lauren is in the bottom two; Sophie is through to the final, which leaves poor Steph in the sing-off again, with resignation written all over her pretty little face. Lauren is looking just like Idina Menzel at the moment, by the way. If it was down to viewer votes alone, Steph would be out. She's plastered a grin on and so clearly knows that whether she sings Another Suitcase In Another Hall or not, she's on her way out. Lloyd Webber adds insult to injury by telling them they're both too old to play Dorothy, and gives a big-up to Tim Rice, at which the idiots in the audience applaud (to his credit, Sir Tim tells them all to shush). [If there's one reality TV trope that irritates the living shit out of me, it's telling someone halfway through the run that they're "too old" - they're hardly likely to have got younger since you started, are they? - Steve]

So the girls sing. And Lauren's voice is better, though her acting is still musical-theatre-by-numbers (I particularly like her face for "gloom"). Steph sings it perfectly well but she has lost her spark. Lloyd Webber fusses a bit about it being like losing a member of his family, but of course he saves Lauren, who looks crushed for her friend. Steph gets a standing ovation from everybody (including Lauren's fans), and she cries a little bit. Lloyd Webber says he doesn't get the connection between head and heart with Steph's acting, but she is very talented and she will go a long way. Steph's dad is beaming with pride as she shouts her thank-yous to everybody. Oh, bless him, he's had a few tears as well.

The Dorothys bid us farewell. And with the numbers thinned out, the girls all have chance to have a bit of a cuddle, which is oddly sweet. Lauren really isn't singing very much at all. Sophie is gazing into the distance. Steph begins her solo and Lauren seriously falls apart. Oh, Lauren, bless you. As the sparkly moon rises, the applause from the audience threatens to drown out Steph's vocals. Her dad, God love him, is still smiling at his little girl and clapping vociferously. And she belts the hell out of the last notes. Well done, Steph, another classy exit to be proud of.

So next week is the final! Will Lloyd Webber get his opportunity to svengali Danielle, or will the great British public thwart his nefarious plans? Join us then!

It's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed

2010-05-16T16:59:00.004+01:00

Top 4: 15th May 2010

Last week! The producers chartered a small fleet of buses to pass through the studio on Saturday evening and ensure that they left a flattened Jenny in their wake, following which the general public decided that they'd had enough of mad faces and quirkiness and thus Jessica took the second bullet in the double elimination. Tonight! We're in the semi-final, and this is the last time that Andrew can save one of the girls from the unending horrors of a contract with We Will Rock You, so naturally the girls are determined not to be sent packing. They all spout various reality TV show clichés about how this is THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT OF THEIR RELATIVELY SHORT LIVES THUS FAR! It's times like that that I miss Stacey Solomon and her "there's always Asda" approach to reality show fame. Although, where is she now? Is she, in fact, now working in Asda? That's a question for another recap, because this! is! Over The Rainbow!

Titles! I assume they meant for it to look like Andrew was peering into my living room through his opera glasses, but either way, I still feel incredibly violated every time it happens.

Studio. 'We're Off To See The Wizard', instrumental version, and a shiny Irishman. Graham spoils the fact that Chelsea have won the FA Cup for anyone who may not have seen the match yet, though I imagine that the crossover audience between this show and The Football is fairly slim. Even Andrew is looking comparatively unimpressed by the pyrotechnics these days. The four remaining girls sing 'Together Wherever We Go' from Gypsy, which as far as I know has no relation to The Wizard Of Oz, other than the fact that it was once recorded by She Who Must Not Be Named and her daughter, and suddenly I am glad that we're nearing the end of the series if they can't even be bothered to find Oz-themed songs to open the show with any more. The good news, however, is that they all sound in fine voice tonight, and the choreography doesn't hamper them too much either. In fact, it's quite nicely set up, as each girl gets a moment alone on camera for her solo line, and then is joined by two of the others appearing as if from nowhere for a harmony at the end. It's cute, although it does remind me of this a little bit.

Post-performance, Graham reminds us that everyone remaining has been in the sing-off at least once and been saved by The Lord, which is completely unprecedented on shows of this nature. Please feel free to ruminate at your own leisure about what this says for the viewing public's general level of investment in (a) this batch of girls; (b) this production as a whole. [I did, last week, and got called a bitch for my troubles. - Carrie] We're reminded also that Jenny and Jessica were ousted last week and their shoes now hang from the Chandelier of Doom, which is growing more precariously heavy by the day. The panel are back, of course: "first lady of theatreland Sheila Hancock, twinkle-toed EastEnder John Partridge [and] Wales's finest export, Charlotte Church". The hyperbole on this show is LITERALLY THE MOST EXCESSIVE I HAVE EVER WITNESSED. Graham quizzes Andrew about the lack of a "clear frontrunner", if you believe such a thing to be true, and I personally do not (I still consider this Danielle's competition to lose), and Andrew makes an ill-advised attempt at topical political humour. Luckily no one suggests having a coalition of Dorothys in the parts. Andrew says that all of the rejection they've experienced in the sing-offs is good experience for the theatre, which continues the thread of sunny optimism begun by Tamzin Outhwaite and her tales of the mind-numbing boredom of EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK last Sunday. Andrew encourages us to think of the girls as individual actors, and to think of them as people: can they be Dorothy? Can they go on a JOURNEY?

From there, we're gifted to a few teasers of what's coming up, and from there we're onto the first two girls: Sophie and Steph. Sophie says that last week was tough, and she's thrilled that the public kept her in. Having been buoyed by the chance to watch a Betamax recording of some old ladies saying they supported her" a few weeks back, she now has the opportunity to go home and be hugged by some old ladies in person, and sign autographs outside the post office. (Which is closed, by the way, presumably as a direct result of BROKEN BRITAIN.) Sophie meets up with her Very Supportive Granddad Haydn, who's the same one who chastised Wales as a whole the other week for not keeping her out of the bottom two. Steph, meanwhile, has made the treacherous trip back to...London to see her family, who are all very excited to see her. She takes us to the bar that she worked in before she was in the show, and hugs someone who is presumably her (former?) boss. She says that she enjoyed the job, but does not want to be pulling pints for the rest of her life.

Before the girls get a chance to sing, Graham has a quick chat with Andrew about what he's expecting: he would like Sophie to come out of her shell, and for Steph to ~~de-age by about four years~~ connect her head with her heart. Sophie takes to the stage first and sings 'Reflection', which is either from Mulan or by Christina Aguilera, depending on your perspective. I don't remember being especially impressed with this the first time that I watched it, but on review, it is actually a pretty good performance. It's one of the best vocals she's given on the show, easily, and while the performance part is still a little wooden, there is at least a sign that she's managed to attach a personal emotion of some sort to the song, so it resonates more strongly. Steph's singing Take That's 'Rule The World', and appears to be doing so in a key slightly too high, which both sounds slightly strange and, I think, leads to her delivering an unusually subdued performance. It's not a bad performance, at all, and Steph's always a pleasure to watch, but there's just something missing tonight, and my gut feeling after watching it was that she might be in trouble this week, because both of her previous visits to the sing-off were after technically-fine-but-still-underwhelming performances.

Graham asks Sophie who the biggest threat is in the top four, and she says everyone, because Steph's a triple threat, Lauren's a great singer and Danielle's brilliant at acting. So, wouldn't that make Steph the biggest threat, then? Steph, in turn, is asked what it would mean to make the final, because as we all know backwards by now, she was in the singoff in the first week. Steph says that she never imagined she'd make it this far, and hopes she's done enough to still be here next week. Charlotte is asked who has the vocal edge, and sits on the fence a little bit. She calls 'Rule The World' "a classic" (really?) while pointing out that it's a "man's song" and therefore gave Steph an extra hurdle to overcome, but she likes the fragility in the lower part of Steph's voice. She also thinks Sophie's had a breakthrough and gave a lovely vocal. Sheila thinks Sophie took a big leap forward, but could've been a bit more subtle and given a bit more puzzlement, but it was a step forward. She thinks Steph, on the other hand, was great, even though it's a pop song so Sheila doesn't have a clue what the words mean (and seriously, every time she says that, I go off her a little bit more). She tells Steph to watch her shoulders and push her hair back, like we're suddenly on America's Next Top Model and dressing for go-sees. John says that Steph's the girl that he wants out of the final four, and tells her that to be a leading lady you need talent and a break: she has talent, and he hopes the public give her that break. Aww. He loved Sophie's performance too, and tells her it was her best performance to date. Andrew tells Sophie she did well, despite singing A POP SONG, but he would've liked her to play it a tad more innocently because they're looking for Dorothy. I've honestly lost track of whether they're supposed to be channeling Dorothy or not in these main songs, but even if they are, I challenge anyone to find me an appropriate context for Dorothy to sing that song over the course of the damn show. He also thinks Sophie turned a corner tonight, despite having a difficult song.

Toto preview: this week's task appears to involve grooming, and Andrew being made to look scarier than he normally does. I'll let Carrie fill that in for you later. [Cheers. - Carrie]

From there, we're off to rejoin Lauren and Danielle. Lauren says that being in the bottom two doesn't get any easier second time around, but she's so happy to be in the final four. She goes home, where everyone is waving placards at her. She makes a special visit to her nan and granddad, the latter of whom she explains hasn't been able to come and see her perform because he suffers from anxiety and panic attacks and doesn't like to leave his living room. And if you're expecting me to make a joke here, you're going to be disappointed, because I once suffered from panic attacks so badly that I could barely make it to the end of the front path without collapsing in a hyperventilating heap, so for once I'm going to can the sarcasm and sit here quietly empathising. Lauren's grandpa tells her he's impressed, and she's pleased that he's had a chance to see her perform. Danielle recalls last week's visit to the bottom two and thinking she was a goner, but is relieved to still be here. She goes home, and immediately cracks up at the rapturous reception that's waiting for her, which is super-cute. She skips up a makeshift yellow brick road and hugs a load of her pals. She visits lots of local shops where people have hung "vote Danielle" posters and baked "Danielle for Dorothy" cakes, which makes me wonder if she's related to Robbie from So You Think You Can Dance.

Back in the studio, Andrew says that he would like Lauren to display some vulnerability, while Danielle is a raw talent who has grown the most of all the girls in the competition so far. This, just in case you've forgotten, is in response to the question of what he would like them to deliver tonight. You may have spotted that he did not answer the question for Danielle, which perhaps suggests he thinks she's perfect as it is. Hmm.

Lauren's up first, singing 'Heaven', the DJ Sammy version. She inserts a bit of a playful giggle into the lyrics, which is a nice touch, but it's not long before she reverts to her biggest flaw: literally acting the lyrics out line by line. That includes reprising last week's Joey Tribbiani Confusion Face for "I'm finding it hard to believe", and then looking skyward for "we're in heaven". And, my personal favourite, standing very still for "I'll be standing there by you". The song's key change is very awkward and results in some deeply unpleasant noises as Lauren swings randomly between her lower and upper register, and there's a touch of hysteria to the closing notes as the giggle that sounded nice at the beginning rages out of control. Danielle sings 'When You Believe', which starts out sounding lovely as she carefully negotiates the Stairs Of Doom, though in the second half of the song, she appears to be singing directly through her nose, which is unfortunate. Danielle probably gets the honours for best solo performance this week, though none of them were exactly perfect.

Lauren tells Graham that she's grateful to have been saved last week, and she hopes she's given Andrew enough faith in her again this week - and an uncharitable observer might assume that she thinks she's destined for the bottom two again based on that comment. Danielle is quizzed about her alternative career plans, and admits that she wanted to be a crime scene investigator, though this was probably just because she's nosey. Sheila thinks they were two cracking performances, and that Lauren caught the "wonderment of love", and applauds her for not getting carried away even when the idiot audience started cheering. Heh. Once again, Sheila does not understand what Danielle's pop song was about, but apparently this is a good thing, because Danielle did not impose a meaning on it. Yep, Sheila's kind of losing me here. [I really didn't understand this. So it's OK not to convey a meaning because it's up to the audience to interpret? - Carrie] John calls them "the voice and the actress" - and seriously, how long has Danielle been the acting wunderkind of this show? I always thought it was her strong singing voice that was keeping her afloat despite some so-so acting performances, rather than the other way around - and says that it would be great if they could mix the two together. Sheila, sensing a threat to her beloved Danielle, cries foul and says that Danielle has a great voice, and John's all "yes! I know!" John had precisely the opposite reaction to me with Danielle's performance, in that he loved the second half but wasn't sure about the first, but he thinks that even divas have an off day. He thinks that Lauren adopted some of Danielle's sensitivity and truthfulness, and combining that with her voice makes her unbeatable. Charlotte thinks Lauren is incapable of giving a bad performance, and that she took on board what Andrew said last week about occasionally getting a bit shouty. And here we have our weekly tiresome battle between John and Charlotte, because he jumps in and claims that she called Lauren "screechy" last week (I no longer have last week's episode to refer to, but the recap seems to be on Charlotte's side here). John, incredibly rudely, insists that Charlotte said Lauren "screeched the whole way through the song", at which point I call bullshit for sure, because even if Charlotte did utter the word "screechy" at some point, and I still seem to recall that being Andrew, Charlotte doesn't have it in her to say anything that sharply critical. Anyway, Charlotte finally gets him to shut up and says that she missed some of the power of Lauren's vocal this week (at which point John pipes up about what he thinks she said last week, and seriously, SHUT UP, JOHN) and finally it's over. Charlotte tells Danielle that she works really well with substance to the lyrics, and the vagueness of that song meant it wasn't one of her best performances, but she made some lovely noises, apparently. And then Charlotte says happy birthday to her nana. No, seriously.

Andrew tells Lauren that she'll always give her best, and thus she is a producer's dream, but he wonders if there should've been a touch more sweetness in her performance. To Danielle, he says that she's one of those actresses who relies on her inner truth, and gave an extraordinary performance, and that "you've got a long way to go in the theatre." By which I suspect he means "you'll go a long way in the theatre", because what he said wasn't quite the same thing.

It's not over yet! The girls have a mission ahead, in which they must learn to speak like a genuine Kansan. We'll get that in more detail later, because the girls will now be doing duets. Sophie and Steph are up first, and they get a mock-rivalry VT in which Sophie refers to Steph as one of her best friends. They do bicker very cutely, it has to be said. Sophie is worried that Steph is a triple threat, while Steph is worried that Sophie is a very funny and charismatic performer. She must be seeing something we aren't. She talks about having to rise to Sophie's level as a performer, and come on now. I like Sophie a lot, but that's clearly a load of crap. Sophie says that she really needs to start shining. "I really want Sophie to do well, but I just want to do a little bit better than her," Steph concludes. Heh.

They sing 'I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair' from South Pacific in polka dotted towels. Vocally, they're both giving it some, and they've both chosen to play it rather angrily, which I think is a bit of a shame because I think they're missing some of the comedy they could've got out of it if they'd played it with a touch more amused exasperation. Oh God, I sound like Sheila. Cameron Mackintosh will be pleased to see that the choreography calls for both girls to touch their hair as a way of showing emotion, anyway.

From there, we go straight into Lauren and Danielle's VT. Danielle thinks Lauren's a strong contender, but isn't going to let that faze her. Lauren doesn't want to be overshadowed by Danielle. They're singing 'Popular' from Wicked, and Lauren's sure that Danielle's acting skills will make her shine on stage. Danielle says that they have to work as a team while also trying to stand out.

They sing at matching vanities, and it begins with Danielle kissing a gold-framed picture of herself, which I have to admit kind of wins me onto her side from the outset. She's very good in this, actually - very animated, very good at doing business with her props without seeming hammy (something that Lauren's not quite so adept at), and she sounds great. Lauren's acting, on the other hand, is a little bit overstated, and has the unfortunate effect of aging her, to the point where I wonder if she's actually playing the role as Norma Desmond, given the giant vanity and everything. I also struggle to suppress a giggle when Lauren has to sing the line "I know about popular", considering the reaction she prompts on a lot of the messageboards I've been reading. Vocally they're matched evenly all the way, but Danielle makes the performance look easy, and that's why she wins this one for me.

John's asked who came out on top, and he thinks they're both sensational, but if he had to answer, he'd pick Danielle. Between Steph and Sophie, Steph was the more polished choreographically, but Sophie has really been raising her game tonight and may have had the performance edge. Charlotte thought Steph was brilliant, and wants someone to write a musical for Lauren and Danielle. Sheila thinks Danielle is a gifted comic, and thinks that they had a slightly wittier, easier number, and thinks the public should bear that in mind when voting: "their past history, how well they've been doing - don't care whether they've got nice grandparents, it's what they've been doing up there". Okay, she might have won me back a little bit. Andrew worries that the producers of Wicked might want to steal Lauren and Danielle from him after seeing that. He praises Danielle's "comic gift" and backhands Lauren by praising her "experience". He's then vaguely pervy to Steph and Sophie about the content of their number, and thinks they could've got more humour out of it. He thinks Sophie is "deliciously funny" and wishes them both luck.

Right, time for that promised accent mission VT. The girls are taken to a West End theatre which is currently vacant to learn a Kansas drawl from accent coach Jill McCullough, who's worked with Robert De Niro, Dame Judi Dench and... Keira Knightley. They tells them all to flatten their tongues. Lauren says that she thought her accent was quite good, but she's being picked apart. The girls all have to say "my name's Dorothy and I have a dog named Toto" over and over again, before finally being put to the test in front of Andrew in a scene, the one where Dorothy asks how to get home to Kansas. Sophie's accent goes all over the place a little bit (Ireland, mainly) and her performance is a tad flat, Lauren's is over the top, of course, but her accent seems fairly constant. Steph gives a lively and emotional performance with a fairly decent accent, and Danielle gives a still but resonant performance, and her accent seems fine as well.

Andrew gives his verdict: Danielle's accent was BRILLIANT and she MADE THE ROLE HER OWN, just in case we're in any doubt who his favourite is, Lauren is the most accomplished but they need to eke more vulnerability out of her, Steph was very professional but was too much in her head and not in her heart, while Sophie struggled the most with her accent and that affected her performance, though Andrew thinks she'll be stronger when she's more comfortable with the accent. He thinks all four of them can do the accent, and it's pretty clear to him who the actresses are. It's interesting how he seems to keep trotting out the same old criticisms for each girl most of the time, regardless of the performance she's just given. I have my suspicions that Andrew has his ranking order all set up in his head now, and little short of a miracle is going to upset that.

Then we're back in the studio for a group performance of 'I Cain't Say No' from Oklahoma!, which I'm sure will appal Sheila with its general air of sluttiness. Again, the vocals are strong all round, though there's a bit less common ground in the performances: Danielle's probably the strongest here, closely followed by Steph, with Sophie and Lauren somewhere behind. Graham asks Sheila who got the Kansas drawl best (and make a note of that, it'll be important later): Sheila says that she can't be bothered to worry about that (heh) because they'll all get the accent in time. She was focused on the acting, and it reminded her of something that John (Thaw, not Partridge) used to say to her: "don't demonstrate, be." She thinks they were all demonstrating, apart from (wait for it) Danielle, who was "totally simple". Nah, that joke's too easy. John thinks all the girls have developed hugely and should all be proud of themselves, but he thinks Lauren gave the best performance in the last number. Charlotte thinks Steph stood out, and so did Lauren. Then there's a bit of confusion, because Charlotte comments that she's "disagreeing with Sheila" because she liked that Lauren was big and brash and it suited that number, and Sheila points out that she was talking about the acting VT, not the number they just did, and in fairness, it does seem like that's what Graham asked her about in the first place, though it seems odd that she was asked to comment on that while the others passed judgement on the song-and-dance number.

Andrew's asked for his feedback, and he says that there's no question that any of them could do the accent. He doesn't want to lead the viewers any more VOTE FOR DANIELLE and he wants us to evaluate them as individuals OF WHOM DANIELLE IS THE BEST. We've seen them all acting and he knows where he'd like the competition to go, WHICH IS TO SAY DANIELLE WINNING, but he doesn't want to lead anyone DANIELLE DANIELLE DANIELLE. I mean, seriously. Don't get me wrong: I like Danielle, I think she's done more than enough over the past few weeks to prove she'd play the part well, I have absolutely no problem with her winning, but for Andrew to say that he doesn't want to "lead" the public when he's offered criticism to all the girls tonight except her is a tad hypocritical. In the interests of avoiding a flame war here though, I really must stress again that my beef is with Andrew, not Danielle. She has no control over how they react, so I don't blame her at all, but it doesn't mean I can't feel at least a little annoyed at Andrew's pretense of impartiality.

Graham asks Andrew about television versus theatre, and he says that they need a girl who can command the stage and have a rapport with Toto. He definitely, definitely doesn't want to lead anybody (see above), but we should all bear that in mind.

The lines open, and we get a quick recap of tonight's performances, duets included, while the numbers scroll across the screen - though I daresay if The Lord had his way, only Danielle's number would be shown. Not that he wants to lead us, you understand. Just like he totally didn't want to lead us when he declared Pirate Jessie to be the second coming. I suppose I should be grateful that at least Danielle does at least justify some of the praise she gets, unlike her seafaring predecessor.

That's it! Don't forget to join Carrie for the results to see who gets the boot at this crucial stage.

On Boro-ed time

2010-05-09T21:20:00.004+01:00

Top 5 Results: 9th May 2010

Previously on Some Children Are Waiting: it was double elimination week, and several buses were chartered by the production crew so that they could be completely sure they would have at least one to throw Jenny under, thanks to their strategic deployment of Jodie Prenger's Moment and a suspiciously poorly-trained professional dog actor. Meanwhile, in the land of those who were given half a chance, Danielle blanded her way through another adequate performance but was still the second coming of Pirate Jessie as far as the panel were concerned, Jessica finally found an appropriate outlet for all of her tics, Steph continued to deliver all-round pwnage, Sophie added 'I Enjoy Being A Girl' to her previous performance of 'If I Were A Boy' and is set to get a high 2:1 in her Gender In Contemporary Performance module, and Lauren did a lot of strange facial expressions during 'Being Alive', otherwise known (to me, at least) as the second-worst song in the history of musical theatre. (If you're genuinely puzzled regarding what's above it, I refer you to last week's singoff. ) All went to plan, and Jenny was in the bottom two and quickly disposed of, and then the phone lines opened again to determine the fate of one more hopeful - but who will it be?

Titles. Despite having a conniption fit the second he realises there's a camera pointing at him, that scarecrow still looks more comfortable than Sophie does most weeks.

Studio. Graham. The five remaining girls stand on the Stairs Of Doom, and the place does look kind of cavernous and empty now. Maybe Stephanie's mouth was bigger than I ever realised. Graham reminds us that "last night" Jenny was ~~shoved out of the door by an overzealous producer~~ eliminated from the competition, but it's not over yet because there's another ouster coming up. Poor Jenny is in the audience smiling bravely, despite having been axed from the competition about an hour ago. The remaining five Dorothys sing 'Defying Gravity' again, and it's still not a song that you can sing as an ensemble. Danielle does some nice skirt-swishing though, which I'm sure the panel will use as yet further prove that she is 100% WEST END READY.

Graham reminds us of Jenny's elimination once again (rub it in, why don't you?) and re-introduces the panel. Charlotte's still looking happy, despite having demonstrated yesterday that she probably needs a bit more practice before relaunching her singing career. Or her songwriting career, for that matter. Graham teases another "mash-up", and a performance from Tamzin Outhwaite. Before all of that, though, we get a brief recap of what happened in the performance show. Danielle took on 'On My Own', and a rather unfortunate piece of VT editing means that we're exposed to "all my life, I've only been PRETEND-AAAAAAAANG" again. If she really is the chosen one, they might want to think about compiling highlights packages for her that don't showcase the worst part of an otherwise acceptable performance. Jessica took on 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' in a performance that seems to have divided opinion (personally I liked it, but can see why many others didn't). [It would have been much more acceptable if she'd had a chorus line of cartoons accompanying her, or at least a couple of chirpy Cockernee chimney sweeps. - Carrie] Steph's emotional performance of 'Somewhere' moved John, while Jenny's no-win performance merely moved her UNDER THE BUS. Sophie did a song that no one has heard of [except for musical theatre geeks - Carrie], and John and Charlotte argued over whether she could fill a West End stage, while Lauren closed the solo portion of the show with a Tribbiani-worthy performance of 'Being Alive'. Charlotte wobbled her way through what I assume is her new single, then Jenny and Lauren found themselves in the sing-off, with Jenny getting the boot, obviously. John thought it was "another shock result", then everyone lined up to do a few lines from the few songs that are actually in the show, where Danielle was the only one who actually got to sing as Dorothy and thus turned me even more into some sort of alarming conspiracy nut. [You really are getting worse. Have you considered valium? - Carrie]

Back in the studio, Graham's with the panel. Andrew says that we must remember the importance of comedy, because there was a lot of vaudeville performance in the original movie. So we're supposed to remember the vaudeville performances, but forget the central one? Just making sure we're clear on that. Apparently the cast is going to be rounded out with "very experienced comedians" in the Palladium, which makes my heart sink even further. Sheila says that everyone who's left is very special, and she's very glad the decision isn't up to her at this point. John says it's incredibly important that they all hold their nerve, because "the bottom two is changing week on week" (it would have to, dear, because inevitably one of the bottom two must go home, surely?) so it's anyone's game. Charlotte is asked if Jenny was the right girl to leave, and Charlotte's all "yes, because that's what I said 'last night', like."

Oh God - it's Toto time. A yellow brick road has been laid diagonally across the stage, and the girls have all been matched with a potential Toto: Jessica's with "Dangerous" Dave, Danielle with Troy, Lauren with Eddie, Sophie with Missy, and finally Steph with Spider. Spider bounds out to a series of "awws" from the audience, and Steph cracks up. Hee. The whole thing's accompanied by some hilariously arch narration from Graham, but I can't really capture that in recap form. Sorry. From here we segue to a VT: Jodie tells us we're at the Richmond Theatre to see how the girls bond with the dogs. Since there are six girls (Jenny's still there at this point) and five dogs, the dogs will get to choose who to perform with, and one girl will not get to perform. The girls line up to call the dogs over, and Dave is unleashed first, running over to Jessica, before switching to Sophie at the last minute. Eddie runs past all of them, but we're told eventually picks Danielle. Troy picks Steph, Spider picks Jenny, and Missy with the casting vote, runs to Lauren at first, but then runs past her and into the wings, at which point Jessica darts across to be in prime dog-catching position for when Missy returns. If the West End thing doesn't work out, I think Jessica may have an excellent career ahead of her in animal control. So Lauren is kept out of this week's competition: "maybe they could sense that I have cats at home?" she wonders. I would've thought they'd have mauled her if that was the case, but I'm no Barbara Woodhouse.

The girls who did get dogs have a chance to bond with them. Things do not appear to be going well - Eddie ignores Danielle, Troy sneezes on Steph. A group of scary stage children arrive at the theatre to sit in judgement. Missy and Jessica perform first, and make their way through the scene with minimal disturbance. Danielle manages a better performance with Eddie than she did with Bobby yesterday. Steph is less fortunate: Troy is completely uninterested and keeps wandering off while she's trying to sing. Hee. Rumours that Lauren was seen shortly before the performance offering Troy a box of Bonios to throw the performance remain unsubstantiated. Sophie sings to Dave, but he yawns his way through it. Jenny appears to struggle with 'Over The Rainbow', and Spider howls along. Jodie thinks Spider might have a career in stand-up comedy if the Toto thing doesn't work out. The kids vote for their favourite dog while the judges confer. The panel choose Spider as their top dog because of his enthusiasm, while the kids vote for Dave, which pleases Sophie.

In the studio, it's mash-up time again. Andrew suggests adding "a dash of olive oil" to his mash. Well, la-di-dah. Tonight's "mash-up" is the worst one yet, seguing awkwardly from 'Matchmaker' from Fiddler On The Roof into Gwen Stefani's 'Rich Girl' (at a tempo that none of the girls can keep up with), while Sophie struggles with the shawl-waving choreography. Then it's briefly into about 12 bars of something I don't recognise, and then into 'I Gotta Feeling'. I assume they choreographed all this just for five girls, but didn't necessarily know which five were going to be doing it? It doesn't bear thinking about too closely, I suppose.

After that, it's time for a bit more filler as the panel talk about the contenders thus far: Charlotte thinks Danielle is very West End, while Sheila thinks she needs to retain her uniqueness and not lose her subtlety. Sophie has the most natural voice in the competition, per Charlotte, but needs to be less sensible, according to Sheila. John thinks Sophie has it in her to play this role, but he's not sure that she knows that. Sheila thinks Lauren was "a bit too glib" before she hit the sing-off, but transformed after that. John thinks she's delivered solid performances and sets her up for the Rachel Tucker Memorial "you probably don't like her but she's a safe pair of hands" edit, while Charlotte thinks Lauren's vocals are phenomenal and she wants to see her in the finals. John thinks Jessica was the obvious choice at the beginning (really?) but he's not sure if that's true any more. Sheila thinks she needs to be careful not to overdo the kookiness, while Charlotte thinks her kookiness is her best selling point. Steph has had a tough journey, but has blown Charlotte away every week. Sheila thinks she's an all-rounder, while John thinks she needs to step it up a level and keep pushing.

