TV talent shows shouldn’t be like this.... (Star for a Night)

Member Name: redcockney

Product:	Star for a Night
Date:	24/10/00 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can compare and contarst with Stars In Their Eyes (they’re both shown at the same

Disadvantages: The acts range from middling to slightly above poor.

Star For A Night - It’s with a sense of irony (some would call it poetic justice) that Jane MacDonald presents this as she is
a club singer who got famous on the back of appearing on another show (although some would argue indirectly through singing other people’s songs) and her presenting ‘skills’ seem firmly in the ‘Cilla’ mode.

With permanent judges Barbara Windsor (is Windsor generally known as a singer? No! Has she ever had a knack for talent-spotting? Who knows, but the Beeb had the good sense to rope her in) and Nigel Martin-Smith (remember him? Yeah!? Take that, you fiend!).

The singers participating are generally females who sing ballads whilst it is the guys who are seemingly the only ones willing to take a chance whether they be a band covering Supergrass (badly, I might add),
or solo singers singing a folk song and my God, even a cappella groups make their presence felt here! Although we do get our fair share of male ballad singers as well.

The concept is straight-faced but what with as many as seven wannabe finalists on any one show, to pick one winner is a scurrilous and soul-destroying experience (serves me right, for staying in on a Saturday
night....) and is thoroughly an uneven affair as bands compete with one-man bands, ballad singers and the like it is unbalanced and solely at the discretion of the judges (with two guest judges ranging from
soon-to-be-past-it Shola Ama and Shane Lynch to odd choices such as Tim Vincent) until the final where the public gets to vote!

If you can imagine a more low-rent Stars In Their Eyes with a dash of the ill-fated Pot of Gold (Des O’Connor’s talent show that used to be shown on ITV), you’ll probably get the jist of Star For A Night. Even if the idea was with good intentions to showcase the singers vocal range, it’s just bland.

Unfortunately for the contestants, that title will probably remain
shockingly true to form.

Summary: