This is My Moment
Contents |
Host
Ian Wright (pilot)
Co-hosts
Announcer: Marc Silk
Broadcast
Granada for ITV, 26 August 2000 to 1 September 2001 (pilot + 12 episodes in 1 series)
Synopsis
It's a show about singing and it's on a Saturday night. Comparisons with Stars in Their Eyes are inevitable. However, being the masters of cunning that we are, instead we're going to compare it to the ITV Telethon campaigns of old. Like the Telethon, there seem to be too many tedious behind the scenes 'why we're doing this' segments which in turn leads to a less entertainment time. Like the Telethon, the entertainment on offer was rather ragbag and obscure and like the Telethon, it felt like it was on for 27 hours.
Perhaps we're being unfair here. After all it does have a set that looks a bit like Stars in Their Eyes, inevitable 'this is me in real life' films (like Stars in Their Eyes) and the feeling of 'what the bloody hell is this?' obscurities (like Stars in Their Eyes). On the plus side though, this does mean that there's very little chance of Marti Pellow winning (like Stars in Their Eyes. Every year.).
Ian Wright (footballer, chat show host and part time coffee drinker) introduces the five acts that have been chosen from the many thousands that called a premium rate phone number (£1 a minute for a two minute call. That's £2 - yes, The Price is Wright! - sorry) to audition to go on the show. From the phone auditions, 60 were chosen to sing in front of the judges and from those five are chosen to sing on the show.
Live on the show, the five acts sing their songs unaware of the order they'll be called up - and there's no hiding because they're on stage all of the time - and after each song the lovely viewers at home are given a 50p phone number which after the show they can ring to log in a vote.
Mel B, failing to grasp the "conference calling" conceptHere's the clever bit - the prize given to the winner is determined by the amount of votes they get, precisely £1 for every four votes they receive. When you consider that Stars in Their Eyes Finals regularly get over a million calls, this is a nice little earner for the winner. What's more, as an incentive to vote, one caller who backs the winner is randomly chosen and they'll also get 10% of the amount of cash being given to the winner. Nice. As it happened for the first show the winner (a man singing the theme to the Euro 2000 championships) won just under £40,000 which isn't bad for an evening's work (and someone at home won just under four grand as well).
The biggest problem that we have with the show was the mix of music chosen. In the opening show, other than the winner's opera (which was, it has to be said, not bad at all) all the rest were cheesy sloppy slow ballads. It might show off the voices but it hardly gets us going on a Saturday night (especially with the excellence that is The Rocky Horror Picture Show cunningly scheduled against the results on BBC2).
Ian Wright can hold a show, and it was live but it could perhaps have been better rehearsed or more spontaneous. The set is very blue with lots of lighting effects and the whole show feels very Granada Television. Which is funny because they made it. Coincidence, eh?
Key moments
The short-tempered man during the pilot's auditions who kicked off when he was beaten to the final by the eventual winner - an amateur opera singer. F**k you Granada Television, he proclaimed.
A repeat of Poirot was scheduled inbetween the main show and the results. Somewhow, Mel B never pronounced Poirot correctly at any point in the series. What a shame...
The final show featured winners from the previous five episodes returning to sing again.