Graham's on the Sofas Of Sanctity with the girls, commenting on how "it's very spacious" now. He asks Steph where her strength comes from, and she's all "dunno, really. Drugs?" He asks Lauren if she was shocked to be in the bottom two, and she carefully replies that she wasn't, and hopes she's done enough to stay out of it second time around. He then turns to Jessica and asks her about being the only girl remaining who hasn't hit the bottom two yet, and she credits her fanbase (she actually uses that word) and thanks them all for supporting her. [Oh, Jessica. You haven't been paying too much attention in your short kooky quirky life to the way the fickle finger of fate operates, have you? - Carrie]

What's this? More filler? The girls went to the West End opening of Sweet Charity this week, and get to be snapped by the paparazzi. [There's a nonsensically short clip of the show that carefully edits out the featured supporting cast, making it look like it's simply the Tamzin Outhwaite Show. - Carrie] Afterwards, they get to meet Tamzin Outhwaite backstage, and Lauren says it's got them all thinking about what the buzz of their opening night might be like. Tamzin says that whatever happens, they will all have an opening night of some kind. Then, back in the studio, Tamzin performs 'If My Friends Could See Me Now'. The audience clap along to the entire thing, because they're morons. I've not seen the show, but the performance seems...a bit small. Especially on the heels of John complaining that Sophie's performance from "last night" wouldn't have filled a West End theatre, because I wouldn't say this straight-from-the-West-End performance is noticeably more dynamic. [To be fair, she's been off sick this week, and her understudy, the lovely Miss Tiffany Graves, has been on... - Carrie] Graham joins her for a post-performance discussion and asks her what progress she thinks the girls have made. Tamzin says she's very proud of them all because their voices hold up and their dancing is coming along. Wow, steady on there! Don't go inflating their egos with your effusive praise! Graham asks her about opening night, which prompts her to get all sage and talk about EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK and having to make the most of opening night because it's never that exciting again. Well, that's my desire to go and see that show kind of destroyed.

Time for a Why Do You Deserve To Be In The Semi Final? VT. Steph thinks she deserves it because she's had a rocky ride but come back fighting every week. Danielle feels she has more to give and doesn't want to leave now. Lauren wants to be in the semi-final because it is one step closer to her dream, bless her. Sophie wants to be in the semi-final because she's been knocked down a lot but always comes back, and Jessica thinks she deserves it because she always pulls something new out of the bag. [The bag of QUIRKINESS. - Carrie]

The girls are on the bleachers again, which means it's time to announce the results in no particular order. Sophie is declared safe first, and she looks shocked. She wishes the others good luck before rushing over to the Sofas of Sanctity looking tearful. Danielle is told she's in the bottom two. Lauren looks horrified, most likely because she thinks this means she's in the bottom two with Danielle, and knows full well that Judy Garland herself (whoever she is) would not survive a sing-off with Danielle at this stage. Luckily she's safe, and breaks a huge sigh of relief. So that leaves Steph and Jessica awaiting their fate, both thinking they're doomed. It's Steph who gets the reprieve, which means Jessica is in the bottom two. Graham reveals that Jessica received the fewest votes overall, but there's still hope because Andrew might save her. Jessica does well by not laughing in his face at this absurd notion.

The sing-off is 'Take That Look Off Your Face', which Andrew, in his position as songwriter, explains is about wanting someone to take that look off their face. That's why he earns the big bucks, folks. Both girls sing well, though Jessica seems unsure whether she's going for resigned or angry, while Danielle has a general air of defiance. Jessica's voice hits the skids a little bit halfway through, but she battles on valiantly and manages to get it back under control by the end. With the song over, it's down to Andrew to decide who to save. Andrew tells them they're both terrific, but he has to make a decision, and thinking about who's more suited for the role of Dorothy, he opts to save Danielle. Jessica knew this was coming, of course, and takes it with a smile. Andrew tells Jessica that he sees her doing something more like Sweet Charity or Funny Girl, which Jessica seems fine with. She tells Graham that she's going to train in September, "unless something major comes up", heh. [But how will she afford it in her POVERTY? - Carrie] She's enjoyed every moment and can't wait to go and see whichever of the girls eventually wins.

Graham reminds us that the remaining four will battle it out in the semi-final next week, and then it's time for Jessica's sing-out. Jessica hugs Danielle warmly after the shoe-removal, and heads to the moon. Her version of 'Over The Rainbow' is a little patchy with a few sharp notes, but there's definitely a good voice in there that can be prised out with a little training. Steph is openly weeping at this point, and the audience come to their feet as Jessica rises into the air. Jessica goes all out for the last note and grins at the girls, telling them she loves them as the song finishes.

And there we have it. Who would've thought at this point that Sophie would be the only girl not to have been in the bottom two more than once, or that whoever wins would have been in the sing-off at some point? It's been a very interesting series, and we'll be back next week with a recap of the semi-final. Don't miss it!

Don't bother, you won't be here

2010-05-08T20:57:00.007+01:00

Final six
Tx: Saturday 8th May, 2010

Last week on Over The Rainbow - the most SHOCKING result so far as Stephanie left the studio, still beseeching us to call him Mr Bojangles! Now, our six remaining Dorothys need us! Jessica's intonation is really annoying! Let's see what transpires in this Special Double Elimination Week!

Clap, clap, clap - here is Graham, who reminds us that two girls are going this weekend, and then introduces everyone as usual with the green pyrotechnics. And oh dear me, the girls are singing 'Defying Gravity', because that is from Wicked, which is almost like The Wizard Of Oz. Steph would make a good Elphaba. Jenny is struggling at the bottom of her range. I'd totally forgotten about Danielle AGAIN, and she is flat on her "leeeeeeeeeeeap" leading into the first chorus. Disappointingly limp belt at the end, but I guess they can't really let them riff when there are six of them singing in unison. [This song really does not suit being sung as an ensemble number. - Steve]

A few election-related puns from Graham, before he introduces Sheila, John and Charlotte, and then has a little chat with Lloyd Webber. He then has a little jabber about Stephen Schwartz not going to the opening night of Wicked because he was scared it would flop, "so Dorothys, good luck." What? Charlotte is going to give us an exclusive later, snarf, and once more Graham tells him that she can't be Dorothy. There will be more canine interludes later, by the way.

Time for some singing. Danielle really wants to be Dorothy and thinks she will be great because she is raw and youthful and fresh and gritty. Not memorable, you'll note, but then we can't have everything. Jessica did another peculiar unrestrained performance last week and can't believe she's in the final six. She says she is quirky and has weird facial expressions. Who knew? She thinks she would be "a different Dorothy". Different to whom? Nobody has ever played the part in the history of the world, have they?

Up first, Danielle, singing 'On My Own' from Les Miserables, as sung by every teenage girl in the whole world who's ever had any kind of interest in musical theatre, so she should do well with this. Except everyone knows this song back to front so a competent performance, like this, isn't that interesting - you need to do something exceptional, and that nasty harsh belt she tries to get away with really isn't it. [I thought the singing was decent, apart from the hideous phrasing of "PRETEN-DAAAAANG", but the acting just wasn't there. She basically acted it the same way that she did for 'Just A Little Girl', and all the huffing and eyerolling wasn't appropriate here. - Steve]

Jessica has a little hat pinned to her hair and I wonder at first if she's going to give us a bit of Eliza Doolittle, but no, she has a horrible floral mini-dress, which is apparently what one wears to be Mary Poppins and sing 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious', which she gurns her way through. She also has an umbrella which enables her to do a dreadful Dick Van Dyke tribute dance routine. She seems to be incredibly out of breath, and veering out of tune. This is not a good start to the show. [Weirdly, I quite liked this. I actually thought this was the most sense Jessica's ever made on this show, performance-wise. - Steve]

Danielle and Jess went shopping in Covent Garden this week and were accosted by strange people who think they're famous. Jessica isn't superstitious, which is why she danced with an open umbrella. Marvellous. Charlotte thinks Danielle's top notes were shouty but enjoyed the overall performance, and that Jessica being out of breath didn't bother her. It'd bloody bother you if you saw that on stage. Sheila thought Jessica should have relished the funny word a bit more, and loves what Danielle does, likening her to a 12-year-old Catherine Zeta Jones, or something. John enthuses about Danielle's energy and grace, but thinks she's a better actress than she is a singer, and then calls Jessica a "Marmite Dorothy". Andrew says they chose Danielle's song deliberately as a contrast with 'Mambo Italiano', and then says that she has to learn better technique with her singing.

Steph was sad to sing off last week but thought she would go, not Stephanie. She thinks Dorothy must be courageous, and she has courage. Well, yes, perhaps, but you have to ACT the role, it's not about whether you are most like her. Then I love her a bit for saying that Dorothy is a 12-year-old girl "and I'm the height of a 12-year-old". Jenny says performing is just her, and muddles up her words. She would be a "real" Dorothy, not a "staged performance - just me, doing it from the heart". That sounds a GREAT idea. Don't act it!

Steph is singing 'Somewhere' from West Side Story. Her voice is so beautiful, but I really think it sounds too mature for Dorothy, or even Maria, come to that. Still, it's nice to see someone manage to act a song as well as hit the notes. Her belt is much better than Danielle's, particularly as it hits right on her break too. Obviously it's a Streisand interpretation rather than the performance from the show itself, but it's nice.

Jenny is taking on one of the songs Jodie Prenger did brilliantly two years ago, 'Send In The Clowns', and she has the opposite problem to Steph - she sounds too young to be singing a song like this. She is endeavouring to act it, though, even if it isn't entirely convincing, so kudos to her for that. She's screwed over slightly by the mad cuts they've made in the song to fit it into a two-minute time-slot. [Yeah, this really was a no-win situation for Jenny, wasn't it? She tried her best, bless her. - Steve]

Steph tells Graham that nobody's trying to poison each other yet [not now they no longer have to contend with Stephanie's cooking, I should think - Steve]; Jenny talks in reality TV show cliches. Sheila thinks Steph was wonderful and is glad that she's still there, and says that Jenny's song should be more ironic rather than opting for "sad" all the way through. John loves Jenny's up-tempo work but her acting is half-baked. OUCH. [People in glass houses... - Steve] He thinks Steph is very versatile, and comments on the truth and beauty of her performance. Charlotte thinks Jenny had moments of magic, and that Steph is superb. Lloyd Webber gives us some mad anecdotes and thanks them both.

Next? Why, it's Sophie, who wanted to get experience from the show and didn't imagine that she'd be in the final six. She thinks she is innocent, sweet, and that the part suits her the best. Lauren says she consistently gives her all in ALL her performances, and as Dorothy she would hit the top level all the time. She thinks she'd be a safe pair of hands because she's very professional. She keeps dreaming that she could be Dorothy, and now she COULD be Dorothy. Well, I keep dreaming that I'm having a passionate affair with Richard Armitage, but THAT's not going to happen.

Sophie is singing 'I Enjoy Being A Girl' from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Show. She actually sounds quite comfortable doing this kind of stuff vocally, but she doesn't seem to be able to convey the meaning of the words. It's a JOKE song, Sophie! Have some fun with it!

Lauren is giving us some Sondheim - 'Being Alive' from Company. She normally does a good job of the songs with content that let her act. This, though, just makes me wonder if she can do any extreme emotion other than VERY ANGRY. I do enjoy her face on the word "confused", though, which denotes confusion in a Joey Tribbiani style. Maybe Steve will screenshot it for us if we're nice. [This one? - Steve]

Still, it's another polished vocal show from her.

Lauren says she gives herself a talking-to before each show; Sophie says she is getting more confident. John loves Sophie's openness and says the camera loves her, but that's the problem - she's small and understated and she'd get swallowed up in a theatre. He says Lauren is singing songs that other girls in the West End wouldn't even dream of attempting, and she has the best voice in the competition. Charlotte thinks Sophie did a great performance, John interrupts, and then she dismisses him with, "Yeahyeah." HA. She suggests to Lauren that she could rein in her voice a little bit, but still liked it. Sheila wanted Lauren to do more with the lyrics, and thinks Sophie should have done something more funny with her material, but thinks she'll get better once she realises she can make a fool of herself. Lloyd Webber agrees with Sheila - Sophie isn't happy with movement, and Lauren is vocally strong but should avoid her tendency to shoutiness.

Ooh, lines are open! If you've not already had enough of voting, do so now! There's a recap, interspersed with the girls telling us how brilliant they are and why theyd be good Dorothys. Worryingly, Sophie already thinks she IS Dorothy. Should someone tell her it's not real? [Somehow I do not believe the girls on this show are especially concerned with what is or is not real. - Steve]

Canine VT time. The girls go to a film set to meet Bobby the Westie and act out a scene with him. Jessica loves dogs; Steph keeps calling him "it"; Danielle's dog isn't that well-trained; Jenny breaks things. The scene is the one where Dorothy is reunited with her only friend, the dog. Steph does some amazing crying. Jessica does some crazy faces but does seems to like the dog. Danielle is strangely subdued when Toto returns. Jenny is rubbish with the dog, who runs away. [I smell sabotage. - Steve] Lloyd Webber is sniffy about her not having a connection with him, despite being a cat person himself - he mentioned that earlier in the series. He then mocks Sophie for packing up her bedding when she runs away - "If she does that every night, it may get rather expensive on the scenery front", he says. Except she's not REALLY running away, is she? She's acting. The bedding would be in the wings. Jesus, what's wrong with everyone on this show tonight? He notes that Steph wasn't good with the dog, but thinks [erroneously - Steve] that Danielle was strong , and that Jessica was decent too. Jenny was not good, and Lauren has a natural rapport with animals, as does Sophie, who needs to polish up her acting but has time to do so. [The timescale in Lloyd Webber's head is so weird. These girls apparently have time to learn how to act, but not to cultivate a friendship with a dog. - Steve]

Oh, srsly? The girls are singing 'Talk To The Animals' from Dr Dolittle. There's a quick switch of camera away to a beaming John Partridge, who is an increasingly peculiar colour. Danielle's high notes are still not good - and she can't now decide whether or not to belt. Sigh. Young people today. Lloyd Webber makes a relatively good pun about being "Totogenic". He tells everyone to remember what they've seen throughout the series when they're voting tonight.

Montage VT of tomorrow's mission, where the girls have to bribe dogs and impress children. Looks a stormer. Have fun, Steve!

Ooh, another montage to waste a bit more time before the votes come in, telling us about the BBC Performing Arts Fund that we pay for with our phone calls. Ooh, it's Briony, who didn't get to be Maria, and was very insanely teenage! The Fund is paying for her to go to Arts Ed at the moment. We also meet Fra Fee (no, really), who's also had his tuition paid for while he's starring as Billy in Dirty Dancing in That West End. Aw, and there Briony is in the audience tonight. Good for her.

Then Charlotte sings, and it's fucking awful. Although I've decided I don't like her any more because she says she'll change her name when she gets married.

Who Is The Bitch That You Think Will Go This Week? Danielle thinks Steph is in danger because she was bottom two last week; Jessica says Danielle was shit in rehearsals; Lauren thinks Sophie is rubbish on the live shows; Sophie thinks Jenny may go; Jenny thinks Steph; Steph thinks Jenny, because she knows fuck-all about musical theatre.

What do the panel think? Sheila says Sophie is not Dorothy; as does John; but Charlotte thinks Jenny should go. Ooh, regionalist!

So the results - Steph is through; as is Danielle; incidentally Jessica sometimes looks exceptionally beautiful and other times completely crazy, as she does here when Graham says, "Jessica, you are - still in the running to be Dorothy!" and then scurries to the Dorothy bleachers muttering, "EVIL, THAT WAS EVIL!" like she doesn't know her microphone is on or something, and we all know that can only lead to bad bad things [even better - my boyfriend the lip-reading expert is convinced that after a sound technician swiftly turned down her mic, Jessica went on to say "that was BLOODY EVIL". Hee. - Steve]; Jenny is in the bottom two, as is Lauren, which means Sophie could still be Dorothy. If it were down to votes alone, Lauren would be going. Ooh, controversial.

The girls' sing-off song is Bridge Over Troubled Water, like they want to be in Hear'Say or something. On the plus side, at least this has some harmonies and isn't just a contest of volume and vibrato. Lauren would win that, anyway. Graham bewails a "terrible situation", ie the situation around which this whole show is based. Lloyd Webber saves Lauren, obviously, and at least Jenny knew that would happen. He says that Jenny is talented but she is so small in her performance and rubbish with dogs that she wouldn't be a good Dorothy. Brilliantly, he then says that Lauren's top range is screechy, and maybe that she is a "cat man". Jenny says some reality TV cliches and manages to keep a hold on her tears.

So she goes to sing her final number, and Danielle kisses her, though not on the mouth as she did with Dani. And Jenny takes her seat on the sparkly moon and gives a performance much better than any she has ever done in the live shows. Though with an occasional bit of sidegob, which is an offence automatically warranting elimination. She then beams at the end and winks at the girls, which is a much better look than defiance or torrential weeping.

Graham PERSONALLY reopens the phone lines, ready for tomorrow's second elimination. Then there is another recap. Danielle's "pretendinggggg" sounds even uglier for the third time of hearing. And then our final five Dorothys do a box-step-style medley of songs from The Wizard Of Oz. [And Danielle, of course, gets the only song that's actually sung by Dorothy. I mean, there was no doubt that she's this year's Pirate Jessie Who Can Do No Wrong, but must they make it quite so obvious? - Steve] Lauren does a bit of an Elvis sneer for reasons uncertain. John informs us that we should pick the girl who is best for the part. Charlotte is not ready to lose Lauren. Lesbian. Sheila wants the girls to raise their ideas of what Dorothy should be.

And it's down to the final five! Who will go tomorrow? Join Steve to find out!

Don't leave in silence with no words at all

2010-05-03T09:35:00.004+01:00

Final 7 - Results
Tx: 2nd May 2010

So Graham welcomes us back and informs us the phone lines are "now" closed, as they have been for nearly 24 hours, and introduces us to the Dorothys, who perform that bastardised train-wreck of Don't Rain On My Parade again. Lauren really hams up the cringeworthy moment where they sing 'Mr Lloyd Webber'.

Last night the girls sang big band numbers, or at least numbers with a big band; tonight there'll be mash-ups, Legally Blonde and a mission in a haunted forest, including a flying monkey. Or a stuffed toy that looks like it's been hanged.

Anyway, some backstage action while the performances are recapped. Steph was living the dream; Jenny had fun; Sophie's family assured us that she'd come back from her horrid comments, presumably while she was crying in a corner somewhere; Danielle felt incredible; Lauren failed to look over her shoulder and convey heartbreak adequately, but none the less she and her family were pleased with the comments; Stephanie was upset that John didn't like her performance, but hey ho, her dad did; Jessica is passionate about the song 'Cabaret'. Sheila thought the girls were knockout, John thought some are getting lost, Charlotte can't work out who'll be in the bottom two.

Back in the studio, Andrew says they are "such talented kids". Sheila says the girls are reaching West End standard with their talent, but she is unsure whether they are in terms of work. John says three girls are consistently strong. Charlotte says there are no weak links.

Graham introduces the "mash-up" but admit that it's "more of a medley, really". FINALLY. The girls sing songs about parties. Stephanie's face is really unattractive when she sings. Jenny does the Claire-from-Steps patented nose-scrunch. John is bopping his head and looking more orange and gay than he did last night.

Toto time. Do I really have to recap this shit? Suffice to say, the owners love their dogs. They all go to see Amy Lennox, Margot in Legally Blonde, to perform the bit in the middle of Omigod You Guys where Bruiser runs on to tell her that Elle is trapped in the Old Valley Mall. To be fair, the chihuahaus who are actually in the show sometimes fuck this up. Missy is good; Eddie runs all over the place; Spider skids around the stage and nearly falls into the pit; Troy just wants to eat the treats; Dangerous Dave is very cute but doesn't "speak". Anyway, Missy gets the day's rosette as "top dog".

Back on the Dorothy bleachers, Danielle is glad that people might not think she is solemn. Sophie is always worried that she might be in the bottom two. Lauren doesn't know how she will top the comments from this week, because she is HUMBLE. Jessica thinks this has been the best week so far. Stephanie doesn't know what went wrong this week and doesn't feel ready to go. Jenny and Steph do not get to speak.

Time for the mission, minus Jessica who was too busy being ill. The girls have to walk ALONE through the haunted forest. Stephanie doesn't think it's good that there's a full moon. The girls' mums are in tents around the forest watching their progress (BABY D! In a tent!). At some point during the walk the girls have to choose between home, ie their mums, and the emerald tent of Oz. Danielle is first, and talks herself into bravery with "Come on, you're 18 now!" Steph gets whacked in the face by branches and then giggles. Lauren chants, "There's no place like home!" All the girls scream when faced with the "flying" "monkey" except Danielle, who plods on stoically regardless. I'm not sure she even saw him. [Either that or she was injecting the same level of emotion into this mission as she has into all of her songs so far. - Steve] Then they must choose - home or Oz? They all agree that Dorothy wants to get home, but should they be opting for Oz? Baby D concurs that this is a horrible choice. Stephanie thinks it's a trick. Jenny decides she is going to go home, and then blubs when she sees her mum. Stephanie is still prevaricating and eventually decides to go to Oz, which her mum thinks is the right choice, but she wanted a hug. Aw. Anyway, Stephanie, Danielle and Sophie go to Oz, which apparently makes them winners in a game where they never knew the rules. Brilliant. [Bonus points to Steph for totally overthinking it and picking "Home" because "Dorothy wants to go home", God love her - Steve]

Time for another musical number - the girls and their dancers in 'The Happening', and after all that fuss John made about heels, they're now performing in bare feet. John says Danielle is really special, and Charlotte and Sheila both agree. Andrew says he is getting a feel as to how the competition should go, and then starts wittering about training dogs, dancing and accents, all of which Dorothy will need to do. Well, yes. Perhaps your casting competition ought to take account of that, then?

The girls are asked who they think would struggle with performing in the West End. [It's not quite "Who Is The Bitch That You Hate?", but it'll do for now. - Steve] Danielle says Jenny because she can't dance; Jenny says Stephanie because she never shuts up; Stephanie says Jenny because she has no experience in "long-running shows"; Lauren says Stephanie because she is just too young and has already shown in the house that she is still a kid; Steph says Jessica because she lost her voice this week; Jessica says Jenny because she struggles with dancing; and Sophie says Stephanie because she's just an immature baby. I'm paraphrasing here, obviously, but the sentiments are the same.

Based on this week's performances, who isn't Dorothy? Stephanie according to Sheila and John, and Charlotte says Sophie, even though she too IS WELSH. Here are the results - Steph is in the bottom two; Danielle goes through, as do Jessica and Lauren, then Jenny. Stephanie is already sobbing, and when Graham tells her that it is she in the bottom two, not Sophie, she loses it. If it were down to votes alone, Stephanie would be going. She's muttering to herself and this is demonstrating that her fellow Dorothys were right when they said she would struggle with handling pressure.

The song this week is 'Tell Me On A Sunday'. [Which is either the worst song ever written, or just not the right song to ask two emotional girls to perform in a sing-off, because both on this show and on I'd Do Anything it's been the most godawful noise. - Steve] Steph does some excellent diction. Stephanie composes herself and sings well. Sophie and Danielle are looking moist-eyed and mouthing the words along with them. The stupid audience start to applaud when the girls belt.

The verdict, and Stephanie is clutching on to Steph for support. Lloyd Webber says, "I can't imagine what you were going through then. I'm afraid I shared it." What? Stephanie is seriously in pieces now. And then he saves Steph, who's open-mouthed and then cries too. Stephanie is trying to act the part of a non-crying grown-up but failing, and does an embarrassing farewell speech. Lloyd Webber says he's had fantastic reports of her from everywhere she's worked, which does nothing to stem the tears. Graham looks quite upset too.

The girls say their goodbyes over the sound of Stephanie snivelling. Steph takes her shoes and then they hug for so long I worry they might not get over to Lloyd Webber in time. Stephanie begins her solo through her tears, which works quite well as an acting choice, but is excruciating when you know that this is a teenage girl whose misery is being screened on national television. Her "where - you'll - find - me", as her voice breaks and she starts to sob again, almost moves me to weeping too. And the thing that finally tips me over the edge is Steph urging her to pull herself together and mouthing "DO IT!" to her before the final line - which she does, I really don't know how - and then punching the air with glee.

Well, that was incredibly sad. And next week there'll be a double-elimination! Join us then!

Band this filth

2010-05-02T09:19:00.000+01:00

Top 7: Big Band Night
1st May 2010

Last week! A cartoon Graham Norton briefly appeared during the last thirty seconds of some old guff about a spaceman, and the nation collectively lost its shit. Also, it was a night of outstanding performances. And Emilie's. The Lord thought that Jessica gave him a world-class performance (he did not, however, specify which world - my money's on Super Mario World, I think she'll make an amazing Wendy O. Koopa), and we were all put out of our misery when the voting public finally realised that Emilie was hopelessly out of her depth and sent her packing. Hooray! Tonight, the remaining seven Dorothys are performing with a big band, and spouting various reality TV clichés about this being the most important thing they have ever done and will ever do!

Titles. Girls attempt to steal shoes from each other; first-time viewers wonder why the BBC commissioned How Do You Solve A Problem Like Imelda Marcos?

Studio, no longer Television Centre-based. Thanks to last week's commenter Josh, by the way, for informing me of the show's new location, and consider me suitably embarrassed for not having worked that out beforehand. Graham enters, wearing another waistcoat that aims to give hard-of-hearing viewers a better impression of what Jessica sounds like. The big band play a few stings, and various pyrotechnics erupt feebly. The top 7 take to the stage to sing 'Don't Rain On My Parade', and group numbers are a little bit less fun now that I'm not waiting to see if Emilie can come in on-pitch or not. Jenny appears to be cultivating a sidegob worthy of Pirate Jessie, Lauren plays with her skirt during the "I'll beat my drum" line (dirty!), and of course the "hey, Mr Arnstein" line is changed to "Mr Lloyd Webber", and Andrew cackles like it's the funniest thing he's ever heard, even though some loser did exactly the same thing during the auditions. I guess he had better things to do than watch the rushes.

Once that's over, Graham tells us that we're past the halfway stage, and there's no clear frontrunner because "a different girl" has been hitting the bottom two every week. I think you'll find that's two different girls, Graham. Also, surely the frontrunners would be the girls who have yet to find themselves in that position, i.e. Stephanie, Jenny and Jessica? That's what the internet is saying, anyway, and obviously the internet is always right. The panel are present and correct: Sheila (demure), John (orange), and Charlotte (burlesque). Graham asks Andrew what sort of perils the girls should be wary of this week, and before answering, Andrew informs us all that Lee and Denise welcomed their sprog Betsy into the world this morning. Look out for Betsy on Take Me Or Leave Me, the hunt for an actress to play Maureen in the next revival of Rent, in around 18 years' time. I know I've got it marked on my calendar. The crowd applaud the general concept of heteronormativity, and Andrew makes a rubbish gag about Dorothy and Toto having equal-sized dressing rooms. Lauren's all, "as long as it has room for my relatively expensive double-quilted eye make-up removal pads, I'm good."

Graham teases that the girls will be performing a song made famous by Judy Garland (whoever she is - I might have known once upon a time but Dani's rendition of 'Ego' by The Saturdays completely banished all such knowledge from my mind), and then it's time for Steph and Jenny. Steph's VT reminds us that Andrew actually liked her last week, much to her astonishment. Steph hopes she's shown Andrew that she's versatile and changed his mind about whether she can be Dorothy. She's excited about big band week because she loves jazz, and she's amazed that she's still standing after being in the bottom two. Such heavy foreshadowing, in addition to the fact that she's on first, makes me suspicious that she might be the first contestant to end up there twice. Jenny's VT reminds us that she has never seen a West End show, "which is funny, because the first time I might've seen one might be the time that I'm in one." I'm not sure she quite understands how this "theatre" malarkey works, y'know. To cure her of the apprehension that actors tend to have out-of-body experiences and simultaneously guzzle fruit pastilles in the stalls while watching themselves perform, Jenny is taken to see Mamma Mia!, and even gets to go backstage to meet some of the cast to boot. We see numerous shots of Jenny rapturously enjoying the show, and several other audience members who are possibly a tad put out at having a camera shoved in their face during their quiet night out at the theatre.

