Twin showers (From The Northern Echo)

Twin showers

11:57am Monday 23rd November 2009

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Strictly v X Factor

JEDWARD are dead wood, lopped off the singing tree that is The X Factor in last night’s sing-off.

The luck of terrible twins of John and Edward ran out. With only Louis Walsh sticking with them to the end, they were voted off by the other three judges.

For one moment, it looked like Dannii Minogue might offer them a last minute reprieve, vote for them and cause a deadlock, leaving the act with the biggest public vote to go through.

“Is this a singing competition?” she asked no one in particular. You’d think she’d know by now, the number of times Simon Cowell insists it is indeed a singing contest.

In the end, she decided that Cheryl’s “guilty pleasure”, the 18-year-old twins from Dublin, had to go.

But as the continuity announcer remarked, “I’m sure that’s not the last we’ll see of them”. Or hear, unfortunately.

Singing a Boyzone number in the sing-off only exposed their deficiencies in the vocal department when their act is stripped of the dancers, flashing lights and smoky explosions with which their mentor Walsh has been disguising their talent (or lack of) for some time.

They can look forward to a career now in children’s television, or perhaps a brief spell of success as a sort of Cheeky Boys.

The surprise for Simon Cowell was finding one of his acts, jolly Olly Murs, among the bottom two. No surprise though to me because on George Michael night – happily no obligation to hang around a gent’s toilet or be found slumped over the steering wheel of a car – he was off-key in his effort to be “more sexy, more modern, more current”.

There was some consolation from Cowell.

“You are going to have no problems with the chicks when you leave this competition,”

he told Olly, showing where his priorities lay. Never mind about winning a £1m record contract, he’ll never be short of female company.

Little did Cowell realise that Olly would come close to finding out about life after The X Factor by failing to wow the public, male or female.

Earlier, on the Saturday show, we’d see the final six go back home to visit family and friends, ensuring plenty of tearful reunions and giving Cheryl a week off from the tears.

Geordie Joe was seen wandering the cobbled alleys of South Shields before delivering the best performance of the night and earning a standing ovation

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