There’s a line early on that unintentionally sums up this show: 'None of us is nervous but if we were this is probably how we’d be behaving.'An intriguing premise - three finalists in an X-factor-style TV show are cooped up in the green room prior to their last broadcast - is squandered in this lacklustre production. Single mum Mia looks like a perma-tanned chav but, for some inexplicable, unfathomable reason, sounds like she’s spent three years at drama school, while the casting of Liam Mansfield makes Ben an unlikely heart-throb. He can do charming well enough but, when he’s asked to convey grief and shock at the news his girlfriend has been hospitalised in a car crash, he doesn’t seem able to make the leap - uncomfortable to watch. Most promising is Cat Marriot as posh-girl and flautist Cassie. But the actors aren’t really the problem here - it’s the script. Banal dialogue accompanies a near-total absence of tension - ‘drama is conflict’ the maxim runs, so why make your contestants all like one another? There is a hint of a sinister conspiracy but not much is made of it. It’s all so inoffensive and vanilla, ironically just like the hateful TV shows it’s targeting.
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- Established 2004
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- By Ian Winterton
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- 30th Aug 2011
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- ★★
Reviews by Ian Winterton
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