Steph's on first, singing 'Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend' in a choreography-heavy number that sees her twirling around a sparkly cane while hurling herself bravely at her backing dancers and hoping that they'll catch her - which they do, thankfully. It's a fun, game performance - Steph twinkles every bit as much as her cane does - though the glory note at the end is perhaps a little bit rough. Jenny takes on 'Feeling Good', and her attempt at sultry is a little bit on the squinty side - she reminds me of Jane Horrocks impersonating Shirley Bassey - though the transformation of Jenny between her pre-performance VTs and her live show appearance makes me think that the make-up artists on this show really deserve a raise. Vocally, it's totally on the money, and I don't think she'll be in any trouble this week.

Graham asks Steph what the challenge was like of opening the show with a full-on production number this week: Steph says that while the lifts looked worrisome, it was actually walking on the boys' backs that she was most concerned about because she didn't want to hurt them. Apparently they kept going "ow!" in rehearsal, so she's glad they're not mic-ed up tonight. Jenny says that having the band behind them really got their hearts racing and got them into the spirit of the performance. John thinks they made a cracking opening to the show, and he thinks that Steph's new "BFs" after that performance will be the scarecrow and the tin man, because she handled a big number and made it look effortless. [Oh, Partridge, you get gayer by the week. - Carrie] He thinks that Jenny got her mojo back and really grew throughout the performance. Sheila says that despite her misgivings at the start of the series about anyone being able to rival Judy Garland's (what? who?) iconic performance, both of these girls would make wonderful Dorothys. She thinks Jenny could've used the lyrics a bit more to colour it, and Steph could've gone a little bit further, but they were both great. Charlotte calls Steph a "diminutive diva" and praises her performance, and tells Jenny that she absolutely owned her song. The Lord congratulates Steph for saving the day last week when the band came in early at the end of 'Oklahoma!' last week (I don't remember exactly what happened, but Steph is my favourite, so I'll just assume she did something completely awesome) and blathers on for ages about understanding the lyrics and uses the terrifying phrase "a big bump-and-grind number", but seems generally impressed by both performers.

Getting a slot all to herself this week is Sophie, who tells us that being in the bottom two is not a good feeling because you feel like the public have completely lost faith in you. Well, yes, but on the bright side, they lost faith in Emilie more, so it's not all bad news, right? Sophie's grandpa Haydn thinks that Wales has let her down (because we are, of course, voting for postcodes and not performances), so Sophie goes home to Tonypandy to LAY DOWN SOME BEATINGS. Oh, sorry, my mistake: she just watches a video of some nice old ladies and her old drama studio telling her that they're supporting her, and that they're kidnapping people from the English borders and holding them at gunpoint while they vote for Sophie. I may have added that last bit. Watching the video lifts Sophie's spirits, anyway.

She's singing 'What A Wonderful World' and has made the odd-but-not-necessarily-invalid acting choice to play it in a depressed sort of way. It sort of works, but on a night where everybody else is going to be running around and dancing, it doesn't really do a lot to make the performance linger in the memory. Her vocals are pretty decent - she cracks on a few of the longer notes, but her singing's of a better standard than usual. [I love the tone of Sophie's voice. That's what makes her a possible Dorothy. - Carrie]

She talks a bit more to Graham about how much it means to have the support of Tonypandy, and Charlotte thinks the vocals were wonderful, though she could've pushed it further (we seem to be getting a lot of this particular line of criticism from the panel as a whole this week, and I rather question how useful it is - would it kill them to provide specific examples?) and Charlotte would've liked her to smile rather than be all SRS BSNS about the whole thing. Sheila thinks the interpretation was a viable one, but she wishes Sophie had chosen to really love it. She thinks Sophie's nerves are holding her back and she wants to kick her (Graham: "Don't worry, Sophie, we'll stop her.") and then Sophie smiles and Sheila's all "THERE! RIGHT THERE!" [gay or European? - Carrie] and we've perhaps had a breakthrough of some kind. John doesn't want to kick her when she's down, but he wishes he could've seen the colour in the rainbow (at this point, I could do with seeing a colour besides ORANGE, because seriously, dude, lay off the tanning for a bit) and thinks that she worried so much about singing that she forgot to act. Andrew agrees with the panel, but thinks that Sophie is really capable of much more, and wonders if the big band led her astray a little bit. In the background, the band are all "well, excuse us, Princess."

Toto teaser: they're off to Legally Blonde this week, and it's Carrie's turn to recap it again. Hahahahaha. [BITCH. - Carrie]

Up next are Danielle and Lauren. It was Danielle's birthday this week, and Andrew was going to buy her a celebratory shandy until several quick-witted public relations experts took him to one side and suggested that might not be the BEST idea, so instead the girls threw a surprise party for her back at Dorothy Manor. Everyone's dressed as West End stars: Lauren is Sandy from Grease (or possibly Julie Goodyear in Calendar Girls), Jessica is the Cowardly Lion, Steph is being Sheila Hancock in Sister Act, Jenny is presumably something from We Will Rock You, Stephanie is Elphaba from Wicked, and Sophie is someone from Mamma Mia!, I assume. Danielle, of course, gets to be Dorothy, which I'm sure will not have gone unnoticed by the conspiracy theorists. Although, the fact that Danielle gets video messages from the cast of Wicked (including Rachel Tucker as Elphaba), Niamh from Love Never Dies and the cast of Mamma Mia!, all wishing her a happy birthday, does seem perhaps a bit excessive. I bet Sophie's not feeling quite so excited about that video from the Tonypandy Mothers' Union any more. They conga around Dorothy house, and Danielle is very happy. Lauren thinks that last week was her best show so far, but she thinks she's been mechanical and robotic about her approach to the show so far, and thinks her friends at home wouldn't even recognise her from ~~her edit~~ "the Lauren they've seen on TV". So she goes off to a crappy-looking funfair with said friends to relax for a bit, and they really are just copy-pasting the Danyl Johnson I'm Not An Arrogant Fiend Redemption Arc here, aren't they? Lauren throws some balls and wins a teddy, and then hits a friend over the head with an inflatable hammer, possibly because she suspected said friend of stealing her relatively expensive double-quilted eye make-up removal pads.

Danielle is singing 'Mambo Italiano' this week, and begins her performance with an ill-advised wink at the camera which makes her look a bit simple. Once the song turns uptempo, she's actually pretty good - it's not the best vocal she's ever given, and I'm still not wholly convinced that her emotional range is that wide, but it's the most animated I've seen her on stage so far. It's the closest I've come to feeling inspired to vote for her, anyway. (I didn't in the end, just in case you were wondering.) Lauren is singing 'The Man That Got Away', and regular readers will I'm sure be entirely unsurprised that I spent the entire performance screaming "Where is he? Look over your shoulder! Touch your hair in anguish!" Ahh, happy days. [I was so excited when she went to lift her hands to her head, and then didn't follow through. How is heartbreak supposed to be denoted without that? - Carrie] I'm not suggesting that Lauren's performance is a masterpiece of subtlety and nuance (she does have melodramatic tendencies of her own), but the fact that she does manage to develop an emotional narrative for the song without just acting out each individual lyric demonstrates just how amateurish Jessie's performance was two years ago, despite what Andrew Lloyd Webber said. I feel rather bad for not judging Lauren's performance on its own merits and just using it as another opportunity to bash Pirate Jessie, but...oh, wait. Never mind, I never feel bad about bashing Pirate Jessie.

Danielle tells Graham about her birthday cake, which was apparently two pieces of Soreen smushed together because she doesn't actually like birthday cake. I'd call her a weirdo, but my boyfriend doesn't like cake either. I attempted to make him a cheesecake for his birthday this weekend, but it didn't set, so he ended up getting a bowl of cheesy-yoghurty slush with a few lumps of biscuit in it. I am the worst boyfriend ever, aren't I? Anyway, no one ate Danielle's cake and it went hard. And then it's time for another story about how Lauren is an alien who doesn't understand our earth customs: hooray! Apparently she's a neat freak (SHOCKER) and cleans up after everyone - she says that Steph is good when it comes to cleaning, but STEPH-ER-NEE is a liability, and they all keep a log of how long she leaves her pots and pans out without washing them. Stephanie cringes as her complete lack of domestic skill is broadcast to the nation once again. Presumably she'll be getting Anthea Turner round for her VT next week. Lauren waves at Stephanie and mouths "sorry!", and I actually love her a little bit. Oddly enough for someone who spends this much time on the internet, I know what it's like to have no social skills whatsoever, so I'm starting to find her post-performance chats incredibly endearing.

Sheila thought those were two knockout performances, and both girls assume a character when they perform. She was particularly pleased to see Danielle going mad and having fun, and being appropriately silly with it. Similarly, Lauren brought the necessary desperation and grief to her song. John is amazed at Danielle's improvement, but thinks her vocals were affected by the choreography. He handwaves it by saying that normally performers get six weeks to develop the necessary stamina to support their vocals in such situations, and...this is the fifth live show of the series, and I'm assuming they would have had a few weeks' rehearsal before then, so I'm not sure I'm ready to buy that one. Lauren's the most experienced girl here, and he thinks that's starting to show, and he loves her. Charlotte thinks Danielle has grown the most of all the girls, and that her performance was brilliant and joyous this week, while Lauren gave "one of the best performances I've ever seen in my life". Andrew makes a mental note to take Charlotte backstage afterwards and show her Pirate Jessie's DEFINITIVE performance. Oh, and he tells both girls that he's proud of them, and that Danielle showed us humour and fun, and sang live while dancing, while Lauren took on one of the most tricky songs of all time, and Andrew gives us another potted history of the song despite no one really caring. Apparently Lauren breathed in the wrong place, but it was really the right place, and that was why her performance was brilliant. I won't even pretend I understood that.

Mission trailer: this week they abandon the girls in the woods at night. Awesome.

And so we come to Stephanie and Jessica. Stephanie gets to go home this week to see her family, and thinks it feels like years since she's been back to see her family. They're all out in force to greet her, though I can't see any evidence of cousin Gemma. Hmm. They've made a makeshift yellow brick road for Stephanie out of wallpaper, and then Stephanie goes out into Liverpool city centre, where lots of people stop her and ask for her autograph and get their pictures taken with her. Stephanie is agog, because this is just what she used to do when she saw Atomic Kitten. She takes a ferry 'cross the Mersey while the aforementioned song plays behind her. Heh. Jessica is very excited that Andrew was so impressed with her last week, but came down to earth sharply when her voice went on "Sunday evening". But hang on a minute, Jessica, we all saw you on Sunday evening and there was no evidence of this! Next you'll be telling us that show wasn't 100% live! "You mustn't speak, you mustn't sing," her voice coach tells us. What the show does not explain is that this segment was in fact recorded two months ago, when the voice coach met Jessica for the very first time. Jessica goes to see a throat specialist, and basically has to keep quiet all week (hooray!), which means she can't rehearse this week's song. Sucks to be her, I guess.

Stephanie is singing 'Mr Bojangles', and it's a rare mis-step from her this week. She doesn't really seem to be able to get a handle on the song terribly well, and it doesn't give her much opportunity to show off her vocals, relying instead on her acting ability, which isn't really Stephanie's strongest suit. In evidence of this claim, I submit: Stephanie sings the line "call him Mr Bojangles" by glaring ferociously at the camera and pointing her finger, leaving me absolutely terrified of what she'll do to me if I don't call him Mr Bojangles. "Kneecap me" seems the most likely outcome. I like Stephanie a lot, but this was a really rough week for her. Jessica, on the other hand, is singing 'Cabaret' (her favourite song ever, apparently) and looking right matronly in her sequinned jacket and school-run hairdo. Her voice seems to have returned to her, though judging by the snarls and twitches, I think she could've still made herself heard even if she'd been rendered mute all night. She also disappoints me greatly by not singing "when I go, I'm going like Rachel", which I think we all know is the correct version of the lyrics.

Post-performance, Graham informs us that Stephanie also lost her voice this week, but this was apparently not worth mentioning in her own VT. Poor Stephanie - robbed of the sympathy vote. Jessica said the others finally had some peace and quiet this week. John thinks they didn't let their vocal problems show, though he didn't like Stephanie's performance. He didn't know who Mr Bojangles was or how she felt about him - at which point Charlotte cashes in her I Disagree Completely Card for the week and interrupts, saying that it was "different" and she made it new and fresh. Then she tells John he can carry on now, which I admit did made me giggle a little bit. John didn't think the choreography went with the lyrics (not really Stephanie's fault though, is it?), but he knows people will pick up the phone and support her. Jessica, on the other hand, gave the performance he's been waiting for, because it showed passion and attack, both qualities that Dorothy should apparently have. Charlotte says that all the girls stepped up their game tonight, and tells Stephanie not to listen to John, and then tells Jessica that she gave her best vocal performance of the series. Sheila likes that Jessica got the context of 'Cabaret' and that this was an embittered, sad, lost girl (I'm not entirely sure that was deliberate, but I'm not about to contradict Dame Sheila Hancock) but she would've liked a few more colours. She thinks Stephanie should've told the story of Mr Bojangles more simply, but concedes that it was a very difficult song. Andrew agrees that both songs are very difficult, and thinks that Jessica got the acting side of it right, while Stephanie could perhaps have told two sides of the story, though he thinks they both did very well in challenging circumstances.

Filler time! Andrew gets his own VT to give us his thoughts on each of the contestants: Danielle is "one of the most talented girls we've got in the competition" and they haven't seen all that she can do; Lauren is DEFINITELY NOT ARROGANT AT ALL and has a vulnerability that we've not yet seen; Stephanie is "an interesting talent" with a lot of personality, but needs to develop her acting skills; Steph has made a huge journey and completely turned a corner for him, becoming a strong contender; Jenny surprised them all at the start and has great instincts; Jessica has so much to offer, but has only given us glimpses of her true potential so far; Sophie may have turned in on herself a little bit, and Andrew wants to see the homespun quality of Dorothy in her. In short: he's very proud of them all.

It's not over yet, either: it's time for another group number as they sing 'The Trolley Song', as made famous by Whatshername. Everyone mugs for all they're worth throughout, and once again it's not as much fun when nobody really fucks up. Jessica gets a much shorter solo section than everyone else, though I wonder if that's a result of her aforementioned voice problems this week which didn't give her much rehearsal time. Steph and Lauren probably work the hardest of everyone in the song, but no one really embarrasses herself.

Andrew thinks there is "real excellence" in here, and asks us all to think about them not just as Dorothys but also as "real talents" when we vote. The lines open, and it's time for a quick recap of the performance: Steph dazzling, but perhaps on reflection not standing out quite as much as she usually does; Jenny feeling good; Sophie feeling like she might want to cut herself; Danielle delivering some Latin flavour; Lauren forgetting to touch her hair and look over her shoulder; Stephanie threatening to knife us if we don't call him Mr Bojangles; and Jessica loving a cabaret.

That's it! Don't forget to join Carrie later for the results show, and remember: CALL HIM MR BOJANGLES, MOTHERFUCKERS! OR I'LL END YOU!

Girls just wanna have a few more years of training

2010-04-25T20:02:00.000+01:00

Top 8 Results: 25th April 2010

My God, this show has been on for weeks and I've just realised that the yellow brick road in the titles isn't made of bricks. Call OFCOM!

We return to the studio with Graham already atop the stage, informing us that the lines have closed. NEARLY 24 HOURS AGO, in fact, but of course we do not dwell on this because the results show is sitting in some odd, dusty corner of the time-space continuum, both happening now and yet also confined to the past. The top eight Dorothys return to the stage to reprise 'If I Only Had The Part' from last night. Is it wrong if I admit I did actually find this quite funny? It's little touches like these, reminding us that the show doesn't take itself too seriously, that make it so much more bearable than the likes of The X Factor. The vocals are better than they were "last night", though I'm quite glad that none of these girls will actually be singing this song in the show itself. As the song finishes, Jessica is the only one who continues to hitch up her skirt as she runs off the stage. Perhaps she's Method.

Graham reminds us of the basic mechanics of the show: to wit, one girl will get a house dropped on her by the end of the credits. We still have our panel: theatrical treasure Sheila Hancock (nods graciously), musical maestro John Partridge (winks unsettlingly), and Welsh wonder Charlotte Church (entirely immobile). Andrew Lloyd Webber is here too, still with that strange posture he has which always makes it look like he's about to dash off set and take an important call.

Coming up tonight: another "mash-up", more Totos, and the girls performing an ensemble number with Charlotte. A trailer hints at them all having attacks of the vapours while she sings at them, which seems entirely understandable.

First, though, we've got our extended recap of last night, for the millions of people who watch the show and yet do not read this blog. Those bastards. Jenny opened the show with a competent but uninspiring rendition of 'Warwick Avenue', and Sheila questioned her motivation. Backstage, Jenny regrets not being able to give them exactly what they want. Someone who was not even in the same postal district as "giving us what we want" this week was Emilie, whose ill-advised petulant rendition of 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' went down like a cup of warm sick, and Sheila chewed her out for not being able to take the criticism that will inevitably be thrown at her should she enter the profession. I mean, it sucks that people aren't enjoying your performances, and to a degree I do sympathise, but at the same time: stop being shit, then. Attempting to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear that was her evening, Emilie assures the cameras backstage that they were "good comments" because it's all stuff she can work on. Well, her attitude's improved: fingers crossed her singing and acting follow suit.

Stephanie sang 'Nobody Does It Better' and Charlotte and Andrew lapped it up, while Lauren took on Pink's 'Nobody Knows' and was one of the evening's standouts, earning praise from Sheila and John. "Sometimes I just want to slap myself around the face," Lauren says afterwards. Somehow I suspect she's not alone in feeling that way. Except she means in terms of not being able to believe it, of course. Lauren's mother is very proud. Sophie was given Sara Bareilles' 'Love Song' in a really odd key that made it sound like her voice was breaking throughout her performance, and John thought it was too understated, while Sheila thought she was terrific. Sophie's mum complains that the judges are giving conflicting feedback. Jessica took on Faith Hill's 'There You'll Be' and was better than usual, though got mixed reviews from the panel for her efforts. Andrew, however, thought she looked "world-class" at times. Of course, as Carrie pointed out yesterday, he said that about Pirate Jessie too, and look how that turned out. Backstage, Jessica is very happy. Danielle performed 'Cry Me A River' in a performance that seems to have been divisive: I personally thought it was awful but a lot of people seemed to like it. Sheila tipped her for stardom, and Charlotte thought the vocals and acting were perfect. Danielle's mum says that she's been waiting for a song she can really belt out. Steph closed the evening with 'Use Somebody' and was again one of the best performers of the evening. Charlotte found her engaging, while John was possessed by the spirit of Alesha Dixon long enough to throw her some snaps and call her "fierce". Backstage, Steph's gobsmacked that even Andrew liked it.

Underscoring footage of the two group numbers, the judges are interviewed: John (speaking from a corridor that does not look like BBC Television Centre - have they gone walkabout this week?) has no idea who's going to be in the bottom two. As opposed to last week, when he claimed to know EXACTLY who was going to be there, and was almost certainly wrong. Charlotte thinks some girls are really pushing through and delivering. Sheila thinks they're all good and is sure she won't agree with whoever ends up getting voted off. [Except not. Oops, spoilers! - Carrie]

Back in the studio, Graham asks Andrew if any frontrunners emerged this week. "Yes: eight," is Andrew's reply, and with some needling he narrows it down to six, though he won't specify who. John is asked if all the girls are where they should be at this stage: unsurprisingly, he says that some are while some are not. Sheila is asked about the pressures of delivering EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK [although she's only doing seven at the moment - Carrie], and she says that you need stamina to do a long run in the West End, and she thinks three girls have that ability now, while the others will all be able to do it in the end. Finally, Charlotte is asked why she's chosen 'No More Tears' to perform with the girls later: she explains that it's a very dynamic song that's going to be a challenge for everyone.

Oh, God: it's "mash-up" time. Graham asks The Lord if he can handle any more mash, and Andrew says that he just needs a couple of pork sausages. Someone in the audience who clearly has a mind as filthy as mine cackles loudly. The girls begin with 'A Fine Romance', and if you didn't immediately guess that they were going to segue into Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance', then I think you need a few more years of pop culture finishing school. I mean, Steph's wearing a hooded leotard, which kind of gives it away. Sure enough, they soon break into 'ba-ra-RA-ah-ah", although from there they break seamlessly into 'Just Dance', and dare I say, that's quite close to being an actual mash-up. At least they're moving in the right direction. The Lord is singing along in his throne. Heh. Then they go into the chorus of 'Bad Romance', then back into 'Just Dance', and then into 'Paparazzi'. Yeah, so at this point it's becoming a medley again (or perhaps more accurately a megamix, as Sara Cox pointed out on Twitter). And there were mixed feelings about that on Twitter, but I loved it. If they're going to completely misunderstand what a mash-up actually is, they can at least give me a shitload of Gaga while they're doing so.

The Dorothys scamper offstage, and then it's time for the search for Toto. I've been dreading this. A VT carries us to Andrew's luxurious estate, and eleven dogs are making their way up to see The Lord. These people are doing absolutely nothing for the public reputation of dog lovers, because they all seem to be completely nutty. Jodie giggles that a couple of dogs are going to scare Andrew silly. Andrew reminds us that we need a Toto with character who can make us laugh and cry. A dog turns up in "ermine and purple, so he can be a prince and outrank a Lord". Yeah, that's the best way to get into Andrew's good books: trump him. Another lady has coloured her hair to match her dog's. She does a little skit with her dog, Troy. More dogs audition. No one except for those directly involved care even slightly. Although there are a couple of gorgeous beagles, who melt my heart a little bit. Andrew keeps reminding us he is a cat man. Unless I am mishearing him, and he's actually Batman. Well, they're both millionaire philanthropists, aren't they? The judges confer, the owners wait anxiously. It's down to Noted Cat Lover Andrew to announce the top five: Dave, Eddie, Missy, Spider and Troy. And if that means anything to you, then I pity you a little bit. Next week, they embark on their first Toto task, as they go to Legally Blonde. [Ooh! Ooh! Steve! We should go and see Legally Blonde! - Carrie] One dog appears to get trapped in a seat. Fun times!

From one group of dogs to another, Graham's back with the remaining Dorothys. (Too mean?) [Yes! - Carrie] He asks Danielle, who was "saved by the Lord" last week, though has not yet begun toting a Bible everywhere she goes, about how important Andrew's approval is. She says that as the biggest man in musical theatre, obviously it is very important. Following on from last week's shocking revelation that Jenny has never seen West Side Story, Graham unveils another scandal: Jenny has in fact never been to see a West End show at all. That's a far better sob story than "I used to be fat", surely? Apparently this is her first time in scary London, and she was hoping to catch a few shows in her spare time, until she realised she wasn't going to get any. Spare time, that is. Not the other thing. Graham turns to Steph and recalls her excellent comments from last night, with John expecting to see her in the final, and asks if she's feeling confident. The answer to this question, as Lauren has recently discovered to her cost, is of course "NO". Steph vows to keep working hard and hopes the public keep supporting her. Sophie talks about having worked hard during the week, and is determined to continue doing so. Graham asks Jessica if, as a self-avowed REALLY NORMAL NORTHERN GIRL, being called world-class by Andrew Lloyd Webber made her head explode. "Not really," is the rather unexpected answer. "It's thanks to the Boro that I'm the performer that I am." Well, at least we know where to direct our complaints about the faces, I guess.

Mission time! The girls are deployed to a church where Charlotte Church (see? see?) is singing 'Summertime' rather piercingly. Charlotte VTs that she wants to test the girls' vocals, and they're in a church because of the acoustics, and not because of any opportunities for crashingly obvious puns or anything like that. The girls tell the cameras how much they're in awe of Charlotte, and then she gives them all some individual tips on how to perform 'No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)', "which is A BIG SONG TO SING", she tells us, having apparently been temporarily possessed by the spirit of Masterchef. Above a well-edited shot of Emilie, Charlotte tells us she will be looking for tone and pitch in the girls' voices. HA! Steph's in first, and Charlotte thinks she looks scared of the top notes. Charlotte seems to like Sophie's natural take on the song, while Jessica needs to be careful of the sound she produces in her mid-range, apparently. Stephanie gets good notes, while Jenny manages not to be nasal, to Charlotte's delight. Danielle has an "obvious West End voice", while a nervous Emilie expects to be shouted at. Charlotte tells her to massage her own face, and Emilie sings in tune for the first time ever. Lauren is "pretty flawless", but remembers to take these compliments modestly this time. Charlotte thinks there are four standouts, and then breaks the news that she'll be singing the song with them on the show. Their reactions of unbridled delight make it clear that they've never seen her duets on The Charlotte Church Show.

Back in the studio, the girls are lined up on the Stairs Of Doom, while Charlotte perches on the balcony to open the song. Each girl gets a line and Charlotte and Stephanie have a quasi-lesbian moment before it goes all disco and the levels are all out so it's hard to hear them properly. The choreography and camera-blocking are a bit odd too, resulting in some girls inadvertently hiding each other, and then Charlotte's voice bottoms out a little bit on the middle eight, but returns for the final chorus. [She's not that strong on her lower register, is she? Also, she looks too thin. And if I were Gavin Henson I would be a bit worried about the vehemence with which she delivers these lyrics. - Carrie] They all sass to the front, and some limp fireworks explode. Charlotte tells Graham that working with the girls was a privilege. Next week: they all act out a gay love scene with John Partridge!

VT Vox Pop time: the girls are asked who they think is the public's favourite Dorothy. Emilie names Stephanie, while Jenny thinks Emilie because she was the wildcard. Steph thinks Jessica because she's so "animated" on stage, and you can just tell that they're basically all picking from the five girls who've not hit the bottom two yet, but they're all too media-trained to say it. Jessica picks Sophie because she's got the Welsh vote, Sophie picks Stephanie, Stephanie picks Emilie because she was the wild card and hasn't been in the bottom two (hurrah! Some honesty!), Danielle thinks Sophie because she's lovely and genuine both on and offstage, while Lauren picks Jenny because she's fun-loving and has the Scottish vote.

It's almost time for the results, but first it's time for the panel to name the girl who is not Dorothy. They all pick Emilie, with varying degrees of apology. Emilie's face crumbles. [I ALMOST felt sorry for her then. But then I reminded myself of her performance this week and felt sorrier for me having to watch it twice. - Carrie]

Steph is the first to be named safe, and walks over to the Benches Of Sanctity looking relieved. Danielle is called next, but told she might still be in danger, just to fuck with her. Jessica and Stephanie are called together, and could both still be Dorothy. They skip off-stage, arm in arm. See, told you they were Method. [Danielle's face at this point could curdle milk. - Carrie] Lauren and Jenny are also called together, and are also both through. That leaves Sophie, Emilie and Danielle awaiting their fates. Emily is stoic, Danielle looks resigned, Sophie is fighting back tears. Emilie is the first to be informed that she is in the bottom two, and she smiles wanly. Danielle is finally put out of her misery and told she's safe: she hugs the other two and makes it over to the benches, wiping away tears. [NO MORE TEARS! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Did this week's mission teach you NOTHING? - Carrie]

Emilie and Sophie, then, are the least popular Dorothys this week, and Graham reveals that the girl with the fewest votes this week was Emilie - but there's still hope, because Andrew may decide to save her. Hahahahaha, yeah. That'll happen. They'll be singing 'I Know Him So Well' from Chess, and I can tell you even before they sing a note that their version won't be nearly as good as when Carrie and I bring this bad one home on the karaoke. Andrew babbles on about it having wonderful lyrics for two girls to sing, and he wants to see their acting performances on this one.

Emilie begins and is a little croaky, while Sophie is sweet-sounding, and dare I say it, is actually acting. There are moments where Emilie genuinely sounds very pleasant, but her pitch is sadly all over the place, so this is pretty much solidifying my belief that she is nowhere near ready for EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK right now. [And again we see that Emilie's break seems to come fairly low down. This is not a HUGE problem; it can be worked on a bit, but she doesn't seem to be able to manage it at all. - Carrie] By contrast, this is probably the best job, both in terms of singing and acting, that Sophie has done since the live shows started. I know, I know: hollow praise, but still.

It's time for Andrew to decide who he will save. He blathers on for a bit about wishing he'd written that song, [Lloyd Webber would NEVER think of a harmony like those minor thirds in the chorus. Dream on, the Lord - Carrie] but ultimately opts to save Sophie, which was of course the right decision. Sophie hugs Emilie, who has taken the news with a smile. Graham tells her to be proud of herself, because she was the wildcard who was voted in by the public and made it halfway through the competition (or thereabouts). Emilie thanks her mum and dad, "because I wouldn't be here without them" (yes dear, that's kind of how it works), and vows to go off and train and toughen up, because we will see her again, she swears. She thanks everyone politely for the opportunity and tells the remaining girls that they're all amazing. Andrew tells her that they all love her, and Sheila's comments from last night were the clincher: that it might all be too much for Emilie at the moment, "but you will go somewhere, because you're the prettiest little thing." That sound you can hear right now is Emily Davison spinning furiously in her grave.

