It was week 4 of the X Factor and they dubbed it ‘Fright Night for Halloween’. It was time for ghouls to appear on the X Factor stage to shock and frighten us all (Oh, hold on, I forgot – that happens every week!). And they announced there would be a double elimination – one on each night. They were getting rid of 2 of them – how awful.
In fairness, everybody was getting in to the spirit of Halloween. Louis Walsh even had bolts in his neck (I knew someone made him in a laboratory somewhere).
As usual, there were some good and some bad performances. The show started off very well with Ben Haenow. He looked hot and performed ‘Highway to Hell’ with great panache. Mel B wasn’t shy about admitting how much he turned her on. ‘I’m going straight home to the husband.’
All the stops were pulled out for Halloween. We had Fleur East doing ‘Thriller’ – a very big production with some great dancing. Andrea Faustini came out sprayed with gold from head to toe. Whoever thought of that was inspired. He looked hilarious. As always, he put his all in to the performance and sounded great. Louis called him a golden Gary Barlow. (Oh God!) Only the Young also gave us ‘Monster Mash’ all done up in the ghostly gear but I felt it fell flat – more like ‘Monster Mush’.
You could say the night belonged to Stevie Richie – It was his dream to perform ‘Music of the Night’ from Phantom of the Opera and there was no doubt he belted it out really well, actually singing in tune.
We had a few rubbish performances – Paul Akister managed to make ‘Bat out of Hell’ boring. Even the inclusion of sexy girls couldn’t rescue it. Jack Walton singing ‘Keep Bleeding’ was the low point of the night. I couldn’t help feeling they must want to get rid of him and that’s why they gave him that song. Mel B said he was so emotional that he gave us pain. OOW! He certainly did.
And then StereoKicks, who I find annoying just looking at them, all crowded on to the stage and I worried there wouldn’t be room for them, what with all the dancers. They sang a Backstreet Boys number and I have to say I found it uninspiring.
It was time to find out who the first person was to leave the competition and it was whittled down to Lola Saunders, Jack Walton and Andrea Faustini. Poor Andrea didn’t look so comical with his gold face wracked with worry that he was going to be the one to get the boot. Anyway, Jack was the one who got it in the end – definitely the right choice.
On Sunday they all had to go through the same rigmarole again and this time Lola came a cropper. I would console her by saying: ‘You’re better off out of it. Sure, isn’t the whole thing a cod!’
