On Sunday, we witnessed what came to be the last programme documenting the audition process of the underrated, revolutionary post-feminist Space Opera?series “The X Factor 2011”.
Hear that over there? That's Ewan Mcgregor singing Your Song in a melancholic manner with an umbrella. See that over in the other direction? That's your inescapable loneliness.
But put all that heroin and selection of complimentary bath salts to the side for one moment! Those headaches are probably nothing to worry about after all. Let’s just kick back, and remember all the classic moments of the past few weeks instead. Remember when a woman told Tulisa how it was all HER opinion, and then on top of that, that other thing happened as well? Sometimes the path to creating amazing music is hard. Just ask Brian Wilson or David Sneddon. Or both! They’re probably sitting together on the same park bench somewhere, trying to feed Hula Hoop packets to pissed off swans.
Ah, Memory Lane.
Sunday night’s show promised us such splendours like the prospect of Gary Barlow teaming navy with maroon, and Louis Walsh literally retracting the gift of the human voice to one unlucky, nondescript contestant, cruelly telling them that ‘singing is not for you.’
Then along came our beloved Dermot O’Leary, with all his layers of self-loathing and wool. Dermot, with his choreographed face, standing outside the?Millennium?Dome with thousands of blissful, cheering people waving merrily, despite the devastating financial collapse that the building once suffered, like the insensitive prick that he is.
In one of the more experimental features of the show, we were introduced to a special segment where some people actually tried their hand at auditioning for the X Factor. These people came in the vaguely upsetting shapes of Neil and Sue Perkins Margaret.
Neil and Margaret are the sorts of people who are lonely and not conventionally attractive. You have may have once seen something about it on Panorama. The reason this is really really funny is because it means Neil and Sue are less likely to procreate, due to not successfully?accommodating?Charles Darwin?s theories of natural selection and as such are subsequently void as a contribution to the species. Just really, really funny.
Neil and Margaret met on the internet and are middle aged, which ITV1 respect so much that they have dubbed their interview with an insincere midi clip of The Carpenters’ Close to You in the background, presumably to help articulate the immense success rate of social networking in the early 2010s/true love.
Also: KELLY ROWLAND LOVES THE CARPENTERS.
Margaret, without any shadow of hope, did terribly in her audition, despite having a man to hold her at night. AND she's ugly. God, that's kind of funny too – in a way. Neil, of Being in Love With Margaret fame, came up next and by all the forces of the stars, the galaxies, and Mystic Meg’s Microsoft Word documents, Neil can’t sing either. Blimey, we guess that whole Sonny and Cher thing was just a massive anomaly. Neil looked like he was going to cry. Neil also looked like he was drawn with charcoal and then brought to life by the BBC Visual Effects?company.
Margaret and Neil go home, allowing us to return to Liverpool. Or Gary Barlowverpool, as you may be more?familiar?with it being called these days. In fact, there was something rather mystical in the air throughout the whole show – because in Liverpool, Dermot O Leary by no manner of?coincidence, bumps into one of the three featured singers in the programme and conducts a very long descriptive interview with him, which is bloody good luck if you ask us.
The lad in question was?Bradley Johnson – a check-shirted maverick of contemporary performing arts who used to hang out with scallies. Like how Margaret and Neil were happy to have found each other after years of pervasive emptiness and scabies – Bradley was expelled for being a dillweed at school, so is naturally more deserving of: THE SINCERE VERSION OF THE INSINCERE MIDI CLIP.
Oddly enough, the judge’s small talk with Bradley conveniently circulates around asking Bradley if he just so happens to have been expelled from three schools and is subsequentlyfeelingunsureofhisfuturecareerpath recently. WHAT THE WHAT? HE HAS AND IS? Harry fucking Potter, isn’t it insane that the one time the judges happen to ask that particular line of questioning, it happens to be utterly factually accurate to an auditionee’s life? If this pre-audition chit chat always took place in the same manner though, surely Matt Cardle would have never won the X Factor, as he’d have been ushered off the stage sobbing into a hemp rag. ?But for Bradley, the future is considerably more encouraging as he bravely gets over behaving appallingly at school and gallantly gets on stage and sings an Ed Sheeran track, all by himself. It’s colon-wrenchingly more amazing than the word ‘amazing’. Barack Obama even reportedly tried to give his Nobel Peace Prize back after a mate of his +1’d Bradley’s performance from YouTube.
Some more people bothered to audition, like we even need to listen to anything poorly masquerading as ‘music’ post Bradley’s introduction of the acoustic guitar genre, but nonetheless, The X Factor insists on giving EVERYONE a chance. Yawn. Bring on Joe Cox, who wants to achieve his dreams or something. Such a bloody killjoy. Upon auditioning, Joe Cox discovers that he won’t be getting the chance to be gay during his time on The X Factor -even if he wanted to be, as the judges man-handled him into admitting that he ‘likes ladies’. “Do you like the ladies Joe? DO YOU? WE BET A HANDSOME SINGLE MAN LIKE YOURSELF LIKES THE LADIES!” Sorry Joe. On the bright side – a bit of ambiguous sexuality didn’t do a certain mastermind of white soul Will Young any harm! (before he got blackmailed by The Sun, obviously.)
MEANWHILE – KELLY ROWLAND CONTINUES TO BE AMAZING.
Next up to perform, was OF COURSE ?Terry Winstanley. You remember Terry. Terry being the unstoppable force that generated such wonder over the years on Dawn French?s chocolate orange adverts. Terry is old too. This series of X Factor has had a momentous amount of ?messed up middle aged men on it this year, which probably is something to do with the ‘NEXT GENERATION’ thing they keep harping on about, or because otherwise they might invent Diana Vickers again.
Maybe Tulisa just sapped up all the youth in the world, and that’s why everyone on this series looks like they were painted by Fearne Cotton. Beautiful, amazing, Tulisa. God, she's so fledgling and current. Unlike Terry who enjoys simpler pleasures, such as melodically assembling a Micheal Bolton cover version with ‘gusto’. Nice one, Terry. We bet his wife is alive, and everything. Not only do we like Terry, but we we really like what Terry did with his X Factor sticker. Right in the centre of the shirt. A simple but effective twist on the X Factor Audition Sticker, considering Cher Lloyd used to just fuse hers to her kegal muscles, and shove dice in her mouth.
A woman with a croissant on her head sang a song and was rewarded for inexplicable reasons – but more importantly than that, a?man called Deep Dhillon turned up. Deep Dhillon – a name that genuinely has appeared on a birth certificate in the medium of a coherent woman’s handwriting at some point. This is the whole ‘Johnny Robinson’ debacle all over again. (Seriously, imagine being called ‘Johnny Robinson’. See, you can’t even try.) Deep Dhillon is not even a joke name. We know there’s a dildo joke starkly available, but quite frankly it just doesn’t seem worth it. Seriously, not even for us. Is there anything really that funny about an untalented primordial bloke called ‘Deep’? It's just a bit upsetting, really.
TAKE THAT INTERLUDE.
Next up was?That Comedy Old Woman With The Empty Lungs (Which is not just something we just tried to 40d, honestly) Alright, for the sake of giving some of the more?superannuated members of society a vague swipe at respect, we will call her by her actual name – which is Ceri Rees, which we bothered to find out for you.?If you’ve accidentally watched 8 years of X Factor before, you will know that Ceri is a regular auditionee who ultimately disappoints herself and us again and again, because sadomasochism?is just too damn sexy to give up.
Unfortunately for everyone, Ceri can’t sing. Not as in, she cannot sing a Whitney Houston song the way Whitney Houston used to sing a Whitney Houston song 40 years ago – She cannot sing. She cannot sing to the extent that she literally cannot sustain speech. There is absolutely no phonatory process of any sort for Ceri to even attempt to pursue. The woman is simply tired and old, like if Neil Buchannan were to create a Big Art Attack in the Sahara Desert. (This reference would probably be funny if Neil Buchannan wasn’t regrettably racist – if you believe the internet rumours.) Yet despite this – ITV1 happily give her the same amount of air time that they also give to men who brutally beat their wives and/or the friends of Peter Andre.
And then of course – after?receiving?mockery from braying New Look shoppers/musical experts in the audience, ITV1 play the Jaws theme tune over the top of her, because the fact that she reacts unreasonably can only be explained by dubbing her with the soundtrack of a film about an impetuous, crazed beast.
And that’s it.
Congratulations – you made it to Boot Camp, alongside this stupid bitch.
See you next week to see if the contestants can handle the grueling task of singing alongside only a piano, or will they succumb to the temptations of ?beat-boxing to Simply Red instead? Only time will tell.
Oh, and we didn’t watch Xtra Factor. Why, did you?
Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or else we’ll kill you in your sleep or join our Facebook group if anyone is still daft enough to use it or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS OR WE’LL KILL EVERYONE YOU’VE EVER LOVED!