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Fantasy fantasy mentoring

29 Oct 11 | Re: You remind me of a young Kevin Lyttle

This week, once again, it’s Hallowe’en Week on The X Factor. But I can’t be bothered joining the dots between Monster Mash and I Put A Spell On You and Thriller and this year’s acts, so I’m going to plunge right off the fantasy diving board and come up with my own themed X Factor week.

You see, after Rock Week turned out to be more like Crawl Back Under A Rock Week, I got to wondering what genres might be better suited to X Factor reinterpretation. Rock Week was doomed from the start, really, because the three modes of performance were:

• West End-style camped up non-rock (think the Queen musical)
• once-rock songs with all the rock sucked out of them
• pop songs with some guitars stuck on them, though no actual guitarist to be seen.

Nobody even performed with a band. If they’re going to do Rock Week, they should do it like Big Band Week and get some rock band in and make all the acts perform in front of it. But they didn’t. So anyway, I’ve come up with an idea that sounds like it would be a terrible disaster, but which I think just might work. Here we go...

Beeeeeow, der der der, duh-duh duh duh, BOOM! It’s...

Reggae Week!!

That’s right. I genuinely think that it would be far less of an embarassment to get the acts performing reggae than rock. And if you don’t believe me, here are my choices for all ten remaining acts:

• Misha B — Shy Guy (Diana King). Imperious!
• The Risk — No, No, No (Dawn Penn). Slick!
• Marcus — No Letting Go (Wayne Wonder). Irresistible!
• Rhythmix — Trick Me (Kelis). Sassy!
• Johnny — Karma Chameleon (Culture Club). Good-time!
• Sophie — Stir It Up (Bob Marley). Gorgeous!
• Craig — Don’t Turn Around (Aswad). Cute!
• Janet — Dub Be Good To Me (Beats International). Rubbadub!
• Kitty — Many Rivers To Cross (Jimmy Cliff). Show-stopping!
• Frankie — Redemption Song (Bob Marley). Redemptive!

Seriously, I think that lot is all dub and no dud. Even in the case of Frankie Cocozza, I think he might find some genuine emotion in that song that could put Likeable Frankie back on top and send Degenerate Frankie back down the hole he came out of (so long as he avoids slipping into what Alexis Petridis calls a “here come de Lilt man” voice). Meanwhile, Marcus, Craig, Misha and Kitty could all have their best performances yet. Though I do say it myself, I should totally be working on this show.

But I’m not, so we’ll get Sophie doing Stay and Kitty dressed up even more like a witch than usual — possibly the full Grotbags. Enjoy!

Posted by TOBY SHANDY at 15:52

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