There's an X Factor/Britain's Got Talent trope, best exemplified by Susan Boyle, in which an ordinary-looking person turns out to be unexpectedly worthy of love because they have a nice voice. This eventually became the basis for another reality television franchise, designed as a punishment for the viewers' superficiality. The logo was a big metal hand giving us the fingers, but this was thought to be a little on the nose, so they spun the hand around and threw a microphone into it. The name was also changed from You Judgmental F*****s to The Voice.
In The Voice, judges sit in a big red chair with their backs to the singers and must decide, without visual aid, whether they like the music. When a judge approves, he/she hits a big red buzzer, then spins around to discover that the diva voice came not from a diva but from an Essex-based plumber called Martin, or a 10-year-old school-boy called Dave, or several small dogs on a unicycle called Derek, or a pirate, or a swarm of angry bees. "I was not expecting that," the judge says.
The Voice of Ireland (Sunday, RTE 1) has four judges. There's Rachel Stevens from S Club 7. While S Club 7 sounds like a murder gang in a war crimes tribunal, it was, in fact, a pop band.
There’s Una Healy, of the Saturdays, who manifests as a sort of vague, pleasant mist.
There’s lovely, handsome, good-hearted Bressie. While the rest believe they’re on a light entertainment show preserving their careers, Bressie craves a better, nobler world and believes he’s there to help people with their singing.
The brow v Bressie
Kian Egan resents Bressie. Egan is one of five Lego-men transformed into a boyband by an evil wizard’s curse in the 1990s. His soul long-consumed, he wishes to be a real boy and glares at Bressie with his little dot eyes. “How has Bressie won it twice?” he grumbles, rubbing his Lego claw-hands together and furrowing his plastic brow.
Over on the Voice UK (Saturday, BBC 1) there's a more diverse group of judgey people. There's enthusiastically punctuated will.i.am, who likes metaphors; urchin-like Kaiser Chief Ri.C.k.Y w.I.l?son (I'm trying to make him interesting); granite-faced Tom Jones; and Rita Ora, who flops around her seat like a salmon and presses her buzzer with hands, legs, and, at one point, her arse (inspired by Ora, I'm typing this column with my arse).
Because the UK judges are more cartoonishly distinct from one another (clown-poet, young geezer, old statue, salmon) they’re more entertaining, but for the most part, the programmes are identical.
As musical talent is not rare, and what actually makes someone successful cannot be demonstrated in a reality show, contestants must distinguish themselves with conspicuous vocal athleticism. They can't leave a melody alone, but must growl it like Linda Blair in The Exorcist (what judges call "tone") or glissando up and down all the notes like a malfunctioning Theremin ("range") or just yell it ("confidence"). In their larynxes, simple melodies twist into Lovecraftian, geometrically upsetting, reality contorting nightmares.
But the judges don’t say: “That was fantastic Karen, it gave me a bit of a seizure.” Or “Incredible, Dennis, that last pitch change made me physically sick.” Or “Amazing Claire, I can now smell the colour blue.” Instead they say: “That came from the heart” or “You’re a breath of fresh air” or “Why, you’re a swarm of angry bees! I did not expect that.”
Sisyphean struggle
Many contestants have been on talent shows before, thus demonstrating to young viewers how to turn a love of music into an endless, Sisyphean struggle for self-worth.
The Voice UK even features Emilie Cunliffe, daughter of Kym Marsh, who won Popstars in 2001 with Hear'Say, and presumably signed her firstborn over to the production company at the time. In years to come her granddaughter will appear and my granddaughter will, no doubt, review it.
But by then we'll actually be watching a show called Ireland's Top Talent Show Judge, in which four people in revolving chairs judge four other people on revolving chairs. "That's not judging," I'll shout contemptuously. "In my day we had judging." Then I'll hop up like a salmon and turn the television off with my arse.