With that, Graham reminds us to tune in for "big band week" next week (oh good gravy), and Emily and the Dorothys begin the singoff. It sounds a little bit subdued this week: perhaps they really are quite sad she's going? After Sophie relieves her of her shoes, Emilie heads to the moon and begins singing 'Over The Rainbow', so at least Charlotte's getting her wish, I suppose. Again, there are moments of beautiful clarity, but also of honking flatness, so I hope she can iron that all out with some training somewhere. [And I can finally hear what they mean about the 1940s tone to her voice. She sounds like Judy Garland would, if Judy Garland had been a bit shit. - Carrie] In a moment that is sad and hilarious in equal measures, Emilie biffs her last big note on the show, which feels like an appropriate enough metaphor for her journey in the competition. And then we're out: I can't say I'm not relieved she's gone, but I'm glad she was such a good sport about it. Until next week, bitches!

Register emotion, jealousy, devotion

2010-04-24T20:36:00.000+01:00

Tx: 24th April 2010
Top eight

Last week there was skirt-swishing and sparkly-moon-flying, now let's cut out some of the dead wood, please. This is Over The Rainbow!

Titles!

Graham's waistcoat looks like it's on fire; his suit looks like it's made from tarnished sheet copper. He welcomes the audience, the judges and Lloyd Webber, and then introduces the girls singing If I Only Had A Heart, except with lyrics changed to If I Only Had The Part. The ingenuity is astounding. They fling their skirts around a lot again.

Then we're introduced to the judges and the panel again. In case we'd forgotten who they are, perhaps. Lloyd Webber says the competition is wide open and everyone must vote in case we end up with a hung Dorothy. [I bet certain members of the panel would like a hung Dorothy. Fnar. - Steve] He implores us to judge on the group performances as well as the solos. Fortunately we will get the opportunity to do this later when they sing song from Oklahoma! and Calamity Jane. Quick VT of the girls mock-fighting. I hope their acting in the number is better than that.

First up, Jenny, who shares with us the information that when she was in school, she was seriously overweight. Like obese. And she never had the confidence to do anything because she was bullied and feared people would laugh at her. One day she got weighed and realised she had to do something about it, so she lost the weight and now she is happy and healthy. She judges her weight loss to be an impressive achievement, more so than this competition, and she's right. Good for her.

Also, there is Emilie, who was fucking dreadful last week and cried about it. This week Charlotte has been attempting to teach her to sing - "the top can go a bit sharp," says La Church. Yeah; what about the middle and the lower notes? Emilie grins that it is fantastic to work with Charlotte.

Jenny sings 'Warwick Avenue', and vocally this is beautiful. Though her pronunciation and diction is a bit grating in place. Also, her hair looks lovely. But that's about all I have to say about it.

Emilie prances round the stage singing 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun', occasionally straying towards something approaching the right note but never stays there for long. Her arms are all over the place, and even a finger-phone. There's an excruciating bit of business with a hand mirror (not feminist consciousness-raising, thank fuck, just some face-concealment in the line "hide her away from the rest of the world"). This is particularly lame because it's pitched right on her break, so she can't decide between chest and head voice for most of this, and it's a mess. But then it's Emilie, so you'd expect nothing else. [The acting was slightly terrifying - she ended up making Lolly's version look mature and dignified. - Steve]

Graham talks to Jenny about "the curse of the blondes", which is pathetic. [And it sounds increasingly misplaced since last week's eliminee was a brunette. - Steve] Emilie says it was amazing to work with Charlotte - "thank goodness, someone's hearing my voice!" Emilie, that's the fucking problem, we can all hear your voice and it's TERRIBLE. Charlotte says Jenny did quite a good job with a rangy song, but thought it was a bit small and self-contained; and that Emilie was fun and frivolous but missed notes, but her voice's tone is like Judy Garland's (who, I might remind you, we are supposed to be forgetting about) and she would LOVE to hear her sing 'Over The Rainbow'. Ha, oh, Charlotte, so would I! In the results show. This week. Kthxbai. Sheila says Jenny is good at being perky and witty, but not so hot at acting anguish, and that Emilie was cute but not anguished, and if she wants to go into performing she needs to buck up and develop a thicker skin, BITCH. John says that he is losing Jenny a little bit because she was acting on one level despite a great vocal performance, and commends Emilie for her attack. He reminds them they are looking for Dorothy, not an understudy. [Someone tell that to Aoife. And Sarah. - Steve] Lloyd Webber agree with Sheila that it's a tough profession, and if you haven't got the inner strength, then fuck off out of it. His tears were not jerked by Jenny, who then confesses to never seeing Duffy's video for 'Warwick Avenue'. Ouch.

Next, it's Stephanie, who cannot cook, and is mocked by Steph for not being able to butter bread. So Aldo Zilli turns up to teach her to make pasta for the girls. And that is it. [Although there is a moment where she confuses Pesto with Bisto, at which point I decided I can never in good conscience root for Stephanie to win. - Steve] [Oh RIGHT. I get it now. I didn't understand what the fuck she was on about. - Carrie]

Lauren used to have a hearing impairment, so she is NOT CONFIDENT, remember. Her mum cries in the VT. But it has a happy ending because Lauren's hearing improved when she was about 17. Except it's NOT a happy ending because Lauren warns us that it might get worse again. Well, that's a bit of a downer.

Stephanie sings 'Nobody Does It Better' reclining on a perspex chair from the Brian Friedman house of seating. Another really inappropriate song choice there, but it's a lovely performance. I like that her vibrato (that's THE WOBBLY STUFF IN HER VOICE, for the idiots amongst us) is natural and unforced. Also, she totally confuses the cameraman by doing a little kneebend as she hits her money note and dipping out of shot.

Lauren sings 'Nobody Knows', and this is a stand-out show from her. She looks younger and more vulnerable than she has done in previous weeks, and she acts the hell out of it while not letting her vocal slip (and there's a fabulous belt in there).

Stephanie gabbles about ringing Aldo for cooking advice and does a vaguely offensive impression. Lauren gabbles about "double-quilted cotton pads" which I initially think are sanitary towels, but then she explains that she means cotton WOOL pads for taking off eye make-up. Anyway, someone has been nicking them, and she thinks it's Jenny, who has been stuffing them in her sporran. [Are we SURE they're not sanitary towels? - Steve] Hmm...also kinda offensive. And the story goes nowhere. Let's get some comments, shall we? Please? Sheila didn't know what the "it" was that Stephanie's man was doing better, but then neither would Dorothy; and thinks that Lauren has made a huge step forward. John thinks that Stephanie needs to bring a big performance to her smaller numbers, and didn't want Lauren's performance to end. Charlotte thinks Stephanie could have been more exasperated and less "singy", and that Lauren needs to be less slick. Right - so our singing expert wants less singing from the contestants in a singing contest? Lloyd Webber would be happy with either of them as Dorothy, by the way, and makes mention of 'Nobody Does It Scouser'. What? Seriously, what?

Crazy dog interlude as the lovely little doggies and their mad owners go to Sydmonton. But Steve has to recap that in full this week. HAHAHAHAHA! [Oh, raspberries. - Steve]

Sophie was pleased about last week being her best ever, and in order to celebrate her new-found toughness, she goes to train with London Welsh. (They're a rugby team, by the way.) So she tackles and practises line-outs and...how is this going to help? Especially if she breaks a rib? [I did love the incongruity of this VT in what was apparently sob story week. Everyone else cuts their arms open and shows us the blood, while Sophie...goes off to roll around in a muddy field. - Steve]

Jessica is worried that she has been losing the judges' support, and doesn't know what she's going wrong. She wails that she wants to be loved. Charlotte agrees that it must be confusing for her to be getting different advice from different quarters, and basically tells her to just do what she thinks is right. Wow, Charlotte's really earning her money, isn't she?

Sophie sings 'Love Song' and it's fine. She begins by sitting on the stairs and I wonder if the constricted diaphragm is why she seems to be struggling on the lower notes, but then she stands up and is still having the same problem, so it's probably not that. She gets backing singers singing her line in the chorus, which helps her, but that's cheating a bit. She has a few issues going into the key change but quickly gets it back on track.

Jessica is singing 'There You'll Be', and whoa, she really gets some unflattering outfits to wear. This looks like a cut-off batwing jumper and lycra skirt combo circa 1985. She acts this nicely and there's no problem with the notes per se, but her vibrato is just an odd wobble, coming from the throat, which constricts her voice.

Sophie enthuses about her new-found fighting spirit and enjoying being thrown around by big strong men. Jessica tells a pointless anecdote about the Dorothys' curry club, and Steph getting free poppadoms. John tells Sophie that she really has to work harder than the others because she isn't as good, and that Jessica's performance was the most truthful evah. Charlotte says Sophie's song is hard to sing and hence it went "pitchy". Somewhere in the world Randy Jackson is on the phone to Simon Cowell and saying, "See, dawg, I told you it was a word." [*cries* - Steve] She says that Jessica doesn't have enough control in her voice. Sheila thought Sophie was terrific and kept it light, and that Jessica pushed it too hard. John starts talking over her. Rude. That's SHEILA HANCOCK you're talking to, Partridge. Lloyd Webber thinks Jessica could be a world-class star. But you also thought that about Pirate Jessie, didn't you? He suggests she could cut back on the facial expressions. He's one to talk. He prefers Sophie looking less sophisticated, and reminds the viewers to judge on the Dorothys' talking as well as their singing. He also says that Dorothy doesn't have many big notes to sing. He's not got around to writing any new numbers for her yet, has he?

Charlotte goes to a church to sing with the Dorothys. They are all excited. We will see the fruits of that particular endeavour tomorrow.

Danielle had to sing off with her room-mate and best friend Dani last week, which she describes as "horrendous". Then there is some soft-focus montage about Danielle's grandmother and I'm half-expecting them to announce that she DIED this week or something, this show is so fucked this week. But she isn't; she's just proud of her granddaughter.

Yay, montage VT of Steph's family! They are awesome. They all sit downstairs and watch her performances on Sky+ over and over and over again. Baby D is proud, as are Nanu and Nana, Steph's grandparents. Meanwhile, Steph is sitting in her room bellowing, "CAN YOU TURN IT DOWN?" See, if we hadn't been having pointless anecdotes about curry and cotton wool, we could have had more of this kind of stuff, which is what I pay my licence fee for. [Although it did make me worry that the great British voting public would see this as a lack of gratitude in the same way that they didn't quite grasp that Lauren was joking two weeks ago. - Steve]

Danielle descends from the ceiling on a swing singing 'Cry Me A River', and looks ethereally beautiful tonight. She's not a very natural mover but her vocal is pretty.

Steph begins her song lying down for reasons unknown - it didn't do Asbestos Andy any good. And then she sings...and I've forgotten what she sang already. Her voice is beautiful and she is a great performer, but it is not a good song. It's something I know but I don't like. What was it? [It was 'Use Somebody', just in case you weren't kidding. - Steve] [No, I wasn't; I seem to have entirely blocked the song from my memory. - Carrie]

They both wail about having been in the bottom two. Charlotte loved them both; Sheila says they are the best actors, and Danielle will be a big star with her subtlety and gravity. John really outgays himself. Andrew Lloyd Webber thinks they were both fantastic and wishes Danielle a happy 18th birthday for Monday, suggesting they have a whipround to buy her a shandy.

Time for Wild West-themed group number. Lloyd Webber turned up at rehearsal, "just by chance". Jessica, Danielle, Sophie and Steph are singing 'Oklahoma!' and the Lord attempts to give them direction; interestingly he really doesn't seem to be able to sing. Jenny, Lauren, Emilie and Stephanie are singing 'Deadwood Stage', which he informs them is "very American". Steph wishes they'd got that song instead. Heh. Lloyd Webber reminds us to judge on the GROUP NUMBERS. Yeah, all right, your lordship, we've GOT IT.

The Doris Day wannabes go first. Stephanie has some really unflattering trousers on. Emilie opts for sidegob over the right notes. There is a point where I think Lauren's about to do a cartwheel, but she doesn't, fortunately. Also, their combined diction with their newly-assumed accents means you cannot HEAR A FUCKING WORD THEY ARE SINGING.

The Oklahoma! girl are hamstrung by some rubbish sound and a really peculiar arrangement where the key changes prior to the first chorus. Incidentally, Steph would be a fabulous Ado Annie, and Danielle would be a good Laurey. I might go and watch my DVD of the Jackman as Curly in Oklahoma! now. Still, you can hear what they're saying.

All the judges think the Oklahoma! girls were best; Lloyd Webber suggests we stop the competition now and have a job-share between the eight of them. Everyone laughs politely.

And the lines are now open! Time for a recap (see above) and we're out. Join Steve tomorrow for the result. Surely Emilie is going this week. Surely.

Three weeks only

2010-04-19T21:03:00.000+01:00

Top 9 results show
Tx: 18th April 2010

Wild applause! Graham welcomes us, and informs us that the lines are closed and the votes are in. Obviously. Time for a reprise of 'Ease On Down The Road', which is still from a DIFFERENT BLOODY SHOW and has some appalling skirt-swishing choreography and some increasingly noticeable sidegobbery. [Dear Andrew Lloyd Webber: I assume you are actually going to write some new songs for this show as you've suggested. Since you seem to have run out of existing songs for the Dorothys to perform, perhaps you'd better get a move on? - Steve]

"Last" "night" the Dorothys sang and danced and hoped to avoid the sing-off, and Graham introduces our lovely judges and increasingly deranged impresario. He promises us a mash-up and dogs and high-heeled shoes. Worn by John, much to Lauren's delight.

Time for a recap with backstage bitchery - Dani sang 'One Night Only' and was better than Pirate Jessie; Sophie had a breakthrough performance and jumped up and down; Lauren had a bunch of boys to 'Sway' with, and she was delighted and overwhelmed with humility; Emilie was Emilie and then sobbed about losing her confidence, while her mum declared ignorance of why everyone was being so mean; Stephanie didn't construct a coherent sentence; Steph was beautiful but didn't get to talk to the camera; Jenny's mum was disappointed with John's comments; Jessica gave it her best shot; Danielle sang and Lloyd Webber looked bored, and she says she wants to avoid the bottom two. O rly? Oh, and then they did that really weird performance of 'America'; Charlotte thinks some of them are great; Sheila doesn't want anyone to leave; John clearly does.

Back in the studio, Lloyd Webber isn't confident about anything because the talent among the Dorothys is so huge, and everyone is unsure about the result; Sheila thinks that this week revealed how much stamina the girls have to deliver performances; John thinks there are at least four contenders for the ruby slippers; Charlotte couldn't cope with the pressure the Dorothys are under because she can only dance after a few drinks. Everyone laughs.

Oh, a "mash-up". Which is in fact a fucking MEDLEY. And more to the point it is a MEDLEY of songs about lunacy. Srsly. It starts with 'Losing My Mind' from Follies, and then there's a bit of really inappropriate stripping choreography as they move into Beyonce's 'Crazy In Love', and then Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy'. Also, there is a lamp-post on the stage. I'm not really sure why. Maybe Steve knows? [Don't look at me, I'm just the recapper. - Steve]

It's Toto time! Last week, our trio of judges got a final 50 together, and Gerry hopes to find the Wayne Rooney of the dog world. This week, we see Jake the terrier, who could be Toto, and his owner loves him as much as he loves himself. Some dogs are clever; some are not concentrating; some sing. Or howl. And some dance, which seems to please Jodie, who immediately joins in. We meet Strider, a great Dane, who was on DEATH ROW because nobody wanted him. He could be Toto. Thomas Cook was born with a hare-lip and cleft palate, and now he works with children with physical disabilities. Jodiebursts into tears as she tells the owner he is not going to be Toto. An obnoxious ginger child says that the panel will regret not making her dog Toto. Hmm. Don't think so, girlie. It's ONE PERFORMANCE. We meet Bumble, an assistance dog, who does an incredible job at helping her owner, who's in a wheelchair. And then the panel have to whittle them all down to ten. They are unsure whether Lloyd Webber will know what's hit him - Jodie suspects he may be scared by a couple of them. Good!

Graham talks to the Dorothys. Emilie respects Lloyd Webber's opinion and says she intends to go to drama school regardless of how well she does in the competition. Yeah, if you get in. Dani is glad she entered the competition and is learning so much and has much more to give. Lauren hopes she's done enough not to sing off, and thinks it's a buzz to get nice comments from the judges.

VT time! John takes it upon himself to help the girls with their performances, beginning with being able to walk in high heels. And so he demonstrates. With his own pair of bright yellow shoes. He brags that he is better than them at walking in heels and they must learn to be as good as him. Steph thinks it's hilarious; Lauren reckons he's a natural. The girls dance and scurry across the floor in their heels. Jessica notes that she runs like an elephant. And then time for a task - the girls each have to walk down the stairs, and then when they get to the bottom they have to dance an unchoreographed routine with John. Emilie reckons it's simple. And then Lloyd Webber and Arlene Phillips turn up, for no reason. [I was kind of hoping Arlene would be unceremoniously sacked mid-VT and replaced with Alesha Dixon, just for the lulz. - Steve] Montage of the girls dancing with John. John says that Steph is an excellent partner but wishes she had looked at him; Jessica was great, and she thinks she might take up ballroom dancing; Sophie committed to it; Lauren lusts after John's arms; Dani is a bit stiff and didn't read where John wanted her to go; Jenny cackles about John picking her up; Emilie was cocky so John just threw her around the floor to teach her a lesson. John was most impressed by Stephanie ("a mini-Ginger Rogers") and Danielle, who adopted a character and acted the routine.

And another group performance - 'Buenos Aires' from Evita, which sounds like it is in a higher key than it is in the show's score, but the girls still can't get the low notes. Danielle makes a good Eva; Emilie has teeth like Madonna. The boy dancers' braces keep falling down, which rather defeats the object. Andrew is sad that he will never see those girls perform together again, and wonders if they are casting the wrong show because there are a few great Evitas in there. Graham reminds us that one of them has to go, but wonders who they would all miss the most. Danielle would miss Dani; Emilie would miss Stephanie; Dani would miss Steph; Jenny has FUCKING AWFUL SKIN, wow, that's some good stage make-up; Steph would miss Sophie; Jessica would miss Dani; Lauren would miss Jenny; Stephanie would miss Emilie [well, I suppose someone would have to - Steve]; Sophie would miss Steph.

Before the results, the panel decide who is not Dorothy - Sheila says Jessica, John says Emilie, and Charlotte says Jenny. Time for some teenage girls' dreams to be shattered - Emilie is safe and hugs Stephanie; Dani is in the bottom two; Stephanie is safe; Jenny is safe; Steph is safe and Baby D is very happy; Lauren is safe; Jessica is safe. So it's between Danielle and Sophie for that last automatic spot...and it's Sophie who gets it.

The room-mates Dani (who had the fewest votes, which frankly sucks, and at this point she looks like a rabbit in the headlights) and Danielle must sing 'Maybe This Time' from Cabaret. Lloyd Webber tells them to be themselves, they are both terrific, and go for it. Dani is on the verge of tears, which oddly works well for the song, and she manages to do a really good job. On the Dorothy bleachers, Stephanie looks like she's about to faint. As the key changes, Dani yodels her way through a sob, and the rest of the girls stand up to cheer her on. That poor little girl. Danielle holds it together and has a beautiful clarity and purity of voice when she gets chance to show it off properly in a decent song.

Lloyd Webber's verdict - he knows they are special to each other, but the competition is unpredictable, and he is saving Danielle, who kisses Dani firmly before leaving the stage. Everyone whoops poor little Dani. Lloyd Webber says she is a fantastic singer but in a couple of years' time she will be more at ease in herself and has a great future. Dani pulls herself together, though a few tears are leaking out, and thanks everyone while wishing the rest of the girls luck.

Time for the sing-out, and Danielle clings to her friend's hand as she walks past. She doesn't seem to be singing, actually. And then again to Dani's immense credit, she puts on an outstanding 'Over The Rainbow'. Seriously. It's amazing, with a narrative arc and an accent and a lovely tone. In fact, it made me cry a bit. Particularly bearing in mind she's 16 and just had her dreams crushed on national television. Though at least it wasn't live. So Dani sails off on a sparkly moon, while Emilie remains to assault our eardrums for another week. Join us next weekend to see if her luck really can last another week!

I have confidence in confidence alone

2010-04-18T18:02:00.000+01:00

Top 9: 17th April 2010

Previously on A Star Isn't Born: there was shock and horror in considerable measures as presumed frontrunners Bronte and Lauren found themselves in the bottom two, for the respective crimes of being middle class and expressing confidence in one's own abilities. The fools! Ultimately Bronte was cut loose and sailed off on a sparkly moon, while every other contestant lost their shit, with the possible exception of Emilie, who simply removed one more pin-ravaged doll from her scale model Dorothy House and started playing ippy-dippy over which of the remaining eight was going to get a little acupuncture next. In unseen backstage footage(!), Bronte apologised for letting The Lord down, and he told her that was nonsense. Once again, the remaining Dorothys have had a fire lit under their pert little hineys, and they're all realising just how very vulnerable they are. This! Is Over The Rainbow!

Titles. I sincerely hope Andrew Lloyd Webber is next on Sheila Hancock's list for an acting masterclass, because that shit is not going to cut it around here. Even Jessica is watching this and thinking "sheesh, dial it back a bit."

Graham enters, with another Turner Prize-worthy waistcoat, flanked by our ever-enthusiastic potential Dorothys. With impressively little ado, he introduces the panel, who are "here with their brains" (more pyrotechnics go off, and once again Sheila looks for her heart medication), and our final nine Dorothys have plenty of courage (except in the cases where courage would come across more like being a CONFIDENT BITCH, of course) and the Lord has a great big heart (two feeble sparklers go off either side, and Andrew fans under his nose, inadvertently giving the impression that he just farted into a cigarette lighter to produce the aforementioned effect). Smoke from the pyrotechnics floods the studio, and Graham snarks: "I feel like I'm in Iceland!" Heh.

The Dorothys open the show by performing 'Ease On Down The Road'. Forgive me if I'm being a bit of a pedant here, but isn't that from The Wiz? Are we doing that show instead now? [I wish we were. - Carrie] The girls do a bit of country-style hoofing while they sing their solos: Jessica unfortunately looks more like a rugby player than a Kansas farmgirl in this particular instance, and somebody has finally taken pity on us and turned down Emilie's mic so she can barely be heard.

Graham informs us that it's dance week this week. Does this mean that Steph will be performing the 1994 club smash 'Let Me Be Your Fantasy' as a tribute to her parents? Oh, hang on: he means that the girls will be put through their paces in order to demonstrate their dance skills, rather than singing an assortment of songs from Now That's What I Call Bangin' Choons 18. Graham reminds us that last week, which is now apparently being termed "Brontegate", has served as a timely reminder to all the girls of just how quickly they can be dismissed. I wish people would stop tacking "-gate" onto everything they want to make sound like a national scandal - I mean, they do know that the Watergate scandal didn't actually have anything to do with water, right? The panel are introduced: legendary actress Sheila, West End and soap star John, and newly-engaged Charlotte. Aw, apparently her personal life is her career these days. Poor mite. And, of course, there's Andrew, who's quizzed about last week's tough call in the bottom two, and gives us some good news about Bronte: she's had a good week and gone for several auditions, of which he thinks she's likely to get one of them, and she's got a place at stage school. But hang on, won't that gloss over all her realness and RUIN HER FOREVER? Andrew continues that Bronte needs to develop the stamina to perform EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK, which she can learn at stage school. Hmm - never mind the fact that Pirate Jessie needed a few years' tuition to knock those annoying tics out of her system, and yet you couldn't throw her onto the West End stage fast enough? Stupid moving goalposts.

Apparently the show's musical director has been stuck elsewhere as a result of the general airport chaos this week, which Andrew reminds us is proof that this show is LIVE and full of REAL talent, presumably a dig at what'll be on the other side in an hour or so. The crowd applauds the Substitute Musical Director, and Graham teases a group performance of 'America' from West Side Story later, but before that, we must get to our first two Dorothys: Dani and Sophie. Could they not shake up the running order a bit? Sophie's been in the first couple to perform for two weeks in a row now, and Dani has been on third, fourth and second so far. Anyway, Dani got good notes from Charlotte last week and was thrilled. She's so pleased that she's here on the show, especially since her parents didn't want her to come and audition for it in the first place: Dani's mum says through possibly-gritted teeth that their daughter is very "determined" (I can't help wondering if she really wanted to say "wilful") and applied for the show without their knowledge, only telling them about her audition the week before it happened, the young scamp. However, having seen her perform, they think that this is what she was born to do, and Dani is grateful for their support. Last week, Sophie was upstaged by her Boy Dancers, and the show makes out like he has some kind of vendetta against her. Sophie says in a confessional that John doesn't like her as a performer (I don't think that's strictly true) and she needs to change his mind. As it happens, John popped into training this week to give her a bit of one-to-one assistance, which seems to chiefly involve pointing out some fairly obvious things about her performance, but hey, if it works, that's the main thing I guess. Sophie says that this is exactly what she needed, and now she hopes to "rock it" on Saturday.

Graham tells us about the show's red-button interactivity, and Andrew asks if he has to save "George, Dave or Nick" next week with the red button. Graham has no idea what he's talking about, and even I'm slightly confused. Was that meant to be a general election joke? If so: George? Oh dear. Dani's on first, wearing a sparkly jacket and a mustard-coloured dress, singing 'One Night Only' from Dreamgirls. In order to judge this performance fairly, I went back and reviewed Jessie's performance of the same song in all its sidegobbed glory, to see how they stand alongside each other. Dani's take on the song is fairly subdued, with less snarling and considerably more earnestness. Her dancing's a little bit stilted though, and she performs it in some sort of vacuum without really interacting with her Boy Dancers. [Jessie's performance of this was the first appearance of the swinging pirate arm, if I recall correctly. - Carrie] The vocals are definitely better than Jessie's, though - she's on-key nicely throughout.

Sophie, meanwhile, is doing Avril Lavigne's 'I'm With You', standing on the Stairs Of Doom and looking very small. Some Boy Dancers walk onto the stage during the chorus, and Sophie starts to sing to them, which kind of makes the song look a bit like it's about prostitution. Er, oops. Her singing's nice, although she's a bit painful to listen to on those top notes, which are kind of more yelly than singy in the original anyway, and have a bit of sloppiness about them.

The two girls join Graham for their feedback, and Graham asks Dani whether she prefers doing ballads like last week, or being a diva like tonight. Dani hastily clarifies that she's not a diva, because she saw what happened to Lauren last week and wants no part of that, but says that she loves trying something different every weekend, and says she's had a fun week with her male dancers. Ooer. Sophie says she poured her heart and soul into her performance, and she's really grateful to John for helping her out.

John's apparently looking at movement skills this week, but says that since there wasn't much movement in either performance (I suspect there was supposed to be movement in Dani's, but it didn't really turn out that way), so he was looking for connection with the audience and the lyrics, and he thinks both girls did him proud. He thinks Dani stood out despite having lots of dancers and sold the emotion of the song, and gave her strongest performance to date. He thinks that Sophie gave a very credible performance, and he thinks she won't be going home after that performance (which I thought seemed like a really odd thing to say the first time I saw the show, but I've since realised that he's referencing the song's lyrics, which involve looking for someone to take you home). Charlotte loved Sophie's performance - she thinks she got all the notes and had a beautiful tone. She started off shakily, though (I personally took that as a deliberate acting choice, but YMMV, I guess) but she got all her emotion across. Charlotte likes that Dani is not self-conscious, but needs to watch for her voice getting nasal. John didn't think it was nasal, but Charlotte did. God, are those two going to have a really tiny dispute every week? This is encroaching into PRECIOUS SHEILA HANCOCK TIME, people! Speaking of Sheila, she thought they were both great, but she's going to be picky: she longs to see Sophie do a humorous song ('That Don't Impress Me Much' was humorous, though, surely? I mean, I know it's no 'There! Right There!', but it could be pretty funny in the right hands, I would've thought) and hopes we can see her having some fun, because she's always so intense. Sheila thinks Dani didn't quite make it clear to her what the song was about - it worked as a pop song because the audience were clapping along, but she thinks that Dani was misled by that. Sheila explains her interpretation of the song: that it's about a young girl who's not interested in commitment and looking for a one-night stand, which she points out is "not very Dorothy", and not very appropriate for Dani's age group, "but then I'm a silly old fa- ahhh..." Snerk. Although, that particular assessment of it makes me wonder if La Hancock has actually seen Dreamgirls, because I would say it has an entirely different meaning in its proper context (although, in fairness, it does ultimately get disco-fied and turned into a free sex anthem by Deena shortly afterwards, so she's not entirely off the mark here). Anyway, Sheila would've liked more light and shade in the song to clarify what it was about.

Andrew wants to ask John something, because he worked with the girls this week, about the dancing side of things: he basically accuses Dani of having no rhythm and says that these two are not the strongest dancers in the field. John tries to defend them both, saying that Dani's performance this week was self-confident and not self-conscious, which she has looked in the past, and as such, this week was a bit of a breakthrough. Sheila interjects that Dani was "superb" during 'Home' last week, but then John points out that had no choreography. Heh. Andrew says it's about getting the whole package together, they need a Dorothy who is credible and can really move with the music. In other words, I wouldn't bet on this pair's chances of surviving the bottom two when they eventually end up there.

Next up is Lauren, who got a wake-up call last week when she landed in the bottom two, and now gets a segment all to herself. She is, predictably enough, getting the full Danyl Johnson treatment this week, where her VT focuses on how hurtful it is to be called arrogant: she cries a bit, and says that while she projects an air of confidence, she's made of jelly on the inside or something. Her dream was nearly taken away last week, and this week is going to be tough, but guess what? This has made her realise just how much she wants this! I mean, what are the odds?

This week Lauren is singing 'Sway', complete with Boy Dancers, and her performance this week is playful, though in a step up from last week, there's a coherence to it rather than a different emotion in each line contributing to a general air of chaos. Some of her notes are a little scratchy, though it seems a much better performance on re-watching than I thought it was the first time I saw it. Graham asks her if she's done enough to win back her public support, and she says that it's been a tough week, and she put a brave face on and tried to do her best, and it felt like a comeback performance. I think a good rule for Lauren in the future is to end each sentence about two clauses before the point she's currently ending them at, though as a babbler myself, I do sympathise. Charlotte, who admonished Lauren for her alleged arrogance last week in a proper Women Beware Women moment, is asked for her opinion this week: Charlotte thought Lauren smouldered her way through it, and she hopes people vote for her this week because her voice is so special. Sheila thought it was a very elegant performance, and praises Lauren's navigation of the Stairs Of Doom in particular, while John -- being a much-needed voice of reason at this point -- tells Lauren that it's okay to be confident, because confidence is a good thing. I mean, finally. I know it's a tricky line to negotiate, because any sign of confidence from a woman on reality TV is generally taken for arrogance, but I'm glad someone's pointed out that she doesn't have to be all meek and grovelling instead. He says she proved that she's a good dancer tonight, so she's got the full package. The Lord says that she didn't do all the knowing gestures from last week, which was a good thing, and she had fun with it, giving her best performance yet. Lauren looks very relieved, BUT NOT IN AN ARROGANT WAY, obviously.

Our next two Dorothys were respectively "panned and praised" by the panel last week: Emilie and Stephanie. A brief snippet of last week recalls the horror of Emilie's rendition of 'The Boy Does Nothing' and the subsequent notes she got about her vocal control. Now, my boyfriend and I interpreted Emilie's comments in this VT somewhat differently, so in an effort to remain fair, I'm going to transcribe them verbatim: "I disagree that the voice is where I need a lot of work, but this is a tough competition, you're always going to get negative comments [...] The voice is there; I've trained, I've had lessons, I can sing." To be fair, the first time I was faintly incensed by these comments, and thought they were just as rife for interpretation as misplaced confidence as Lauren's thoughts were last week, but yeah, watching it back: she is just pointing out that she didn't just roll up on a whim on the 226, she's had a lot of vocal training and thinks that her voice is up to the challenge of this show. However, just as I defend Emilie's right to her own opinion, I also have a right to mine, wherein I would point out that lots of auditionees on The X Factor have had a lot of vocal coaching, and a lot of them still sound like refried ass, so coaching alone is not an automatic ticket to future melodious consistency. Hell, I took and passed two drama exams from a professional body as a teenager; but if I went to a professional acting audition these days, they'd laugh me out of the room, and rightly so. Also, I don't know if the contestants ever get a chance to review their previous performances, so I'll give Emilie the benefit of the doubt and assume she has not, because if she's listened back to 'Breakaway' and 'The Boy Does Nothing' and still doesn't see the problem, I can't help wondering if she's actually tone-deaf. Anyway, Emilie refers again to the public's faith in her, and she feels she has more to give, and she's determined to woo the judges.

Stephanie loved last week's song, and was really pleased to show the judges that she's got another side to her. Of course, Stephanie also saw what happened to Lauren last week, and so her VT is about how she's always really nervous and lacking in self-belief. Apparently, someone told her she wasn't good enough a few years ago, and she believed them. Well, that's showbiz, kid. However, she's regained her faith in herself, and she's never going to doubt herself again. Though she'll probably keep quiet about that in order to avoid being branded a she-devil by Charlotte.

Emilie goes first, singing 'Moon River', in a slightly shrill but not entirely unpleasant tone. Ultimately I feel a lot like I did after watching Kate Gosselin's tango on Dancing With The Stars: it's wonderful to see improvement, but when you were starting from such a low point to begin with, it's hard to get too excited about it. Also: it's 'Moon River'. It's really not that taxing a song, and she has no choreography to worry about this week (well, there is some, but it's when she isn't singing). So: I can see her point about how she's had vocal training and can deliver a song, but she's still got a lot of work to do to convince me that she can cut it against the Stephanies and the Stephs of the competition who are knocking it out of the park on a regular basis.

When that's over, Stephanie takes to the stage for a complete change of mood with Jennifer Lopez's 'Let's Get Loud'. I for one am disappointed, because there are going to be Jennifer Lopez songs on this show, then this one should be at the top of the list:

Amazing.

Anyway, where were we? Oh, right: Stephanie's giving it some Latin fever in an alarming black dress with yellow polka dots, and this song isn't a natural fit for her at all, but she's selling it like a true pro, and that's what I mean about the difference between the likes of her and Emilie. There's some odd choreography going on, but Stephanie has command of the stage, and while it's not the best vocal she's ever given, on a fairly sub-par night it's definitely one of the better ones.

Graham asks them, NatWest-style, if it's all work-work-work or whether they get to have any fun in the Dorothy house. Stephanie says that they work and play hard, and Emilie agrees. Sheila thought Stephanie was wonderful, and she's pleased that she's shown she can do different styles of performance. One small problem: "I haven't the slightest idea what the number was about, but never mind - it looked nice." Heh. Similarly, with Emilie she could've done with more pointers as to what the song was about - she didn't understand why the Boy Dancer was there for the performance, but she's sure Emilie did. John didn't get Emilie's performance - despite what Sheila said, he's not sure Emilie did know what she was doing, because he didn't understand who she was singing to or what she was singing for, and there was no connection with the guy she was singing to, or possibly not singing to, and he didn't understand the waltz, or the bit where they turned away from each other, and Charlotte disagrees, but about what I'm not entirely sure, and she didn't sound supported vocally. Stephanie, on the other hand, gave another excellent supported performance, but needs to learn when to pull back. Charlotte thinks Emilie has found her vocal control and she got the whole story, and Stephanie is awesome. Andrew tells Emilie that he thinks there's a reason why they didn't put her into the Top 10 initially, and he agrees with John that she's not vocally secure, and he worries about her in a large theatre doing EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK, while Stephanie was brilliant. He does throw Emilie a brief bone by saying that she's "possibly our best mover", to which I say:

The cooch-punching! Make it stop!

Andrew talks briefly about the West Side Story performance coming later, and says that they wouldn't ask a West End company to do as much as these girls are doing tonight and "tomorrow" night. Yes, but they are doing EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK, not TWO SHOWS A WEEK, as you keep telling us. You can't have it both ways, chum. Anyway, he thinks 'America' will be a defining moment in the history of the competition, if they can pull it off.

Steph and Jenny are on next: last week, Steph gave us a showstopper, and was really pleased with how it all turned out. Steph's mum Baby D is very proud of her, and so is her dad, the Phil Fearon of Galaxy featuring Phil Fearon. Her parents talk about how being in the studio is a bit like when they used to do Top Of The Pops, and they're kind of adorable. Steph has apparently been teasing her dad about being more famous than him now. CAREFUL, STEPHANIE FEARON, THAT MIGHT LOOK LIKE CONFIDENCE TO SOME. [Steph doesn't have a punchable face like Lauren, though. She's fine. - Carrie] Jenny impressed with 'Songbird' last week, and says that she feels the pressure to keep the good comments coming, but this week is choreography week, and she's the worst dancer here, she reckons. Sucks to be Jenny, then. However, Jenny suspects Dorothy "doesn't really dance", and reckons she's up to "a wee skip and a hop". Fair enough.

Steph is singing 'Out Here On My Own' from Fame, and it's easily the best performance of the night: there's a stillness and a confidence (the good sort, not the EVIL SORT) to it, amid a sea of vamping and hamming, there's a sincerity to it which is quite rare on this show. Jenny is singing 'Why Do Fools Fall In Love?', and while there's nothing especially wrong with this performance (she moves easily about the stage and her vocals are on form), it's just not really an attention grabber like 'Songbird' was. I don't think she's in any danger this week, mind: as I pointed out earlier, it's a week where several people have underwhelmed, and so merely being decent is probably plenty to keep yourself in it.

Steph tells Graham that she's confident in her own abilities (CAREFUL!), but always gets nervous during the live shows. Jenny says that Bronte going last week was a big shock, so they're all having as much fun as possible because no one knows when they'll be ousted. John says that Steph dazzled with her dancing last week and this week she dazzled with her acting. Jenny on the other hand, he thinks could be faking it. Charlotte thinks Steph is a triple-threat, but needs to watch her vibrato, "which is the wobbly stuff in your voice". Our singing expert, ladies and gentlemen! She thought Jenny was pretty good, but got nasally at parts and she needs to be careful. Sheila thought Steph was beautiful, and that Jenny could've gone further with the choreography and had fun. Andrew thought Jenny did well with a tricky song, and then he deals Steph the killer blow by telling her that even though she's talented, he's not sure the role of Dorothy is the one for her. So, Steph joins Sophie and Dani on the "gone the next time she hits the sing-off" list. Curse you, Lord Webber!

Oh, God, I'd forgotten about Rover The Rainbow: there's another teaser VT about that search, which will be covered in more detail in the results show, so once again, Carrie has the joy of recapping that. HAHAHAHAHAHA! [Fuck off. The end. - Carrie]

Our final two Dorothys are up: Jessica and Danielle. Jessica didn't feel like she'd nailed it last week (because she hadn't), and she thought she would be in the sing-off, though Bronte being in it wasn't a much better alternative, because Bronte was Jessica's best friend. Jessica's also missing her best friend from home, Rebel the Dog, but her mum's brought the dog down to cheer her up. I'm sure Bronte's thrilled at how quickly her place in Jessica's affections has been usurped. Jessica coos over the dog, but at least does so in a way that suggests she is a genuine dog lover, rather than someone who just wants to show how well she would work with Toto. Danielle brought Amy Studt back to primetime last week, and got great reviews: she tells us in her VT that she started musical theatre late in life and was quite shy. In fact, people called her "The Victorian Child" because she was always seen and not heard. I find it hard to imagine that a bunch of other kids would ever nickname someone "The Victorian Child"; that just sounds too much like one of those stories you make up later to spice up a potentially boring anecdote. Danielle recalls the horror of playing Rizzo in Grease when she was in year six, but was taken under the wing of her high school drama teacher and subsequently blossomed.

Jessica is singing 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love', "from" We Will Rock You. From the way she's perched on a motorbike and surrounded by guys in white t-shirts and leather jackets, I wonder if she might not have been better off doing a number from Grease 2. [GOD YES. - Carrie] The facial tics are still present, though not quite at the horrific levels of week one, but her vocals are still all over the shop, especially when she's having to dance and sing at the same time. Danielle finishes things by taking on 'Could It Be Magic', and sings the entire thing to the lighting rig. Well, lighting rigs probably look like magic if you're not used to them, I guess. Her vocals are okay - she sounds a little unsupported in her top notes, and the whole performance is a bit anticlimactic, though.

Graham asks them how they're coping with the pressure, and Jessica's answer is "great". Heh. She and Danielle are enjoying the test of their stamina, the maniacs. Charlotte thought Jessica owned the stage, but she would've liked her to blues it up a bit, while Danielle was good, but should colour up her top notes with some vibrato, "which is the wobbly stuff, like I said earlier". Somewhere, Zoe Tyler is weeping. Sheila thought "Steph's" choreography was so complicated that she wasn't on top of it, while Danielle needs to love the camera more, and consider it a friend rather than an intrusion. Graham clarifies that she was talking about Jessica, but Sheila misunderstands and thinks Graham meant the second set of comments she gave, and says that she meant Danielle, and then Graham muddles things even further by saying "when you were talking about Jessica, you meant Jessica". Apparently being LIVE has its disadvantages. John didn't love Jessica's performance: he thought the choreography was laboured and he didn't enjoy it, while Danielle is just sticking at what she's good at and needs to take some risks. He thinks her performances have been the same for the past four weeks, which Sheila disagrees with. Charlotte wants her to sing "something joyous". Andrew says that he'd be keen to cast Jessica for Funny Girl, [which is what he said to Abi Finlay years ago and that still hasn't happened - Carrie] and is impressed that she worked the room and the cameras, while Danielle is a remarkable performer, but needs to come out of her shell a bit more.

Graham plugs the touring events that the show will be doing, and then we're into the girls having a choreography session with Kevan. Jessica's been in West Side Story three times before and is very excited, whereas Jenny hasn't even seen it. Lauren says that they're all focusing on their solo numbers, but the group number is still a big deal. Jenny frets about the complicated routine. Steph says that she's had dance training and she's struggling, so she's worried for everyone who isn't trained. Dani flirts with her Boy Dancer, and Stephanie hopes to show the judges what she can do. Lauren says it's a very competitive routine, where they're all fighting to get to the front, and Emilie promises to steal the whole number.

Back in the studio, Andrew says that these performances show us the all-round qualities of the girls, and that 'America' is one of his favourite songs: he wouldn't have dared to do this in any of the shows they've done previously because they didn't have an appropriate standard of contestant, so the fact that they're doing it at all is a small miracle. I hate it when programmes attempt to convince me that the standard of talent has increased massively despite little evidence to support that: I didn't believe it during Strictly Come Dancing 6 and I'm kind of raising an eyebrow now. John says that it's a huge choreographic challenge, and thanks Kevan for his hard work with the girls.

And so: 'America'. Complete with cringeworthy "Puerto Rican" accents. There's lots of sassing, although the girls don't enunciate their lyrics terribly clearly, perhaps because they're so preoccupied with their accents. Steph and - I can't quite believe I'm saying this - Jessica are the standouts for actually managing to interact convincingly with the others and make themselves heard properly.

Once that's all over, we get a sneak peak of this week's mission, where John teaches them how to wear heels, which will be coming up tomorrow. The lines are opened, and then we get a quick recap of the voting numbers and the performances. And that's it! Carrie will be here soon to reveal which Dorothy will be getting a house dropped on her...

Out on the wily, windy moors...

2010-04-12T22:36:00.000+01:00

Top 10 results show: Tx Sunday 11th April

Graham welcomes us to the results show, and then without further ado we are into the opening number where the girls swish their skirts and gurn and introduce themselves to us while singing 'Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead'. They scurry off stage and then Graham introduces "straight-talking" (read: AWESOME) Sheila, John, Charlotte and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Oh dear, here we go. VT from the crazy Toto auditions with mad people and their dogs. Oh, it's not going to be yet. First we must have a recap of last night. Which I am not going to recap in any kind of detail - Steve told you perfectly beautifully what happened - but there is additional backstage horror. Sophie cried after her comments; Jessica pretended to be humble; Bronte hopes she will be here next week (fate well and truly tempted - oops, spoilers); Dani is happy that Charlotte ate her words; Steph feels awesome (fnar); Jenny was happy that Lloyd Webber thought she was pitch-perfect; Danielle is a bit tearful about all the nice comments; Lauren couldn't decide what accent she wanted to sing in, but reassures us that she's not arrogant; Emilie was FUCK AWFUL but got good comments from John so was over the moon; and Stephanie says she worked hard and it paid off. Then they sang You Can't Stop The Beat from Hairspray (WHICH IS DEAD) and everyone clapped.

Andrew says that the standard is incredibly high, and reminds us that everything is live: the singing, the music, everything. EVERYTHING EXCEPT THIS SHOW, LLOYD WEBBER. He has no clue who's going to win. I should hope not. Everyone laughs at Charlotte dressed as Dorothy many years ago, and she is sad that she could not audition. Graham tells her to sneak in during the semi-finals and not to waste her time with these early rounds. Ouch.

Graham lies that the girls are now going to sing a "mash-up", which yet again turns out to be one song, and then another one - in this case The Money Song from Cabaret, and Madonna's Material Girl. I was in the kitchen listening to this, and strangely I could always tell when Emilie was singing because she is the one who is never ever ever in tune. [Well, if nothing else, at least she's consistent. - Steve]

Oh no no no. Here is the search for Toto, complete with excruciating dog-related puns. People who call themselves "Mummy" and "Daddy" with reference to their pets need to be slapped. As do people who think their pets have star quality. Freakazoids. Also needing to be slapped? Little children who clearly want to be on stage themselves. [You're going to have very sore hands by the time we've found our Toto. - Steve] And also people who are "stage and screen dog trainers" like that is a real job. Jodie turns up and makes jokes at bald men. There are some very cute dogs there, to be fair. Jodie cries at some, for some reason. Maybe she misses her dogs. I miss mine. [Me too. Although mine IS DEAD, and has been for many years. - Steve]

Graham talks to Steph, who says it was horrible being in the bottom two (o rly?) and hopes she did enough this week. Stephanie says she is over the moon but hopes she is not sitting on it later. Heh. Sophie hopes she can turn John around (fnar!).

Ooh, Mission Time. Sheila gives the girls 48 hours to learn a scene from The Wizard Of Oz, the one where the scarecrow starts to talk. She wants to see fear and compassion among other emotions. The girls say various things. I increasingly like Steph; Jessica is punchable; some of the girls have very odd ideas as to what an American accent might sound like. Sheila admires Lauren but fears too much gloss. Bronte does a cute thing where she wipes her hand on her skirt before shaking hands with the scarecrow. [I really liked that! Not that it's going to matter in about ten minutes, oops spoilers. - Steve] Sophie and Dani forget their lines and look horrified with themselves, and Sheila reiterates as if she needed to that learning lines is Very Important. Then she says that some of the girls are doing what is expected and if she was directing it she would BURN them. She liked Danielle, Emilie, Bronte and Jenny but in different ways (Bronte has funny little legs, apparently; Danielle has solemnity and grace).

Now another musical number - Judy Garland's Get Happy, complete with cane-based dance routine. The same statement as before re who is in tune and is not remains the case. Lloyd Webber doesn't want to single anyone out, so he doesn't. The Dorothys have no such reservations, and happily play Steve's patented game of Who Is The Bitch That You Hate? [Yay! - Steve] Except most of them opt for Steph on the basis that she was bottom two last week. You DULLARDS. [Boo! - Steve] The panel won't pull their punches - Sheila says Sophie is not Dorothy; John says Jessica; Charlotte says Emilie.

Time for the results. Through to next week are - Stephanie; Jessica; Jenny; but NOT Bronte, who is in the bottom two (and as I watch these girls fall apart on national television I am reminded just how young most of them are); Dani; Sophie; Steph. Danielle, Emilie and Lauren all step forward - two of them are safe, one is in the sing-off - and as they take their places in the line, Lauren shoves Danielle along out of her space. Oh, Lauren. And given your editing yesterday and your misjudged comments, that is why it is you who is singing off tonight. If it were down to viewer votes, Bronte would be out of the competition.

Andrew Lloyd Webber says these two girls were in his top five, so it comes down to how they interpret the song, What I Did For Love from A Chorus Line, which he informs us is about love and love for the theatre. They sing; Lloyd Webber cogitates. He is gutted, and tells them they are fantastically talented girls who will go a long, long way. He claims that this is the first time he has not known what to decide, but opts for experience and saves Lauren. Bronte looks like her puppy has been shot. Lloyd Webber says many nice things and tells her to keep in touch with him and the panel. Bronte, to her immense credit, is holding it together pretty well despite being obviously upset.

Time for that sadistic farewell number as the girls weep their way over the stage and Bronte gives Lauren her shoes. I do love the way Steph looks delighted in a childish way when the crescent moon begins to rise, like she's really excited that her friend is flying. Bronte struggles on the high notes thanks to tears, but she has been a credit to herself. Well done her.

Join us next week for more teenage girls' dreams being crushed, and crazy people with their dogs!

Quirking it out

2010-04-11T18:37:00.000+01:00

Top 10: 10th April 2010

So we join the Doctor and Amy in outer space as they discover that Britain in the future lives on the back of a starwhale and Sophie Okonedo is the Queen and...oh, hang on. This is just the BBC One schedule overrunning a tad. Bear with me.

*fast-forwards*

Last week, Amy was exiled for daring to wear make-up and have marvellous breasts, just as we all knew she would be, and everyone else was shaken up by the first proper elimination. "That was even worse than I expected," says Emilie, presumably not referring to her own performance, although you could be forgiven for thinking that. Tonight, the remaining ten fight once more for the right to be a leading lady. The VT includes snippets of variously dynamic soundbites about how they all plan to bring it AND THEN SOME, but I won't bother to recap that because it'll be repeated in the show proper, right?

Titles! Andrew Lloyd Webber's giant tongue threatens to escape his mouth once again. Scary.

The girls are perched on the Stairs of Doom clapping in rhythm (well, nine of them are clapping in rhythm, who knows what Emilie might be doing?) as Graham enters to the instrumental of 'We're Off To See The Wizard'. He's wearing another waistcoat that looks like it was white before he stopped to perform open-heart surgery on the way to the studio. Or possibly someone performed open-heart surgery on him without removing the waistcoat. Either way, I'm sure open-heart surgery has to have been involved somewhere. Some random pyrotechnics go off at the front of the stage. Graham feigns shock. More pyrotechnics go off behind the panel. Sheila feigns shock considerably more credibly. Pyrotechnics go off next to Andrew. Andrew does a Frank Spencer face. Obviously Michael Crawford taught him a few tricks during rehearsals for The Phantom of the Opera. I'll bet they had loads of fun together.

Our opening number is part of 'Munchkin Land', which teaches us that Dani is not one of the world's most natural dancers. The girls parade around while Graham announces their names, and Emilie appears to have developed this "suck it bitches, I'm going nowhere" demeanour, which would bother me less if I didn't suspect her to be entirely right. Then there follows some supreme hoofing as they sing 'Ding! Dong! The Witch Is Dead', which Bronte and Jenny probably do the best job of selling. More pyrotechnics, and then we're done. [Interested to note during this that pretty much all the girls were switching to their head voices relatively low down the scale. That might not be interesting to everyone, mind, but I was fascinated at the avoidance of belt - Carrie]

Graham gives latecomers a chance to catch-up by reminding us that Amy is no longer with us, at which point we cut to her sequinned slippers hanging from a chandelier. How marvellously macabre. There really is an admirable thread of sadism running through this series so far; I approve wholeheartedly. Two more Dorothys will face the sing-off tomorrow, but of course, they'll have to sing for us first. Graham introduces the panel: Sheila is wearing hot pink and has very big hair, John is wearing a light-blue shirt and looks far too normal for his surroundings, and Charlotte apparently ran out of time while getting ready and only blow-dried down as far as the tops of her ears, leaving her a frankly mad poofy set of curls from there downwards. Andrew is introduced with his familiar chords, and he accuses Graham of being "a bad witch" tonight with all these pyrotechnics. Graham thinks it's marvellous, and explains that this week Sheila will be giving the girls an acting masterclass. Please let Barbara Windsor be involved somehow. Andrew explains that they are acting for television tonight, but they will be acting for the theatre in The Wizard Of Oz, and these are two different disciplines. If someone could tell Barrowman that, it really would make Torchwood a lot easier to sit through. He talks about how Sheila is in Sister Act at the moment (except she's not, obviously, because she's here, and her understudy is on instead) and has done lots of television, so is in an excellent position to school these bitches. [Why do you keep calling them all bitches? So mean. - Carrie]

First up tonight are Sophie Evans and Jessica Robinson. Ooh, surnames! Sophie says that her heart was pounding last week and she didn't expect to be as nervous as she was. She was the last person to be declared safe last week, which was terrifying, so she's going to have to toughen up, she thinks. Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing' plays and immediately after the opening lyric runs "just a smalltown girl", Sophie informs us that she's "kind of a smalltown girl". It would be so awesome if they compiled the entirety of these VTs out of song lyrics. Jessica's could involve 'Money's Too Tight To Mention', and judging by her VT later in tonight's episode, Lauren's could just be Meredith Brooks' 'Bitch'. Anyway, Sophie goes to meet Sheila, and overacts horribly while rehearsing 'That Don't Impress Me Much', though Sheila seems to approve, so maybe you had to be there. Jessica, meanwhile, enthuses about how much she enjoyed performing last week, and proceeds to tell us all how she is DIFFERENT and QUIRKY, the latter in particular being one of those words you should never use to describe yourself. Jessica goes in to see Sheila, and Sheila cements her place in my heart by basically telling Jessica to stop with the manic faces and really focus on actual emotions. God, where was Sheila during I'd Do Anything? If she'd come in at week two and told Jessie to stop touching her hair and scrunching up her face, I think we'd have all been a lot happier. Jessica says she can imagine herself in the part, and performs 'The Voice Within' for Sheila, which seems to go well. She reminds us that she is QUIRKY, and also versatile.

The first two take to the stage, and Sophie struggles a little bit with 'That Don't Impress Me Much', which may be many things, but a vocal showcase it is not. However, she does deliver a fairly pleasing amount of sass to her two male backing dancers. She's a little stiff in her movement, though, and seems a little unsure what to do with your arms. As soon as Jessica begins singing 'The Voice Within', it becomes very clear that she might be better off sticking to quirky, because the girl can't really sing, and when she's not distracting you from that fact with her giant crazy face, it's pretty hard to miss. She also does my least favourite performance tic of people who are trying to seem earnest: she keeps nodding during any line she considers profound. Not the best way to get the show started really, these two performances.

Graham reminds Sophie that John said she wasn't Dorothy last week, and she says that it knocked her confidence, but she can't let it affect her performance. Jessica says that she wasn't terrified to work with Acting Legend Sheila Hancock because she saw it as a valuable opportunity, and has taken on board everything that Sheila taught her. It's true, there was a significant reduction in crazyface this week, and I think the entire nation owes her a debt of gratitude for that. Graham asks Sheila if she saw those improvements, and Sheila says that she was disappointed. "We only had quarter of an hour each, and it was the beginning of the week, and a lot has happened since then." I love that Sheila Hancock cares not for the artifice of reality television and is quite happy to puncture the image of lengthy masterclasses the show has been implying. She doesn't think either of them picked up on what they told her their songs were about. Sheila says that she could tell from Sophie's preparation that she wasn't going to get it right, and she was having fun in the clip, and she should be having fun in her performance, mocking these "silly, conceited boys" and she didn't get that. Equally for Jessica, she didn't follow through on the plan to sing it as though to a friend who's in tears. Sheila Moment Of Awesomeness #4: "Don't get carried away by the crowd, every time you sing loudly they applaud." HA! She thought Jessica clawed it back towards the end, but it was too big and demonstrative. [Can we just have Sheila as the judge of Everything, please? Not just this, but The X Factor as well. And perhaps in the supreme court. - Carrie]

John says that he's frustrated by Sophie because when he looks at her he sees Dorothy, but when she performs, she doesn't own it. He found himself looking at her boy dancers rather than her, something that the studio audience finds deeply mirthful. Oh, those gays and their one-track minds! He does make the valid point, however, that if she can't keep his attention with two backing dancers, how's she going to do it with a company of 30? He also felt that Jessica's performance lacked truth and honesty, and tells her that she's not standing properly either. Heh. Charlotte disagrees: she thinks they've both been better, but she enjoyed both performances. Andrew didn't like either of the song choices, and particularly not Sophie's; however, he thinks there's lots of scope for them to develop as the series continues.

Bronte and Dani are on next. Bronte says that she was very nervous before she performed last week, but she's determined to be Dorothy and won't let this opportunity pass her by. Since "personality" is the word of the week, Bronte also leaps onto the "I'M QUIRKY!" bandwagon (at least until Jessica throws her off into the path of oncoming traffic) and is very happy with her song for this week ('Suddenly I See'), because she thinks it will show that she is QUIRKY. Dani was devastated last week when Charlotte said she wasn't Dorothy, but is determined to prove herself. She's singing 'Home', which is about wanting to go home, and Sheila asks her to think about homesickness, so Dani goes to stare at her family pictures. She thinks she can connect with these week's song, and Sheila tells her that being an actor is all about using your own experience. [Except when you're a teenager competing to be Dorothy and you HAVE no experience. - Carrie]

Good God, Bronte's outfit for this week is terrible. It's a cream-coloured bodice with pink trimming and a sort of V-neck holding it up, and at first I thought maybe it was a dress and that it wouldn't be so bad, but then I got a full-length view and it's actually just a top, paired with some high-waisted beige trousers. It's a hideous, hideous ensemble that wouldn't look good on anyone. Her biggest problem with this song is that clearly someone has told her to enunciate every syllable, which is probably good standard training for anyone wanting to work in musical theatre, but because the verses of this song flow so quickly, she just keeps tripping over her own tongue. She's got a nice tone, though, and if we were casting a Sharpay for High School Musical, she'd have my vote every week, because I think she'd play that role brilliantly. She does her best with the song, but unfortunately it's one of those songs that doesn't lend itself that brilliantly to jazzhandification.

Dani's song, on the other hand, works a lot better in this setting, and there's something about her performance style this week that reminds me of Jodie Prenger - that sort of quiet, solid determination that a lot of her performances had. She overacts the last third of the song a bit too much, but it's a better vocal performance that she gave last week by quite some way, and just as Sheila predicted, the audience go nuts every time she sings anything loudly. Heh.

Both girls scamper over to join Graham, who quizzes Bronte about the fact that she apparently sings hello to herself every day. Bronte tries to explain that it all began because she had a sort throat and wanted to see if her voice was still there, but now it's started raging out of control and the girls are starting to think she's a bit weird. Sorry, Bronte, but I'm with the girls on this one. Dani tells Graham that she really believes she can play the part of Dorothy, and she's tried to take on board the panel's criticism. John tells Bronte that he kind of saw what she was getting at, but his problem was that she had the revelation of the song right at the beginning, which left her nowhere to go. At which point Charlotte interrupts despite the fact that her mic is down, saying that she totally disagrees. John goodnaturedly does a Cowardly Lion impression ("put 'em up!") and allows her to put her point across: Charlotte thinks she saw that side of the performance all the way through. John clarifies that he too saw it all the way through, but that was precisely his problem: it was the same at the beginning, the middle, and the end, without an arc. He thought Dani started weakly, but later gained confidence, which may or may not have been related to the fact that halfway through the song she was no longer required to walk down the Stairs Of Doom. He advises her to keep pushing.

Charlotte then continues that she liked Bronte, but she thinks she could've rocked out more. She thought Dani was brilliant and that she portrayed all the emotions at just the right level, and she won't be naming her to go home this week. Sheila agrees that she was delighted with Dani, and she thought that Dani used her own experience to get the anguish required for the song. Turning to Bronte, Sheila says that she "nearly" cracked it, and was similarly sandbagged by the Stairs Of Doom, and she thinks that she got the contrast between the verse and the chorus well, but like John said, it could've been more defined.

Andrew then patronises Dani hideously about how AWFUL it must have been for her last week to get those comments despite being SIXTEEN, and he thinks she doesn't look like a girl who shops in TopShop, she looks like a girl who could be a Dorothy. If that particular assessment made any sense to you, please, please, do enlighten me because I got nothin'. He then turns to Bronte, but calls her "Barbie", and Graham quickly has to correct him. Bronte, the poor mite, pinches her forehead briefly in a manner that suggests this is not the first time she's had this particular case of mistaken identity, but manages to smile through it all the same. She looks kind of mortified, though. He tells her that she really delivered the message of the song, and she "half-cracked" the performance, but he thinks she's got the acting performance within her, and he hopes she sticks around.

Dorothys five and six have "already experienced the highs and lows of the competition": Jenny and Steph. Steph thought she did her best last week, but was crushed last week when Andrew basically ruled her out of the competition. She didn't want to be the first to leave, but did her best to enjoy her sing-out. She was gutted to see Amy go, but relieved that it meant she got to stay. Now she wants to raise her game and show Andrew that she can be Dorothy. Jenny, on the other hand, loved the first show and got great feedback from the panel, which has increased her confidence for this week. VT Steph considers Jenny to be the "dark horse" of the competition, as does Jessica, and Jenny thinks a few of the girls underestimated her before last week. However, she's aware that the element of surprise only works for a limited time, and hopefully they'll quickly wake up and realise that she's good. Hee.

Steph looks lovely this evening: she's got a shiny gold dress on and her hair's neatly flipped over one shoulder. She's singing 'It's Oh So Quiet' and fills it with a sense of exuberance even before the big band breaks in. I think she does a great job here: this is a hard song to pull off in this sort of environment because so much of the original is speaking and shouting rather than singing, but she manages to balance an element of faithfulness to that with actually singing her way through it. I'm not going to say there aren't a few iffy notes, but the general standard of the performance is high enough for me to forgive them. Then Jenny takes on 'Songbird', which was the song that gave Siobhan her first real "moment" in How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, so she's got her work cut out to make an impact with it here. The good news is that she pulls it off: it's quite a tricky song to sing, and she sounds great throughout, and the acting is reasonably understated, which works well.

Steph tells Graham that she had fun working on this week's number and just hopes everyone else enjoyed it too, while Jenny says that everyone's feeling more competitive now that the reality of eliminations has set in, but she too is trying to have fun every Saturday in case it's her last chance. Charlotte hopes neither of them are in danger of the sing-off this week: she thought Steph was fearless in her performance, and while she was worried about Jenny because 'Songbird' has a lot of long notes that test breath control, she did brilliantly. Sheila agrees that they're two very brave girls, who've had bad weeks: obviously Steph's confidence was shaken by being in the sing-off last week, while Jenny has a private association with this song that makes it hard for her to sing. For the love of Didi Benami, please, NOBODY ASK HER FOR MORE DETAILS. Sheila would've liked more calm and more wallop from Steph, but she thought they were both terrific. John disagrees: he thinks the others should take notes from Steph on how to front a number, because she was the star and put her backing dancers in their place. Sheila's all indignant at this, because he's basically saying what she said, but John reminds her that she said it could have been "braver", while he thought it was plenty brave enough. Sheila falls silent, but is almost certainly thinking how long to imprison him for when she is elected Queen of the Universe any day now. John enjoyed seeing a softer side to Jenny, but thought she could've injected the song with a bit more passion. Andrew promises not to call Steph "Fearon" (hee), and makes it clear to everyone at home that the song was not a Björk original but was in fact first recorded by Betty Hutton in 1948 - and Betty Hutton was the takeover for Judy Garland in the movie of Annie Get Your Gun, which Andrew admits is a "useless piece of trivia". Oh, bollocks. After I went to all that trouble transcribing it, as well. I've half a mind to set a test at the end of the recap now. He's very pleased he saved Steph because he saw a different side to her this week. While 'Songbird' has been done a lot on reality TV, he thought Jenny sang it wonderfully with immaculate pitch. Indeed, I would say these were easily the two standout performances of the night.

Time for a brief teaser of the dogs auditioning for that pointless one-off performance as Toto, which we will apparently be treated to in greater depth tomorrow. Yippee. Oh God, all of the people who've brought their dogs along seem to be mental. I mean, I suppose they'd have to be, but Christ on a bike. I think I'll let Carrie handle this in full detail. It's only fair. [BITCH. - Carrie]

Danielle and Lauren are next to perform. Danielle, like pretty much everyone else, was nervous as hell on the first live show, but got some constructive advice from Sheila. In her brief masterclass, Sheila plays the role of Danielle's mum and promptly ignores Danielle as she sings. Hee. Danielle thinks that by giving her something to react to, Sheila helped to bring out her stage presence. She considers herself to be a wallflower, but doesn't want to be judged for being quiet. Lauren got great feedback for last week, but promptly ruins things for herself by reminding us all that Charlotte Church was in awe of her voice last week and doing a little mock-bow. Word of advice from someone who's watched a lot of reality TV, Lauren: only boys are allowed to behave like that. [To be fair, if a boy had recorded this VT with the same intonations and expressions, he'd not get a popular reaction either. - Carrie] Lauren says she's a perfectionist, so she would've liked it to go 10% better. She says that she's never been in a competition before, and she's never won anything either, so this is going to be the first. Oh, Lauren. Seriously: humility. Learn it, and quickly, or you'll be gone by week five. I'm telling you this for your own good. She wants everyone else to view her as their toughest competition.

I spend the first verse of Danielle's song trying to figure out what the hell it is, though I know it sounds familiar: it turns out to be Amy Studt's 'Just A Little Girl', and Danielle does a pretty good job of acting the frustrated teenager side of the song, but her tuning is a bit iffy this week. I do approve of the fact that she's performing it all around a park bench, though, and there's a very stroppy teenager shrugging of the shoulders at the end, so bonus points for that. Lauren sings a rather strident version of 'I'll Never Fall In Love Again', complete with bizarre and inexplicable clipped Estuary accent in some places [AND A SIDEGOB - Carrie]. The acting of the song is rather all over the place, with each line apparently being attributed its own emotion, rather than there being an overarching mood to the whole thing. Her vocal's fine, but the acting choices are just weird.

Danielle explains that she's quite a bubbly person at home, but she's retreated into her shell a bit here, though she tried to let it all out with that song. Lauren tells an anecdote that her mum has a recurring nightmare about having to take her place in the sing-off, which she hopes doesn't happen. Sheila liked both performances - she doesn't care if Danielle gets the part of Dorothy or not, because she's a great actress with a big career ahead of her. She thought both performances were witty and nuanced, even though Lauren has form for being a bit of a "basher". John thinks Danielle gave her best performance of the date, which was committed and intelligent. He's getting bored of hearing himself say how fabulous Lauren is (["So don't say it, then." - The Entire Viewing Audience], but she was great again, witty and conversational. Charlotte loves Danielle's dynamism and the fact that she's not afraid to sing quietly, while Lauren needs to be a bit careful about her confidence coming across as arrogance like it did in her VT (and with Charlotte fertilising the seeds that had already been planted in the audience's minds, expect her to be punished for such hubris any day now), but her performance was great, so maybe it was okay to be cocky after all. Andrew drops in some more trivia that Lauren's song comes from a musical called Promises Promises (and wonders what would've happened if the lyricist had needed to find a rhyme for "jaundice" rather than "pneumonia", heh) - he thought she sang it well, but a little bit too knowing for his liking. Danielle, on the other hand, is a very strong contender, and he wants to see more from both of them.

Time for our final two Dorothys: Emilie and Stephanie. We're reminded of Emilie's awful performance from last week, while Emilie admits there's a lot of pressure in being the wildcard because you're the public's Chosen One. She thinks the pressure got to her last week, and that she lost herself a bit. She wants to show the public that she's got what it takes, and Sheila wants her to let rip. Hee hee hee, "let rip". Stephanie loved every minute of last week's show, and is loving living away from home for the first time. She's never used a washing machine before, and Bronte giggles that Stephanie is very funny to live with. Until she gives you all food poisoning, of course. Sheila loves that Stephanie is so full-on, but now she wants to see her be simple and truthful.

Oh God: Emilie is singing 'The Boy Does Nothing' which is again not the best of vocal showcases. Not that Emilie apparently has much to showcase, because she honks and hoots her way through it rather painfully. As much as I love Alesha Dixon, I'm aware she's not the most amazing vocalist in the world, but Emilie's attempt at this song gave me new appreciation for Alesha's singing. The performance itself isn't much better, because she's as wooden as hell interacting with her backing dancers, and she appears to have inherited Jessica's share of overacted hammy faces. I know I'm harsh on Emilie at the best of times, but even by her standards this was shockingly poor. Luckily, it's over eventually and Stephanie sings 'Smile' - sadly not the Lily Allen number I was hoping for, but rather the classic Charlie Chaplin one. There's a touch of mania in her face, but by and large she's reined things in nicely for this performance, and her vocals are sweet too.

Emilie tells Graham that she has so much more to give and wants to show her gutsy side, while Stephanie says that she's loved singing this song and hopefully having a chance to display her versatility. John thinks Emilie is "back in the competition" and compliments her legs. He would've liked her to connect the choreography to the words a bit more, but overall he thought it was a good performance. Are they pumping some sort of intoxicating gas into the studio? He thinks Stephanie could've had better breath control, but her performance was still great. Charlotte enjoyed Emilie's whole performance, but she needs to control her voice, because she was "pitchy" in places. AAAARGH! Must that non-word infect this show too? She wants to hear Emilie sing a simple ballad next week. God help us all. Charlotte loved Stephanie's performance, and thought her tone of voice was perfect and that it was the performance of the night. Sheila thought they both did well, but not as well as she hoped. She thought Stephanie was going to be disastrous when she started because she was all breathy, but she developed as the song went on and was more believable in conveying that she was actually talking to someone. She thinks Emilie could've had more fun with that song, because she didn't relate to the boys or build the number. John disagrees; he thought she did connect with the boys. Andrew tells Stephanie a pointless story about a time he met a music publisher, and says that she gave a great performance that turned him around on her. He thought Emilie still needs to get her voice under control, but reassures her that "13-year-olds like my daughter love you" - though "they can be fickle at that age". You're telling me. [He also says that she had a hard job with having to dance and sing at the same time. Right, because you never have to dance and sing at the same time on the West End stage. - Carrie]

Andrew gives his final thoughts, and says that some of the girls are losing their innocence, particularly in the way their hair has been done: "we're casting Dorothy, we're not casting Girls Aloud". Well, that was helpful. [Seriously. If that's what you think, and I'd be inclined to agree, don't give them Girls Aloud songs to sing! - Carrie]

Trailer for tomorrow night's acting mission, as the girls act their way through Dorothy's meeting with the scarecrow. Bronte has to be directed to the correct exit by Sheila, and this is soundtracked by 'If I Only Had A Brain'. Snerk.

Graham declares the lines open, and we get a recap of tonight's performances: Sophie not impressing us much, Jessica nodding "earnestly" and filling me with rage in the process, Bronte in the world's least flattering outfit, Dani struggling with the Stairs Of Doom, Steph blowing a fuse WOOOOW BAM!, Jenny delivering a very pleasant and understated take on 'Songbird', Danielle turning the teenage strop into an art form, Lauren turning in an performance entirely at odds with the song she was given, Emilie continuing to be awful, and Stephanie trying her hand at being low-key.

Time for a group number, which will be 'You Can't Stop The Beat' from Hairspray this week. In rehearsals, they're all struggling with it, though they'd be hard pressed to turn in a worse performance than the actual West End cast did on last year's Strictly. While they're all exhausted, they seem to be making some progress towards the end. Hurrah, and all that. They turn in a pretty good performance on the show itself: Sophie in particular does a better job with this than she did with her solo number. There's a moment where they all charge down the Stairs Of Doom, and I rather cruelly hope for the girl at the back to trip and fall down the stairs taking everyone else out as she does, but sadly this does not happen. Jessica has brought the crazyface back out again, lamentably, and even Emilie manages to deliver her line without going too out of tune. Maybe there's hope! In terms of who has the best grasp of the choreography, I'd say it's between Stephanie and Danielle, but no one really embarrasses themselves.

The credits roll, and that's it. In the results show, two Dorothys will face the sing-off, and Carrie will bring you all the campy details...

Diamond in the rough

2010-04-05T17:55:00.000+01:00

Top 11 Results: 4th April 2010

No pre-titles sequence for us - how strange. I feel a bit bereft without a Graham voiceover reminding me what happened "last night" and asking leading questions about which Dorothy might have run out of Yellow Brick Road to follow. Still, at least I appreciate it as far as economy of recapping goes. Or rather, I would have, had I not just waffled on for an extraneous paragraph about how there was no pre-titles teaser. So, er, shall we get on with it?

Graham welcomes us back and informs us that the lines have now closed. In fact, the lines closed nearly 24 hours ago, but we're back in the days of pre-recorded results shows where everyone knows it's not live but we're all supposed to pretend it is - a bit like Bruce Forsyth. Thank you! I'll be here all week, and don't forget to tip your waitress. One of our Dorothys must leave the competition for good, unless they are saved by the Lord. That's Lord Webber, of course - while I'm totally sure God watches this show and was probably vengeful indeed when Camille didn't get chosen as the wildcard, he's as powerless as the rest of us when it comes to influencing the results.

The Top 11 reprise their performance of 'Merry Old Land Of Oz' from "last night", now with 100% more Emilie, only instead of Graham's voiceover telling us that these girls are competing for our votes, he's now asking which Dorothy will be going home. Ooh, sinister. I like it. Of course, this being musical theatre, the girls all grin sunnily even as we debate which of them is about to join the 126% of the profession that's currently unemployed, or whatever that statistic that Sheila threw at Claire Hillier was.

Graham introduces the panel again - they've changed their outfits, but don't be fooled! This is all just the magic of television trying to convince us it is a bright new day when it is in fact not. Graham teases the search for Toto still to come, and also a terrifying-sounding "Dorothy mash-up". Clearly, someone on the production team has been watching Glee. Oh, and of course, there's the always unmissable "prove you can do what your character does" exercise, which appears to involve farm work this week. As keen as I am to see this, I can only hope there will at some point be a masterclass in which Barbara Windsor appears to show the girls how to interact with munchkins, just so she can do the Face Of Truth at us again. [FACE OF TRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTH! - Carrie]

Time for a recap of last night's show: Stephanie opened with a performance of Pixie Lott's 'Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)', in the traditional jazz hands style and involved some serious face-pulling. Charlotte enjoyed her self-confidence, and John thought she was a natural born entertainer. Backstage, Stephanie hopes people voted for her. Lauren did a wobbly version of Leona Lewis's cover of 'Run', which you may not realise was originally performed by Snow Patrol. THANKS FOR THAT, CHART ORACLE CHERYL COLE. Sheila thought she had a good crack at it, and Charlotte was in awe of her voice. Backstage, Lauren was buzzing, but not in a meow meow sort of way, kids. Dani got buried beneath an attempt at The Saturdays' 'Ego' and Charlotte thought she struggled, while Sheila and John had issues with the acting side of her performance. Steph glory-noted her way through 'I Just Can't Stop Loving You', leaving Sheila wanting more colours and John reminded her that "less is more". The Lord was not sure that The Wizard Of Oz is the right show for her, leading Steph to speculate backstage that that's a euphemism for "you are not Dorothy".

Appropriately enough, Amy took on Fergie's overgrown stripper anthem 'Big Girls Don't Cry', and John wanted her to be "less MTV, more West End", while The Lord thought she'd be great in Legally Blonde. Unfortunately, the part of Rufus has already been filled. I'm kidding! I'm kidding. Please, don't e-mail me. Backstage, Amy's all "of course, I would be AWESOME in Legally Blonde, but that's not what I'm auditioning for". Hee. I like that she's so on-the-nose about it all. She will apply those comments to next week's song. Danielle achieved the rare feat of making Daniel Merriweather's 'Red' listenable, but got mixed reviews from the panel: Charlotte liked the interpretation but not the vocal, while Sheila and The Lord were more favourable. She really wants this, and is hoping to continue. Then Emilie STOLE THE WILDCARD SPOT THAT WAS RIGHTFULLY CAMILLE'S (no, I'm not planning on getting over this any time soon), and promptly rubbed my face in it by caterwauling her way through Kelly Clarkson's 'Breakaway' like the poster child for banning music forever. Charlotte warned her to control her voice, and John thought she was too restrained. Backstage, Emilie hopes the public will continue to support her. ERRONEOUSLY, I might add.

Bronte Barbie (Mr Rochester Ken, Mad Bertha Skipper and Thornfield Manor Beach House playset sold separately) [God, I love literary in-jokes making me feel intellectual - Carrie] sang 'I Can't Make You Love Me' and "was competent" according to John, though Sheila liked her more, while Charlotte wanted more sadness. Backstage, Bronte worried that she hadn't done enough, but hoped the public would support her anyway. I'd chastise her for that casual attitude to her work, but then again most of the time my work ethic is "just be competent enough not to get fired", so I guess I'm in no position to point fingers. M&S Advert Circa The Year 2000 Dorothy Jessica sang a frankly ludicrous rendition of 'Rehab'. John thought she was the first girl of the night to make the song seem like musical theatre, while Charlotte couldn't tear her eyes away. Insert your own "car crash" joke here. Backstage, Jessica reminded us that she's just so privileged to be here, because she is REALLY REALLY NORMAL. Expect to see her running up a mountain and showing us her bra any day now. Sophie took on 'If I Were A Boy', and John and Charlotte thought she struggled, but they still liked her. Sophie hoped the public would keep her in. Jenny closed the show with 'So What', possibly the least Dorothy song ever, though Charlotte loved her, and Sheila appreciated her wit. Jenny hoped the people at home vote for her because she's not ready to go home yet.

Graham's with the Dorothys, and wants to know how it was to face "real criticism" for the first time. He asks Bronte why she was so upset, given that her comments seemed largely positive, and she says that it's good to get some degree of criticism because it gives her something to work on. Amy says that it's tough to hear that the panel wanted something different, but says that if she's hear next week, she can maybe bring the panel "half Diamond, half Dorothy". She's going to give it 50%! This girl wouldn't last two seconds on The Apprentice.

Time to check in with Overly Made-Up Jodie on the search for Toto. It's the same, slightly stilted VT we've seen several times before. Filler! Back in the studio, Graham explains that each week we'll be getting a "mash-up" from the Dorothys, and then explains for those who don't know (and given that this is a primetime BBC1 weekend show, I'm guessing that's about 98% of the audience) what a mash-up actually is. Andrew dodges the question of whether he likes a mash-up, and wishes Graham a happy birthday instead. Except it wasn't actually his birthday when they filmed this, etc etc. The Dorothys then arrive to perform their first mash-up of the series, which is a blend of 'Anything You Can Do' and Alexandra BURKE's 'Broken Heels'. And the blend isn't so much seamless as it is incredibly disjointed, but hey, at least they're trying to get down with the kids, right? Also, it's not so much a mash-up as it is half a verse of 'Anything You Can Do' serving as a curtain-raiser for pretty much the entirety of 'Broken Heels'. Still, they've got weeks and weeks to perfect the art of the mash-up, right? Andrew is speechless at the end, and is thrilled at the general quality of the talent. [Steve, this was lame lame lame. We were better at Lucky Voice the other week. And at least one of the two of us was guzzling mojitos at the time. - Carrie]

Task time! The girls are woken shortly after 5am and greeted by a video message from Andrew on their TV. It's not exactly RuPaul's She-Mail, but it'll do, I guess. He tells them they're going to be farmgirls today, and the girls are all very excited at the prospect of donning their wellies. They're going to be supervised by Countryfile presenter and farmer Adam Henson, who starts them off gently by getting them to feed some adorable ickle lambs with bottles. After that, however, they're mucking out the pigsties. Hooray! "It's not really what I expected," admits Lauren. Totally Normal Jessica dry heaves, but says she's willing to do whatever it takes to be Dorothy. Graham reveals via voiceover that while the girls know Adam is marking them, they don't know that the winner gets an extra performance on Sunday's show. Oh God, please don't let it be Emilie. Adam says he's looking for someone no-nonsense who doesn't care about glamour and razzmatazz. Stephanie giggles that Sophie is struggling, because she's a Welsh girl from the valleys who ought to be used to this sort of thing. Dani says that she's happy to be on a farm working hard. Bronte says that she's pleased to be taking the experience of the farm. Steph struggles with a flat tyre on her wheelbarrow. Amy performs well, despite everyone thinking that she'd be too much of a glamour girl to muck in. Amy tells the camera that she's more than happy for people to underestimate her. Once they've finished muck-spreading (literally if not metaphorically), the girls are tasked with some pig-herding. Group 1 (Amy, Lauren and Jenny) starts slowly but fares reasonably well, while the other girls get Benny Hill music to soundtrack them, so you can imagine what their efforts are like. Once that's all done, Adam announces the prize, and picks the best farm girl of the day: Bronte. She gets to pick three girls to share her prize, and opts for Emilie (DEAR GOD WHY), Jessica (LIKEWISE) and Amy (MIGHT AS WELL WHILE SHE'S STILL HERE).

Bronte's reward is to sing 'Love Machine' in a kind of yee-haw country style, complete with put-on sidegob. Didn't we have enough of those two years ago? [Also, inappropriately provocative choreography. - Carrie] Bronte does okay apart from that hideous snarl she insists on retaining, Jessica struggles to keep her breath, Amy is fairly sassy, and Emilie is a honking tuneless mess as usual. Seriously: good job, voting public. I can't wait for you to be let loose on the next general election.

Time for a semi-bitchy VT, as the girls name the other contestants who they perceive as a threat: a surprisingly clean-faced Amy nominates Dani because Andrew's supported her so vocally, and Jessica thinks Dani is the dark horse. Dani is looking out for Sophie, while Steph thinks Lauren is serious competition. Lauren herself wants all the others to say she's the biggest competition. Danielle nominates Sophie, Bronte picks Lauren because they have similar songs, while Sophie and Stephanie pick Jenny, while Jenny and Emilie vote for Steph. It's not nearly as much fun as the VT they did during How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? that might as well have been called "Who Is The Bitch That You Hate?", where Simona said everyone was lovely and she couldn't possibly choose, while everyone else said "WE HATE THAT BITCH SIMONA." Ahh, good times.

Before we get to the results, Graham asks the panel who is not Dorothy based on this week's performances. Sheila picks Amy, John picks Sophie, and Charlotte picks Dani, after a pause you could have driven a truck through. Finally, it's time to announce the results, in no particular order of course. Bronte's name is called first, and she's safe. Dani and Stephanie are called together, and are both safe. Jenny is also safe. Danielle and Jessica are called together, and are also both safe. The five remaining girls start to look nervous, and are asked to step down from the stairs onto the main stage. Lauren is the first to be given a reprieve: she's safe too. Amy is in the sing-off, and must remain where she is. Amy's supporters yell things loudly. Emilie is safe too, because the universe hates me, so it's between Steph and Sophie for the last guaranteed place. There's a sweet moment where Sophie, already holding Steph's hand for support, fumbles around blindly for Amy's and doesn't catch it (because Amy's hands are clasped in front of her) and gives up, only for Amy to reach across and take Sophie's hand without even looking down. Awww. Steph is told that she is in the bottom two, so Sophie is safe and through to next week's show.

Huge shocker, right? The girl who everyone thinks is basically a stripper and the only non-white Dorothy are in the bottom two in week one. I for one could not have seen this coming, because I have never seen a BBC reality show before. Graham reveals that if it were down to viewer votes alone, Amy would've been going home, but there's still hope for her because Andrew may save her after the sing-off. Yeah. That'll happen.

They'll be singing 'Whistle Down The Wind', and Andrew advises them to try to be Dorothy with all their might, because this is a song that Dorothy might have sung. Unlike, say, 'So What'. Just throwing that out there. Steph starts a little sharp but claws it back reasonably quickly, though she seems to be singing in an Irish accent for reasons that escape me. Amy sings clearly and purely, but maybe a bit too blandly. Steph's high notes are grating indeed, and then her lower notes start to crack. To be honest, I kind of think Amy's kicking Steph's ass in this sing-off, which I was not expecting before they began it. Amy's still totally going home, though. They both nod resignedly at the end, like they both think they're going home, and I don't blame either of them for thinking that right now.

It's over to The Lord to decide who continues in the competition. Andrew says it's a difficult choice between the two of them, but opts to save Steph, because Legally Blonde "is the sort of role [Amy] should be going for". Just to clear this up once and for all: Legally Blonde is not an actual part, it is the title of the show. If you think she should be Elle Woods, THEN SAY THAT. (Personally I see her as more of a Margot, or perhaps Serena.) [I actually think she'd be a good Elle. She's got that 'brighter than she looks' steeliness about her. - Carrie] He tells Amy that she's very talented, but not right for this role. Then why was she in the Top 10? If the talent pool is really so strong as you keep saying it is, then why is this girl who basically everyone, with the possible exception of John, thinks is entirely wrong for the part even on the show?

Graham tells Amy she did well to get this far, and she says that she's had an amazing time, but she did what she came here to do. Finish in eleventh place? I can't imagine that's what she came there to do. She shouts out to the other girls that you can follow your dreams whoever you are, and she will continue to follow her dreams. Aw. I'll miss Amy. I actually quite liked her, and would rather have her stick around for a few weeks than Normal Crazy Eyed Jessica, or fucking Emilie, but no one cares what I think. Also, I didn't actually vote, which does weaken my argument somewhat.

It's time for the other girls to sing Amy away: they begin chanting their way through 'We Thank You Very Sweetly' before turning to Andrew to say "you've ditched her so completely" which is both evil and AWESOME, before seguing into the opening lines of 'Over The Rainbow' (the "when all the world is a hopeless jumble" part), while Steph takes Amy's slippers away from her and delivers them to Andrew, and Amy takes over the singing from "somewhere over the rainbow, way up high". She does this while sitting on a crescent moon suspended over the stairs, which then carries her right across the studio as she sings. This show is so very gay - I love it. Amy blows kisses to the other girls as she sings, and they smile sadly at her with tears in their eyes. Amy sings the song well, but yeah, she was never right for this role. She finishes, and the moon carries her high up and out of sight - and we're out.

Colour blind. And deaf

2010-04-05T00:24:00.001+01:00

First live show
Tx 3rd April 2010

And welcome to the first live show of the search for Dorothy. Who will progress? Who will Lloyd Webber take against for no reason whatsoever apart from not being a sidegobbed Irish pirate? More to the point, who will our wildcard be? Time to find out! Last week, the girls had a go at a musical theatre song (well, some did; others sang a song from We Will Rock You) which was helpful, and then a pop song in the style of a girl band which was not so much. Tough decisions were made. Ten girls went through. Lots of others didn't. We got to save one, but who is it? Come on, tell us! Tell us! Tell. Us. Oh, either way, all those who went through want to win.

Titles!

Ah, the girls have got their colours assigned. Here is Graham, waving to us and welcoming us to the show. Bloody hell, what the hell is this waistcoat about? It looks like a Jackson Pollock painting in fabric form.

The girls are singing That Merry Old Land Of Oz; Graham hams up blowing a trombone. Blimey O'Reilly, the girls' gingham frocks are see-through over the bosom area. That's a bit risque. [They're also squashing the girls' breasts into very uncomfortable-looking shapes. - Steve]

Graham explains the rules of the competition, which are exactly the same as they have been through the previous three series. So let's welcome our panel: Sheila, John and Charlotte. Ah, yes, and Lloyd Webber is there too: cue scary Phantom music. He is excited about the high standards of the contestants. Incidentally, Charlotte looks like she is wearing a bondage outfit.

Time to find out a bit more about our contestants. Stephanie is from Liverpool. She is yellow (her dress is. You know what I mean), and was a disgustingly precocious Shirley Temple-alike child. Her parents are proud of her.

Lauren is red. She is loud, and not normal. Her mum is her biggest critic, and I fear she is a pushy stage mother. She moved to London to "be where the work is". I hate her already.

Stephanie is singing 'Mama Do'. Her mouth is strange, and she seems to have problems walking down the stairs in heels, which is fair enough because I can't do it either, but then again I'm not on national television. Her high notes are not good.

Lauren is singing 'Run'. She is opting to stand still while singing, which is probably wise if it means she avoids the stairs. She acts it very oddly; she seems to be angry about something. There is a huge, pointless key change.

Stephanie says she is feeling pressure, being the first out, but then she was excited, and she shoehorns in a thank you to the band. Lauren says she is "living Dorothy", as is everyone. John says he thinks both were leading lady performances, and singles out Stephanie who is an entertainer. He calls Lauren a diva. Charlotte says more nice things. Sheila reckons either could join her on stage in Sister Act, but she's going to bang on about interpretation because we don't care about pop music or pop singers; we want musical theatre. Quite right, Sheila. She mocks "pop sounds", which are the generic oohs and aahs and yelps that affected singers force in. She also says that Lauren is dead behind the eyes, pretty much. Andrew says something pointless about their ages.

Dani is green. She is 16 and likes drawing and writing poetry, but the theatre is her favourite place to be. She seems to fancy herself as an intellectual but she can't use the washing machine.

Steph is...yellow too. That won't get confusing at all. She works in a bar, and is clearly being set up as a party animal good-time girl.

Dani is singing 'Ego'. She has a sidegob. I am adding her to my List. Also, this song sucks. This girl seems very sweet and I think she will have a lovely voice in about 10 years' time but at the moment she is just not strong enough.

Steph is singing 'I Just Can't Stop Loving You'. She keeps straying flat, but her tone is gorgeous. Also, she can walk down the stairs and sing at the same time. Quite a gift.

Graham asks Dani if she thinks that she has an advantage because she is 16, the same age as Judy Garland was when she made the movie. That is possibly the most ridiculous question anybody has ever asked anyone. Dani concurs that she is indeed 16 and says that she feels like Dorothy because she is at college and wants to get out, like Dorothy wanted to get out of the farm. Steph says that she and the other older ones are mummying the younger ones, who can't cook chicken. Charlotte thinks Dani struggles vocally, and that Steph is brilliant. Sheila was convinced by both performances, and calls Dani out on the sidegob. Unfortunately, in giving her feedback to Steph, she reveals that she seems to be under the impression that Michael Jackson is not dead. Nobody tell her. It'll break her heart. She urges Steph to bring more colours to her performance. John also admires Steph's walking downstairs in heels abilities. He thinks Dani struggled too. She looks like she is about to cry. Lloyd Webber thinks Steph's instincts are towards the big power ballad, and thus she probably would not make a very good Dorothy. Dani, on the other hand, could be a good Dorothy, even though she was shit.

Toto interlude. Jodie's make-up looks really odd. Like she's done stage make-up, forgetting she's on telly.

Back to the wildcard Dorothys. Who will it be? Time for a VT. Tegan thinks she should have been one of the ten. Well, you weren't. So fuck off. The girls are called to Sydmonton, where Lloyd Webber will deliver the news. Stupid teenage girls say stupid things, over-emphasizing the importance of this television show to their lives. And...the public have sent through Emilie - that's the one with the big gap in her teeth. She says whiny things at Graham. Her hair is nice, though.

Amy Diamond is a lilacy colour. She would make him a good Elle Woods, wouldn't she? She likes dogs too. She says something about Dorothy being a glamour girl. Which is...really not true in any way, shape or form. She warns us that if we think she is just hair and make-up, we shouldn't be underestimating her.

Danielle is red. Another one? In a little VT, she says she's 17, she lives with her mum, and that is all she could think of to say about herself. "Who am I?" she demands rhetorically. And there we see the problems of letting teenagers on television. She says she is risking a lot to do this competition. No, you're really not, little girl. All you're doing is delaying your A-levels. Hardly a matter of life and death.

Amy looks older than 22. She sings 'Big Girls Don't Cry'. Not THAT one; the one by Fergie. It's a bit blah.

Danielle has some terrible breathing. She sings 'Red'. And does some acting.

Oh God, I don't think I can recap this for a whole series. They're all so bloody vapid. Amy talks about her dog. Danielle talks about family. Sheila think Amy is too flirtatious and girly to be Dorothy. Also, slutty. She tries to do a quick masterclass in acting for Danielle. John tells Amy to stop being so MTV. He thinks Danielle is limited in her voice too. Charlotte wants less falseness from Amy, and better vocals from Danielle. Andrew also thinks Amy would be fantastic in Legally Blonde. I don't want to agree with Andrew Lloyd Webber. It worries me.

Emilie thinks she should be happy, dotty Dorothy. She seems to be a jade green colour. She sings 'Breakaway'. Really, really, really badly. [She was shit in both of her performances last week too. I'm sensing a theme. - Steve] She can't pitch her low notes properly, and her high notes are weak. Charlotte wonders if Emilie has lost her self-confidence, because her vocal control was shit. Sheila didn't want Emilie to go in the first place, but rejections are part of business. John wanted some personality in the performance but did not get any. Lloyd Webber's teenage daughter voted for Emilie on his phone, which is possibly against BBC regulations. He thinks she looks like a Dorothy. Not his daughter, Emilie, I mean. Shame she can't sing, then, isn't it?

Bronte is pink. Her mum is proud of her. Shocker. She thinks musical theatre is her calling. Let's take a moment to laugh at her, please.

Jessica is green as well. Ah, this is the one that has a poor family who cannot afford stage school. She wants to put Middlesbrough on the map, the patronising stuck-up bint.

Bronte is singing 'I Can't Make You Love Me'. She does have a nice voice, to be fair to her. The stupid audience cannot manage to tell when a song finishes.

Jessica is doing a brilliantly inappropriate version of 'Rehab', complete with chair choreography. And in a weird key.

Being Dorothy means everything to both of them, of course. John thinks both of them make the best of what they have, which is not very much. Charlotte thinks Bronte has a beautiful voice, but Jessica has not although she can act better. Sheila thinks that both could have done more with their lyrics. Lloyd Webber thinks Bronte has sad eyes and wants her to give more of herself. He likes Jessica's wit. Whatever. Jessica looks like a giant next to Bronte, by the way.

Sophie is from Tonypandy so she thinks she can be Dorothy because that is also a small town. She is purple. Her grandad gets emotional at the thought of losing her. It's all right, grandad, it's only That London; they're not going to kill her. Unless she's really hideously bad, of course.

Jenny is from Scotland, and reckons Scottish girls are crazy. She seems to be a cerisey kind of colour. She talks about how much he loves her mum and agrees that there is no place like home. Lame, lame, lame.

Sophie sings 'If I Were A Boy'. She does too much pointing. Jenny sings 'So What'. She also does a lot of pointing, but she has a chair as well. Rock and roll.

Charlotte thinks Sophie struggled somewhat on the higher notes. Sheila loves Jenny's wit but suggests more variety in her performance. She thinks that Sophie did serious beautifully. John says that Jenny knocked it out the park, and invokes nationalist sentiment. Oh, John. There's time for you to go on my List too, you know. Lloyd Webber also thinks Jenny was fantastic.

Andrew is worried that the wrong two might end up in the bottom two. Graham congratulates all the girls. Quick preview of the Dorothy task - there is mucking out on a farm while the farmer mocks them.

The lines are open, everyone. Give the BBC your money. Recap of the least flattering parts of the girls' performances, and that's that! Join Steve for the results later!

Rainbow, hi!

2010-04-01T19:58:00.000+01:00

Auditions 2: 27th March 2010

So! Yesterday we saw auditionees from across the nation hoping to become the Lord's leading lady, and met a brand new panel - even Charlotte Church, when she managed to pull herself away from Loose Women or whatever prior engagement she had that left her too busy to attend the London callbacks - who sent 50 hopefuls to Dorothy Farm, where they were whittled down to 20, who will now compete in tonight's show to become 10. Or 11. But we'll get to that bit presently.

Credits! Is it just me, or do the leering shots of Andrew make it look like his tongue is too large? And really, I don't want to spend any more time thinking about Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber's tongue than is strictly necessarily.

Studio! Oh, I'm so glad it's a proper studio show, they're so much quicker to recap than the lengthy narrative-led audition episodes. There's a new set, which is sort of oval and on two levels, and therefore bears a passing resemblance to the USS Enterprise. The 20 remaining Dorothys are scattered about the higher level and the stairs, all wearing blue gingham frocks - I assume they'll be issued individual colours when the finalists have been decided - and they clap to the beat of 'We're Off To See The Wizard' as Graham arrives and waves sunnily to all of us. Andrew looks giddy, not unlike the small children who were sat opposite me on the tube this evening and were consuming Haribo from Bond Street to Waterloo, and thus were practically skimming the ceiling by the time I left them behind.

Graham explains that this is the last leg of the auditions, where 10 confirmed places in the live shows are up for grabs - although once that's all happened, the public will get to vote for an 11th wildcard Dorothy from the remaining 10. I don't know about you guys, but I can feel the power corrupting me already. Graham greets the experts, as well as tonight's special guest West End leading ladies - they're not introduced at this point, but anyone worth their salt can see that it's Ruthie Henshall, Sheridan Smith [both of whom I LOVE - Carrie], Tamzin Outhwaite and Kerry Ellis [both of whom...meh. - Carrie] . Aw, just looking at Ruthie makes me want to scream "SIX!" for no reason whatsoever. Just like she used to.

The final 20 Dorothys now get to sing 'We're Off To See The Wizard', and indulge in some choreography that's clearly supposed to be apposite for a pre-teen farmgirl, but since most of these would-be West End Leading Ladies (WELLs for short) are a good deal older, it does have the unfortunate side effect of making them all look a bit hefty and ungainly. I hope they rethink that before opening night. Still, they sing harmoniously enough, so I approve of that, at least. This is the first sign that the Dorothys may well be the strongest overall group of finalists for any of these shows yet. There's a weird breakdown in the middle where they're all introduced individually, but since they're in the same groups there as they'll be for the rest of the evening, I'll hold on and introduce them all properly in a minute. Well, except for Jenny, who deserves special mention for the part of the choreography where she gives a pirate arm that Saint Jessie Buckley herself would've been proud of.

Graham cracks that there's "not a tablecloth left in the country" and then explains that the Top 20 have been split into five groups, who will each perform a pop and a musical number in the hope of impressing Andrew and the panel enough to make the final cut. Ten will be granted a spot in next week's show by the panel, and then the other ten will sing again to compete for the wildcard vote. Oh, and Jodie Prenger will be back! Graham's going to great pains to pronounce her name with a soft 'g', having presumably got it wrong throughout the entirety of I'd Do Anything.

From there, we're off to discover if the panel will be "friends of Dorothy, or foes". I wondered how long it would take them to bust that old chestnut out. The VT is essentially the same introduction we got yesterday: Sheila has WELL experience, and sees herself as an actor who sings, so she'll be looking for acting potential. John (I've tired of calling him Non-Barrowman already, partly because he does actually seem to be quite an engaging and competent panellist in his own right, and as a result I feel bad for reducing him to a shadow of a man who just used to shout adjectives in triplicate) has been working with Andrew for years, and is looking for a triple-threat [fantastic fantastic fantastic! - Carrie], and Charlotte knows what the girls are going through because she started her career at 12. Oh, Charlotte. I don't think any of these girls know how that feels. I suspect many of them don't know what it feels like to start a career at any age.

There's a guy in the audience who looks like Orlando Bloom. It's not relevant, I just thought I'd mention it. Graham and Charlotte talk about the Top 20, who she considers to be collectively brilliant, and she loves the diversity of the group. From there, we go over to Andrew, who's introduced with the Phantom Chords Of Doom. Graham says he's missed that. Actually, so have I. Once again, we are instructed to eradicate our memories of Judy Garland, and to look for a feisty Dorothy, who is "obviously very young - although we've got some fantastic older girls in our line-up". Way to approach this with an open mind, Your Lordship. Oh, and she needs a keen sense of wanderlust.

Finally time to meet our first group. We start with Sophie, who has red hair and is Welsh, and is the only member of the group I don't really recall seeing much in the first show. She's from a small Welsh village, and is very patriotic. Oh, goody. Jessica, you'll remember, is from a NORMAL family that is NORMAL, while Camille is coming from France but moved to Liverpool to make her musical theatre dreams come true. Ah, yes, Liverpool: the obvious choice. [To be fair, I assume she's studying at LIPA... - Carrie] And then there's Stephanie, who was one of the Scouse Cousins until Gemma got cut, and now she's just Stephanie. She's at theatre school in Liverpool, and is not supposed to audition until the third year, but totally broke those rules when she saw this show was happening. Yeah! Rebellion! Whoooo! She appears to have serious dancing chops, which is probably going to help her out.

The first group sing 'Never Forget You' by the Noisettes, which seems like an odd choice, but it works surprisingly well as a vocal showcase. They're a fairly strong group, actually, although Camille hits an iffy note or two when required to sing and walk at the same time (not horrendously, but just pointing that out in the interest of GREAT JUSTICE), while Sophie looks terrified, and Jessica's tendency to superglue her elbows to her hips while gesturing wildly with her hands kind of bugs. Camille redeems herself by the end, but I think Stephanie is the standout here in terms of consistency of performance.

Graham asks Jessica about nerves, and she babbles incoherently about setting the standard. Sheila opens for the panel, and thinks they all did marvellously. She thinks the four of them illustrate that Dorothy could be anyone. She loves Jessica's gawkiness, Sophie's hair, and Camille and Stephanie's general sense of charm. John was looking for the girl with the biggest personality, and thought Stephanie and Sophie stood out, where Camille and Jessica struggled, though he knows they're strong performers. Charlotte agrees with John, and thinks that Stephanie and Sophie "popped out". Ooer. She did like Camille, but she thinks Jessica will probably be stronger in the second song. Andrew thinks two girls have potential, but refuses to single anyone out right now. He does, however, say that any one of the top four would've made the Top 10 in How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? Hmm. It's not the most ringing of endorsements, is it? But I guess they appreciate the sentiment.

Next! Tasheka from Wolverhampton, who's a support manager by day, and a wife and mother of twins by night. She's excited for her kids to see her on the telly. Sarah is the one who brought a recorder to help with her pitch, and is also "like, passionate about village life in the 1970s", but since there are no reality shows that offer the winner a part in The Archers, she decided to audition for this one instead. She is short and from Derby. Dani is the youngest Dorothy at callbacks, but doesn't think her age shows. Yeah, that's what Arlene Phillips thought too, I'm sure. Philippa was the girl who got through at the expense of her sister Jolene, and has been instructed to smile at all times by her mother. Yikes.

They're singing Taylor Swift's 'Love Story', which they're all singing a bit too sharp except Dani. They're not as harmonious as group one, but I think this is a harder song to make sound pleasant when singing in this particular style. Oh, and special mention must go to the choreography, which is INSANE. I think they were all given about two or three steps of actual routine to learn and then just told to freestyle the rest, and seriously, it's terrifying. Arm waving and kicking and jumping up and down and screaming - they look like a hen party. Dani's really the only one who comes out of the whole thing with her dignity intact, and even then, it's a close-run thing.

Graham asks Sarah what it's been like to work as a group while competing against each other, and she non-answers that they all like each other so much that they don't feel like they're in competition. John thinks Dani has what it takes, and her enjoyment translated into him. He thinks Philippa is beautiful, but too intense. Charlotte agrees with John (I may need to write a macro for this) and thinks Dani was note-perfect, and Philippa is engaging but needs to soften up a bit. Sheila disagrees, and thinks that Tasheka made a good crack at it, and says that she liked what Sarah did - "you weren't happy with that dance, were you?" Hee - +1 awesomeness for Sheila for that burn on the mad choreography. Andrew's still staying on the fence, but loves the variety within the group. This is a good thing for him, because Dorothy was an orphan, so he can go wherever he likes casting-wise. Indeed, you might even say they could REDEFINE THE ROLE OF DOROTHY. Hmm, it's funny how every time I hear those words I get an urge to charge headfirst into a sharp pebbledashed wall.

Group number three involves Steph, who has a heart drawn on her face and has wanted to do "musical fea-ah-ar" since she was an embryo. Sheila Hancock liked her acting at Dorothy Farm. Emma is a singer and Irish dancer, Tegan is the spoilt kid whose parents sold their house to send her to stage school, although she does say her ultimate dream is to be able to pay them back, which is a step in the right direction, and Pirate Arm Jenny, who feels like she's developed a lot since her first audition.

They're singing Pixie Lott's 'Cry Me Out', which presumably makes them all Rock Chicks. They're a better group than the last one, with most of them having rather nice tone - particularly Steph and Emma, and the latter does some excellent face-acting with her first line, which might make her my early favourite. Jenny brings her acting A-game towards the end of the song and basically spits her lines into the camera, which is an impressive devotion to emoting. It beats touching your hair and looking over your shoulder, anyway.

Graham asks Emma how it felt to perform for a live audience, and she's on too much of an adrenaline high to make much sense, bless her. Charlotte thinks they all gave some of the best vocals we've had all night, but she thinks Steph was faultless. Tegan has an impressive instrument, but needs to watch her tuning. Sheila was impressed by the performances, but has a problem with pop music because of the "generalised emotion" - she thought Steph and Jenny were finding "more subtleties in the text" and appreciated the irony. I love that she's delving this deep into a Pixie Lott song. In fact, the brief snatches she sang to make her point weren't really enough - I want Sheila to sing the entire song during the Top 11 Results show, showing us every last bit of subtlety that's concealed within it. Make it happen, TV producers! John was blown away by Jenny, which he wasn't expecting. Emma looks like Dorothy (even though we're not supposed to have preconceived ideas of what she looks like, Mr Partridge), but needs to let go a bit. Andrew? Is remaining unspecific, but thinks that two girls he'd mentally written off prior to this really came through.

Time for a bit of filler, as Graham introduces "five of the hottest [WELLs]" to assist the girls: the four we saw in the studio, plus Melanie C. But they won't actually be joining us until later, so in the meantime we're introduced to...

...group four, including Katie, whose family are involved in theatre, but behind the scenes rather than onstage. She has no backup plan if performing doesn't work out. Bronte Barbe, unfortunate owner of possibly the worst name ever in addition to a rather horsey face, is exactly the kind of dyed-in-the-wool theatre kid this show professes to hate but secretly loves, Claire Harbourne is classically trained but quite shy, and endears herself to me by auditioning with Carrie Underwood's 'Before He Cheats', and finally Lauren, who's just finished playing Wendy in Peter Pan and kind of looks a bit like a less insane version of Helena from How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?

They're singing 'Rain On Your Parade' by Duffy, and doing a bit of a sassy routine with retro mic stands, and they've actually got a really nice retro girlband vibe going on. They're aided by some nice, simple choreography which is deceptively effective, and there isn't really a weak link amongst them vocally. There's a lovely harmonised section from them at the very end, and I'm inclined to say they're the strongest group of the four so far.

Quizzed about nerves, Katie kind of overshares and ends up yelling about how you'd have to be a ROBOT not to be nervous (incidentally, sometimes even robots get nervous. I mean, Rachel Stevens looked shaken a couple of times on Strictly) and we move on quickly to the panel's thoughts. Sheila thinks they're a wonderful group, and loves Bronte in particularly for her commitment. She also loves Lauren, but worries she might be overly slick, and advises her not to overdo the teeth, and to go to the centre of what she's performing. John tells them to form a girlband if the Dorothy thing doesn't work out. Charlotte agrees with John (shocker), and thinks Claire really brought it. She loves Bronte too, but advises Lauren not to hold her notes for so long, but to learn to clip them sometimes for a bit of variation. Andrew thinks they're the strongest group so far, and wouldn't be surprised to see two of them in the overall top five.

Final group: Emilie, who has a massive gap in her teeth, and marvelled at the giant D during the auditions. Danielle's audition for this show was her first audition ever, and is outwardly calm but internally crazy. Claire Hillier is RobynSarahDorothy from yesterday, and wants to be all edgy and shit. Amy is very glamorous and doesn't look farmlike, but she thinks she could REDEFINE THE ROLE OF DOROTHY by being glamorous. Or she'll shave her head if they want her to, she says.

They sing 'Take A Bow', the Rihanna/Glee version, which the show has given an odd truncated intro by transitioning immediately from "how 'bout a round of applause?" into "you look so dumb right now", which is kind of jarring for reasons that are entirely beyond Amy's (who drew the short straw of singing that bit) control. Emilie is horrendously out of tune for pretty much every part she sings, Claire cannot dance at all and is singing in the club style, it seems, and Danielle's sort of blandly competent. It's not a vintage group, let's be honest.

Danielle's asked what the atmosphere is like backstage. The answer? "Tense." Now there's a surprise. John was surprised by Danielle, who sang on her "break", which is apparently the point between her head voice and her chest voice, and is apparently very hard to do. I know nothing about this sort of thing, so I'll take his word for it. [True. Takes technique to judge when to push the belt. - Carrie] Sheila is fascinated by the intricacies of the lyric (no, really) and thought there was a bit too much generalising going on again, but that Claire got it better than the others. Charlotte likes that Claire sounds "different" and looks forward to hearing her in the next song. She also likes Emilie, for coming back from the brink after losing it. Andrew reminds us that we're looking for a Dorothy who could believably live on a farm. In other words, tan less, Amy. He then offers some generalised advice for everyone (I'm sure Sheila does not approve of this, but she remains silent), to think about the words and make sure they understand them. He's going to look for performances based on understanding the lyrics when they get to the theatre songs.

Graham reminds us that we're also looking for a Toto, which leads us to a slightly stilted VT from Jodie, who explains that they're looking for a talented dog to star in a one-off gala performance. Good - I did think it was a slightly crazy idea to try and get a domestic dog trained up to West End standard.

Showtunes time! Group one have drawn Ruthie, who's giving them a Chicago-style masterclass. Camille is completely in love with Ruthie, and as a result gives her a 6.0 for a performance that was maybe a 5.0 at best. Oops, wrong show. Ruthie is looking for the actress in each of them, and encourages them all to play the MC, inviting the audience to a show. She wants them all to have a secret in their minds to give to the audience. They perform for Ruthie and she looks on uncomfortably, although I think that might just be how Ruthie looks a lot of the time. Ruthie thinks they all have leading lady potential, but only one is a Dorothy. She doesn't say who, though. You tease, Henshall!

Back in the studio, Graham's talking to Ruthie, and asks her for last minute advice. "Take the pressure off yourself!" she giggles, and reminds them to show the audience why they made it this far in the first place. The girls are singing 'All That Jazz', of course, and again they give a pretty solid performance. Sophie's vamping it up like a good'un, while Camille is very sultry, Jessica is very mannered, and Stephanie probably has the best voice of the four. It's a good performance, although some lighting issues mean that featured performers aren't being shown terribly well - whether that's the actors missing their marks or the lighting people messing up, I don't know.

Charlotte thinks they were all great, and thinks Camille in particular brought something special. Sheila thought Jessica was at home - Sophie less so, but got away with it because she's so sexy. John thinks they were excellent in their choreography, and that Camille and Jessica came back stronger after disappointing first time out. Andrew thinks Sophie is a real talent, but that all four were really good and they may well have a big argument later.

Group #2 draws Melanie C, who's currently playing Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers. She's excited to see the girls, as are they her. Dani can't believe she's talking to a Spice Girl. She sings through 'Tell Me It's Not True' with them and advises them not to overplay it, and to keep it small and subtle instead. That'll be a novelty on this show. Tasheka thinks it's a really emotional song, and Philippa wants them to make everybody cry. Well, they made me cry with laughter during 'Love Story', but that was mainly the dancing.

Obviously Melanie's not in the studio for the recording, but she sends a video message to the girls wishing them luck. BO-RING. Tasheka sounds nice, but rather overacts with her face a little bit. Dani makes me giggle by very clearly enunciating the gap between "it's" and "not", which is what we were all taught to do when we sang this song over and over again with my drama group back when I was a teenager, because we kept singing "it snot" and upsetting our MD, who was a touch highly-strung (this assessment is in no way coloured by bitterness - the fact that he didn't like me and never wanted to cast me in anything is ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT) and like Tasheka, sounds good but may be overplaying it a tad. Sarah sounds a bit harsh and is really playing to the back rows. Philippa looks a bit rigid and doesn't get as much solo time as the others; meanwhile, the song continues forever and ever and is possibly the most boring song ever written. I'd better prepare myself for hate mail from Blood Brothers fans, hadn't I? Hey, maybe it works better in context; I've never seen the show (although I've read the script). Anyway, this group really got the worst deal of the five as far as song choices, the poor mites.

Sheila's asked for feedback on their acting chops, and singles out Tasheka for praise. She says it's hard to emote like that and make it remain attractive to the ear - which Sarah didn't manage to do. John thinks Philippa loosened up, and her voice has a beauty to it. Charlotte loved Tasheka's emotion, and also Dani's performance, but encourages her not to mess up her "e" sounds when she sings. Andrew thinks Dani has got something very special, "something deliciously homespun about you" which really helps him to see her as Dorothy - though he clarifies he's not ruling anyone out at this point. Of course not. The fact that Dani's the only one who gets through is just a coincidence, right? Ooops, spoilers.

Next? Kerry Ellis, and at first I get excited thinking that maybe Group #3 will be doing 'Defying Gravity', but no: they're meeting her at the Dominion Theatre (which is where I first met my boyfriend, fact fans! Outside, I hasten to add - we weren't doing anything foolish like going to see the show) to do a song from We Will Rock You. Lame! Bloody jukebox musicals. [IT'S NOT A MUSICAL. It is Satan's recruitment drive. - Carrie] Jenny is pretty starstruck to meet Kerry. The girls sing 'Somebody To Love', and Kerry encourages them all to really fight-fight-fight-fight fight for this role and show off what they can do. Emma's thrilled to be on a West End stage, which is potentially where they could end up when all this is over. Tegan vows to give it her all. Kerry thinks some of the girls will be very strong, and she could potentially have a Dorothy in her group.

Back in the studio, Kerry advises the girls to believe in what they're saying, to have fun, and "rock it up for me". Hee. I don't really think this song is a fantastic showcase for any of them, but Steph really stands out vocally, and once again, Jenny really is selling it as hard as she can. Tegan looks a little bit desperate, while Emma gets lost in the shuffle a bit.

John says it's a really difficult song to sing and it exposed some of them vocally, but Jenny really brought it home, not just with her vocals but also with her meaningful execution of the choreography. Ctrl+Shift+C CHARLOTTE AGREES WITH JOHN and thought Jenny's performance was effortless. She liked Tegan's incorporation of her soprano-ness. Sheila hates this song (MARRY ME, SHEILA HANCOCK) because everybody sang it at the auditions and drove her nuts, but they made her see it afresh tonight. She like Jenny's wit, and admired Steph's performance, and was also impressed by Tegan. Andrew thinks we have a first on a reality TV competition - contestants who sang "love" and not "lu-hurve". He hates that, especially "lu-hurve changes everything". Hee hee hee. Anyway, he's also on the Jenny lu-hurve train, which she's gleeful about.

Yay! Sheridan Smith! Her intro is rather unfortunately worded, with Graham saying that she's proof that "you don't need years of experience to take on a leading role and receive critical acclaim", which kind of implies that she just somehow fell into the role of Elle Woods and doesn't have a solid musical theatre background in her own right, which she does. [I am hoping it was edited badly and they meant to say that she was 17 when she played the lead in Bugsy Malone in the West End, but fear they did not. Srsly, she's been performing for TWENTY YEARS. How much experience does a West End Leading Lady need? - Carrie] Group 4 run excitedly up to the Savoy Theatre and twitter hopefully about the possibility of meeting the cast: Bronte thinks she might cry if she met Sheridan. (I'm sure she wouldn't thank me for saying this, but I interviewed Sheridan Smith a month or so ago, and she is genuinely one of the nicest people I've ever met, celebrity or otherwise. I was a bit starstruck by her as well.) Sheridan's very excited to meet the girls: "I hope they're excited to meet me," she adds. "They might be like, 'oh, you. We've got you." Bless her heart. Sheridan arrives (with Bruiser under her arm) and greets the girls, who will be singing the title song from the musical.

Brief aside here: I'm a card-carrying Legally Blonde: The Musical fanboy, and I was wondering what song they might be asked to sing, and I did think it might be this one. I was slightly disappointed, because while I think it is a good song, and it works fantastically in the context of the musical, outside of its context it doesn't have quite so much impact. I was secretly hoping they might be singing 'So Much Better', which is not only a livelier song but also a right bitch to sing, and would really have sorted out the chancers from the contenders. Incidentally, I was endlessly amused by a comment I read online from someone who hadn't seen the show but had seen the movie, and couldn't think where the song would fit in the narrative. Sure, because there's never a moment in a chick flick where everything is going horribly for the heroine and she's considering giving everything up. Oh no, wait, that happens in pretty much every chick flick ever, and Legally Blonde is no exception.

Anyway, back to business: for those who don't know it, 'Legally Blonde' is the show's eleven o'clock number, performed by Elle (and joined halfway through by Emmett for a duet) after Callahan hits on her and then fires her when she rejects him, and is all about going back to California to be the girl she was before she went to Harvard. Sheridan encourages them all to visualise what they're singing about and try to forget the audience is there. She promises to be there cheering them on, and the girls are all very inspired by her.

Back in the studio, Sheridan says that all the girls are very talented, but she just wants her group to sing beautifully and enjoy themselves. Bronte sings with a nice clarity, Katie sings with a rather heavy Irish accent [probably Dorothy could be Irish - Carrie], Lauren is still rather exaggerated and mannered in the same way that Helena was all those years ago, and Claire is possibly thinking a bit too much about the emotions which leaves her performance rather lethargic. It's a good performance from the group, but this song definitely just doesn't have the same impact outside of the show - possibly because it's meant to be a duet, and being adapted for four girls all essentially playing the same character just doesn't work as well. Either that, or Sheridan Smith and Alex Gaumond do it so damn well that they've ruined me for all other interpretations of it, which is equally possible.

Charlotte thinks Lauren gave a perfect vocal and took her advice from last time. Sheila loves Lauren and Bronte, and John makes it a hat trick for Lauren, though he thinks that as a group they underperformed it. Hang on, didn't Melanie C say that underperforming was a good thing? Oh, I don't know who to believe! Andrew says that he basically agrees with everyone, that it was a bit of a polite performance, and while they're one of the strongest groups, they underwhelmed him. He likes Bronte and Lauren too, though.

And so by process of elimination, Group #5 get Tamzin Outhwaite, who's currently playing the lead in Sweet Charity. They're all very excited to meet her, and Tamzin says that she's most interested in the acting and the enunciation - she wants them to capture Charity's lust for life. Tamzin says that Andrew definitely has a Dorothy in that group - they could all play the part, but one is perfect.

In the studio, Tamzin confirms that she thinks the winner was in the group, although the quality is so high across the board they could all be leading ladies. The girls sing 'If My Friends Could See Me Now', and Claire starts horribly off-key, and Emilie swallows the "wow!" line which is exactly what Tamzin told her not to do. Tsk. Despite being Entirely Wrong For The Part Of Dorothy, if Andrew is to be believed, Amy is pretty good, as is Danielle.

Sheila thinks they were all terrific, but Emily is the one who stands out as a Dorothy to her. John thinks Amy nailed the choreography and gave it all the razzle dazzle. CHARLOTTE AGREES WITH JOHN that Amy gave the best overall performance, but something still draws her to Claire's voice every time. Is it the fact that, as nice as Claire's voice is when it's on-pitch (which it hasn't really been very often tonight), it's entirely wrong for the part because she doesn't sound like a teenager at all? Just a thought. Graham asks Andrew if he sees any star quality, and Andrew bizarrely takes this as an invitation to give Tamzin a tongue-bath for her own performance in the part (to her credit, Tamzin does just giggle behind her hand at this). He thinks Amy did well, but still doesn't think she could be a Dorothy. Emilie surprised him a lot, too.

Right, that's all the performances over, so the panel and Andrew are excused to go and select the Top 10. Sheila basically can't get out of there fast enough. I love her so much. Graham goes over to the girls to see how they're feeling. He speaks to Camille first about the fact that she's had some good feedback, and asks if she's surprised that no one's commented on her being French. "No, not really," is the answer, but she was very happy to be considered alongside all these English girls. I heart Camille. Tasheka has two children at home, but luckily she has the most supportive husband and family, and thinks that being a mum is no barrier to having a successful career, and cites Charlotte as proof of this theorem. Lauren's asked what would make her a good Dorothy, and she says that she's got attitude and guts, and hopes she has "the full package". Graham asks Amy who her main competition is, and she says that some people have really shone tonight - she thought she had it all pegged, but she doesn't, and there's everything to play for. Graham addresses the interesting point that the panel seemed to have written Jenny off before tonight, and she says that she's surprised, but she hopes she's shown them that she's here to fight for the role.

To fill time while the panel are making their decision, Jodie's here to sing as Nancy for the very last time before handing over the role to Kerry Ellis. Jodie's pulling some slightly alarming faces (probably the result of a year's worth of playing to the back row) and sporting a hilarious Cockerney accent (again, I'm guessing mandated by the production), but I'm actually quite surprised at how much better her voice sounds compared to, say, how she sounded when she performed this song after winning I'd Do Anything. I was a Jodie fan back in the day anyway, but there's definitely been some progress made here. I guess EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK (or however many she ended up doing) has really helped to refine her 'instrument', as Charlotte would call it.

Graham asks if it was everything she expected, and she says it was, and talks about having the time of her life and being in a "wonderful family" at the theatre, and thanks everyone who voted for her. She advises Kerry to have a phenomenal time, which I'm sure Kerry will. Jodie's also very excited to be supervising the search for Toto, although nobody mentions that she's joining the touring cast of Spamalot, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people watched this show and basically thought televised dog talent shows were the direction Jodie's career is heading in these days.

The panel have decided! I know that seems like it didn't take long, but this is clearly a pre-recorded show so they could've been gone for hours. They return, and Andrew says it's been very difficult getting it down to 10 - they agreed on five girls almost immediately and argued a lot about the others. He hopes they've got it right, but he's glad the public get to pick a wildcard because he's not sure they have done. Ooh, the tension!

Group #1 is called forward, and informed that three of them have made it into the Top 10. It's down to Andrew to announce the names of the girls who've made it through: Jessica, Stephanie and Sophie. They all look thrilled, and poor Camille looks absolutely crushed, as well she might. She was one of my favourites, too. I'd have picked her over Crazyface Jessica every time. The successful three hug Camille, and there's a bit of confusion over who goes to stand where. Only one of Group #2 has got through to the finals, and it's Dani, obviously, which means that Tasheka, Philippa and Sarah are not safe. Group #3 are called next, and two of them are through. The successful two are Steph and Jenny, who promptly lose their shit, but remember to hug Emma and Tegan. Group #4 also have two through: Bronte and Lauren, so Claire and Katie will have to sing again. This means, of course, that Group #5 also only has two spots for finalists, and those spots go to Amy and Danielle, leaving Claire and Emilie to fight for survival. Amy, bless her, looks as though she can't quite believe what's just happened.

Andrew says that this year's talent has been the best they've ever had, and the remaining 10 girls will be singing 'Over The Rainbow' in the hope of landing that coveted 11th place. They get to sing about one lines each: Katie is a little off, Camille is resigned but professional, Claire Hillier is kind of shrill, Tegan is very deep, Emma is very clean, Emilie is a bit sharp again, Claire Harbourne has one of the hardest parts of the song but does well with it, Sarah is a bit weedy, Philippa sounds shaky but still has a nice tone, and Tasheka is too good to be here, really. Honestly, out of all of them, I think Camille, Emma, Tasheka and possibly Claire Harbourne were robbed, but everyone else kind of deserved to be there.

With that, the lines open, for about 20 minutes or something ridiculous. We'll get to find out which Dorothy made it to that elusive 11th place in the first proper live show, although I hope for her sake that the Dorothy in question finds out considerably before then, or she's going to be really under-rehearsed.

And that's that! Join us back here at the weekend for the first live show!

Girls on farm

2010-03-28T17:55:00.000+01:00

Auditions 1: 26th March 2010

So, here we are again: two years after Jodie Prenger was crowned the Nation's Nancy (and the looks of grimly-veiled horror on Cameron Mackintosh's and Andrew Lloyd Webber's faces are still funny even now)[Steve is speaking literally, folks - he and I reviewed the footage on Thursday night as I've saved it on my Sky+... - Carrie], we're back searching for another West End Leading Lady - specifically, one who will play Dorothy in the Lord's production of The Wizard Of Oz.

We begin with a voiceover from Graham intoning that the Lord is back, and embarking on his "biggest ever" search. Superlatives like that will be thrown around a lot over the next two nights by the way, and I've found it best not to dwell on them wherever possible. We get a frenzied preview of what lies in store, as the panel argue about who should or should not go forward, and we wonder just who will be Dorothy?

Time for the all-new titles: there aren't nearly enough scrapping Dorothys in it for my taste, and the repeated close-ups of Andrew Lloyd Webber leering at the camera in faces which I assume are intended to indicate such emotions as "confusion", "distress" and eventually "satisfaction" are disturbing indeed. Especially that last one, for reasons upon which I am sure you do not need me to elaborate. I do like how the Os in the show's title are mini tornadoes, though. That's a nice touch.

From there, we go to The Lord telling us that Dorothy is an iconic role, as immortalised by Judy Garland. The Dorothy of this new version, he says, must eradicate the memory of Judy. Dear Andrew: that is never going to happen, but good luck trying anyway. Kisses, Steven. He wants a Dorothy with "a little bit of today" about her, at which point New Panelist Sheila Hancock continues that they're looking for someone with a little bit of strength, New Panelist Charlotte Church reads some lines from an autocue about how this Dorothy must be "edgy" and "contemporary" (again, never going to happen, but who am I to stand in the way of a dream?) and New Panelist John Partridge confirms that they are looking for "a major star".

Andrew says that the public has got it right with all the roles we've cast so far: "Connie Fisher, probably the best Maria I've ever seen"; "Lee has been a fantastic Joseph" and "of course Jodie has been extraordinary in Oliver!" Hmm. I notice how he still words his compliments towards Jodie so vaguely that they might as well not be compliments at all. Poor Jodie - she'll always be second-fiddle to a sidegobbed pirate in the Lord's eyes. Still, at least he's pretending he's okay with that decision, which is probably the best we could have hoped for. Finding Dorothy, of course, is a huge undertaking, so it's very important they get it right.

Cut to: grainy footage of the country, until Graham appears and "adjusts the colour" to make everything normal again. He's standing outside "Dorothy Farm" [Tewin Bury Farm, Old Welwyn, fact fans - aka the place my sister got married. V odd seeing Sheila Hancock sitting in a hall where I was a bridesmaid. - Carrie], and explains that 50 girls are due to arrive soon to compete for a prize that will "blow them away", but first we must travel back in time - back to the preliminary auditions in January, which were held in Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff, Manchester and London. We see hopefuls filing into the holding rooms, and then they all assemble in front of the cameras to bellow "there's no place like home!" at us. In case you weren't aware, production of this series has now shifted to Talkback Thames, which explains the slight X Factor feel to proceedings this evening. A group of people we'll almost certainly never see again yelling something inspiring at the camera in unison? Well, that would be Unnecessary X Factor Homage Number One. There follows a group of individuals all determined to tell the camera that they are, in fact, the Dorothy we're looking for (Unwelcome X Factor Homage Number Two).

The poor chap with the thankless task of sitting through, as Graham puts it, "thousands of renditions of 'Over The Rainbow'" is casting director David Grindrod. Those who get his initial seal of approval will be put through to the second round, to be held at the Hackney Empire, in front of (two thirds of) Andrew's newly-appointed panel. To begin with, we hear a few off-key renditions, then David yelling "Dull! Boring!" and then a random insertion of him shoving a random girl and her shoving him back, which is never explained at any point. One girl bellows loudly at him, and is turned away. (Forgive me; a lot of the auditionees here are never given names, and while some of them may turn out to be important later and I will do my best to try to use names where possible, it is entirely likely that some will slip through the cracks.)

After a bit of filler from Graham, Andrew arrives at the Glasgow auditions, despite this apparently being the time when the whole of the UK was entirely besieged by snow. He tells the cameras triumphantly that the snow posed no challenge to him. Well, no, when you butter your toast in the morning with £50 notes, I dare say you probably do find ways around colossal snowfall fairly easily. He strides across the building and past a queue of waiting potential Dorothys, who are appropriately awestruck. Andrew tells us that he's half-Scottish, though no one believes it because he can't do the accent. I don't think it's that people don't believe you, Andrew, I think it's more that they don't care.

Montage of auditionees. Andrew bemoans someone with a lot of bad habits, which I assume are of the singing variety rather than of the nose-picking kind. "You have to look for somebody you can mould, and we'd never be able to get that out of her," he laments. Except I seem to remember him being quite happy to bend the rules to accommodate Pirate Jessie's numerous idiosyncrasies last time around. Can't we just say that they're Redefining The Role Of Dorothy?

Our first named auditionee is 29-year-old Lauren Fox from East Kilbride. She talks in wonderment about singing in front of Lord Lloyd Webber, and then double-checks with the crew that he is indeed a lord. Heh. She sings 'Reflection' from Mulan, and Andrew likes that she thinks about the words. She's through. Andrew says that he wants a Dorothy who is conceivably bored with her homelife and looking to run away. Which segues nicely into our next auditionee, 16-year-old Olivia, who has walked around 30 miles to get here. She needn't have bothered, because her singing is not good, and David turns her away. Olivia is happy she made the trip nonetheless.

Some girls travelled further than that, even: our next montage is of auditionees from Poland, Texas, Kazakhstan, and, erm, Tottenham. But that last one had a very foreign sounding name, and therefore that totally justifies including her, because anyone with a foreign name isn't really British, right? God, who's editing this, Nick Griffin?

Next up is Camille Mesnard, who's from France. She sings Celine Dion's 'Tu M'Aimes Encore' and sounds lovely. She gets a callback. Then we're in Cardiff, where one hopeful sings in Welsh, and a lot of girls seem to have brought stuffed animals with them. That's it from Cardiff, though, because from there we're straight to Belfast, where we see, I am fairly sure, several girls who will ultimately make up the Top 20, but the show doesn't give me names to confirm this and, well, a lot of these girls look really similar. Sisters Philippa and Jolene O'Hara are next, and Jolene hopes they will both get through. They audition individually - Jolene with a ropey rendition of Christina Aguilera's 'Hurt' and Philippa with a more melodious though still slightly trained 'Behind These Hazel Eyes'. Philippa gets through, Jolene does not. David explains to Jolene that she lacks "the extra ping factor". Well, I'm sure she can go away and work on that. Sadly, there is no screeching drama outside, just happiness on Jolene's part that her sister got through. Boo! Where's the catfight? I wanted BLOOD!

Cut to Graham in a barn with some dogs. Actual canines, to clarify, not some ugly contestants. This is because they'll also be searching for a Toto (though it's rather a rum prize, as we'll learn later). Unfortunately, some people have brought their dogs to the Dorothy auditions. Oh, the hilarity!

Then we're in Manchester, and Andrew's turned up again. You can pretty much hear the sound of underwear being soiled throughout the building the second he arrives. One person who seems comparatively unfazed, though, is 18-year-old Jessica from Middlesborough, who's basically the Poundstretcher Diana Vickers. She's been auditioning for stage schools in London, but her family is NORMAL, she tells us, and so they cannot afford to send her. [I hated her. - Carrie] She sings an affected but animated version of 'If My Friends Could See Me Now' [even more punchably than Outhwaite does - Carrie], which excites Andrew greatly, so Jessica is off to That London, assuming her NORMAL FAMILY can afford to send her that far. Outside, she endears herself to me slightly by wondering if she's acting like a total geek in all her excitement, and then deciding "I don't care!"

That London. Lots of Dorothys waiting to audition, and Jodie Prenger arrives to wish them all luck in her brassy Northern way. She's not changed a bit, bless her. She gets fangirled by a few of the auditionees, and then leads everyone in an impromptu ["impromptu" - Carrie] rendition of 'Over The Rainbow'. Jodie admits she'd do it all again, given the opportunity. Lots of unnamed girls get put through to the callbacks, and squeal with excitement. Cue montage of successful auditionees being hugged by their supportive families.

Graham delivers some more filler to take us to the callbacks in Hackney, explaining that this is designed to give the girls a taste of the fear they'll feel upon stepping out on the West End stage. To add more pressure, two of the panel will be in attendance: musical theatre star Sheila Hancock, who says that it's very hard for her to wipe the image of Judy Garland from her mind, but having done so, she's ready for a Dorothy of any shape or size. Is this what they meant when they said they were looking for an "all-round performer", then? John Partridge, star of EastEnders and Cats will also be joining them. He gives us our first (but surely not last) "EIGHT SHOWS A WEEK" of the series, and says he's looking for a girl who can be consistent and take the pressure. I will be referring to him as Non-Barrowman, by the way, until I tire of it, which will probably be quite soon. David will be staying with them for now to make up the numbers. The Voice Of An Angel's absence is never explained.

Sheila says that auditions are always hell, and they have to get used to this sort of ordeal if they're coming into this profession. Graham talks to Katie who was the first one there, and admits that this was the biggest audition she's ever done, by miles. Katie takes to the stage and sings a reedy version of 'The Winner Takes It All' for the panel while the other girls watch from backstage. David thinks she sang beautifully, but lacks edge. Despite this, she's going through to Dorothy Farm. Katie is very excited. The next auditionee, who is never named, attempts 'Black And Gold' by Sam Sparro, but fucks the first line up, and it all goes downhill from there for her. Several other girls crack under the pressure, but she's the one the editors keep coming back to. She doesn't get through, of course. A girl with a lot of hair sings 'Since U Been Gone', and doesn't get through. She keeps smiling through her tears, and remarks to Graham that she was "so near, yet so far".

17-year-old Danielle is new to all of this, because she is YOUNG. She marvels at the size of the theatre, and admits to never having appeared in a theatre that large before. She yelps her way through 'Black Velvet', and it's enough for the panel to put her through to the next round. She thanks them, and scampers out, while Sheila and Non-Barrowman talk excitedly about her vocal control. This leads to the floodgates opening for lots more successful contenders (Unnecessary X Factor Homage Number Three). So many of them get through that Graham suspects it may become "Dorothy Ranch".

Next auditionee Jenny is a "rock chick", because she is wearing pleather and singing Pixie Lott. She's through. Cassie, who's the girl we saw singing in Welsh earlier, attempts 'Just Dance' and removes all the melody and rhythm from it, yet inexplicably gets through despite this heinous crime against music. Sheila seems particularly enamoured of her. Glamourous Amy Diamond is next, and sings 'Over The Rainbow' just as Andrew arrives. How convenient! She's got a nice tone to her voice, anyway. Andrew claims he was just passing on his way to Leyton Orient. Heh. Non-Barrowman expresses concern that Amy is too commercial. Yes, because the last thing you want to do in a West End production is sell any tickets, after all. Amy's through, all the same. Andrew chats to the panel, and says that he thinks the casting process is in very safe hands. He jabbers a bit more about wanting an edgy, rebellious Dorothy - which brings us to fashionably-coiffed assistant bank manager Claire from Bridgend, who looks a bit like the lovechild of Sarah Harding and Robyn. She sings 'That's Entertainment', but starts too high and her voice cracks. She manages to charm her way out of it, though, and sings 'Over The Rainbow', which Sheila urges her to keep sounding happy. Claire's rendition is pleasant, if not earth-shattering. Time for the passion test: Sheila informs her that around 85% of actors are out of work at any given time, and notes that Claire has got a good life right now ("you've probably got things that you own and everything") - is Claire willing to sacrifice that? Claire says, "There's always a way if you want it enough" and after clarifying with the panel that she does indeed want it enough, she's through to Dorothy Farm.

Next up is Tegan from Norwich, whose parents sold their house so she could go to school. She's all "it's fine! It's totally fine!" And Graham's all "yeah, for you" and then cracks up. Tegan's oblivious, even when Graham starts drawing air circles around her and hissing "spoilt child!" at the cameras. Snerk. Tegan sings for the panel, and makes it through to Dorothy Farm. Backstage, Graham's all "they didn't sell the house for nothing!" [I hate her too. - Carrie] After her is dungaree-sporting Sarah, who's brought a recorder with her because she doesn't have perfect pitch. The panel seem pleased by her initiative, though I'd have been tempted to discount her immediately for that admission. This segues into a group of comedy auditions, including someone who is apparently a guide on the Duck Bus and someone who changes the words to 'Don't Rain On My Parade' to include Andrew's name. Andrew's gone, by this point, of course. A girl who sings 'Take Me Or Leave Me' from Rent is told by Sheila that she's trying too hard. She gets through, anyway, exclaiming "oh, poo on you!" She's the girl from Texas, by the way. The pressure then seems to get to Sheila as she asks one girl to sing 'Away In A Manger'. Hee.

Next are teenage cousins Gemma and Stephanie. They're only nine days apart. Graham asks if they live near each other, and they say that they don't: Stephanie lives on the outskirts of Liverpool, and Gemma lives near Liverpool FC's grounds. Graham's all "yes, that's what I meant, you numbskulls". Gemma has her make-up gun set to JonBenet, by the way. It's terrifying. They vow to support each other, because they're family. "We may be showing this later in the programme, when they're having a catfight," Graham giggles.

Gemma goes first, and tells Non-Barrowman about her musical theatre experience, stopping to discover a hair on the mic, which may in fact be one of hers. She sings 'Fallin'' and Non-Barrowman stops her, because she keeps grunting at the end of every line. She tries again, and does it again, but the panel think they can strip those bad habits away from her, so she's through to the next round. Stephanie's on next and sings 'Just Arrived' from Copacabana. Sheila attempts to wrongfoot her by asking if there will be bad feeling in the family if she doesn't get through, but Stephanie's through as well, and Non-Barrowman tells her they all thought she was fab. More girls go through, and scream with delight.

It's now time for Dorothy Farm itself. Stephanie says on the coach that they're all trying to work out where exactly they're going. It's pissing down with rain as they arrive, but no tornadoes, thankfully. They're greeted by Sheila on a giant screen, looking very GamesMaster. She congratulates them for making it that far, but warns them that this is where the real work begins. Oh, and randomly, she also announces that the panel decided that four other girls deserved to make it, and those girls will be joining them now: Emma Warren, Amy Parker, Jessica Robinson, and Stephanie Fearon. The dramatic impact of this particular segment is rather swallowed, since no one seems to react in any great way to this sudden increase in competition.

They will be working with acting coach Donna, choreographer Kevin, and vocal coach Claire, who makes them all cackle. We start off by eavesdropping on the dance barn, where Kevin reveals that several of the girls are really struggling, like "heifers". He's worried about RobynSarahClaire, who has no confidence, and Roxanne, whom I don't think we'll be seeing again. Philippa admits it's hard to get all of the moves together at once. Some of the girls mutter that some of the others were showing off the fact that they could dance already. At an audition?! Those bitches!

After this, Andrew arrives, rather unexpectedly. He sits in on the acting class, where mum-of-two Tasheka is mid-scene. She says that she has a great life, but this would still be amazing. The singing class are performing Alicia Keys' ungrammatical hit 'Empire State Of Mind', while Andrew bores on about how the stage-school kids have a "gloss" to them, that the raw, untrained ones lack, which is apparently a good thing. Ugh, the stage-school bashing on these shows annoys me. [Like Connie and Lee weren't the most stage-school contestants in their series. And going to stage school tends to ensure a vague ability to act and move. JESSIE.- Carrie] Anyway, Andrew departs, and the Dorothys sit up all night worrying about their final performances in front of the panel tomorrow.

The next day arrives, and so do the panelists. Non-Barrowman reminds us that he's looking for somebody who "dances equally as sings equally as acts". I'm not sure that's the correct syntax, but I think we all follow his point. He watches the girls dancing, and tells them that if they mess up, it's not important as long as they look like they know what they're doing. The first group of girls dance terribly, and Non singles out one girl, Jessica, to stand near the front so she can see the choreographer. This prompts her to run from the room in tears, saying that she can't do it. Random Blonde Girl bitches about Jessica showing her emotions when she shouldn't.

Sheila heads to the acting class to see if the girls can give a good performance. The girls are split into groups of two, with one girl playing Dorothy and another playing the Cowardly Lion. After a little while, Sheila stops them, saying she's not seeing many lions in the room. She encourages a few of them to take risks, and says that she loves originality. Stephanie Fearon is singled out for praise, which makes her very happy.

Charlotte Church arrives at long last, and of course heads for the singing auditions. The girls are all quite alarmed to see her, but in a happy sort of way. Charlotte dishes out helpful advice like "you've got a lovely instrument, you just need to find your honeypot". I think I read that in a sex education manual once. She passes on "serious technical stuff" like "welly from the belly". RobynSarahClaire is pleased that she has a fellow Welsh girl around.

Things come to a head, and nerves start to affect the girls as they do their final rehearsals. Finally, the panel arrive, and each group has three minutes to convince them that they can be Dorothy. We see montages of performances of various quality, but it's hard to get invested because we still don't know who half of these people are. We do see Gemma looking on proudly as Cousin Stephanie performs, though, and vice versa. Ultimately, it's all over, and we've heard a few bum notes, though one of the girls claims that no one messed up majorly. Maybe you had to be there? Whether acting and dancing was a part of the final showcase remains unconfirmed, as we only see the singing before we see Non-Barrowman, Sheila and Charlotte standing around a table filled with headshots trying to pick the final 20. Non and Sheila argue about a girl who may or may not be able to sing. Charlotte pleads one girl's case. Sheila rolls her eyes.

The next morning, the 54 girls stand in rows, singing 'Over The Rainbow', as Charlotte paces up and down the rows. As long-term viewers know, a tap on the shoulder at this point means you're gone. Somebody called Jordan goes, as do several others. Some of the girls start to cry. Non-dancing Jessica gets a pat. Rock chick Jenny is disposed of. A girl with big hair called Billie wipes away her tears and says she'll be back in college tomorrow. I have to say, I rather like Charlotte's Touch Of Elimination, which is more of a reassuring stroke than the curt tap that BARROWMAN used to give. Gemma falls, but Stephanie remains. With that, we have our top 20. Stephanie is sad that Gemma has been cut, but she knows that Gemma will support her as she progresses. There is scattered celebration, and then Andrew returns, which I'm sure is enough to trash any party. The Top 20 have to meet with him, and are suitably terrified, though they all lie that they are not. Philippa worries if she is allowed to have banter with Andrew and ask him about the craic. She admits that she was worried he would ask how the hell she got that far, but he does not. Amy (I think) is pleased that it was the real Andrew and not a body double. RobynSarahClaire is amazed to be singing while Lord Webber plays the piano. Andrew tells the cameras that it is going to be a very hard decision, and he wouldn't know where to begin to cull.

Tomorrow: five West End leading ladies put the girls through their paces in a studio show, as they're narrowed down from 20 to 10, and the audience picks an eleventh wildcard Dorothy. Exciting! Expect the recap some point midweek, all being well...