I'd Do Anything - Night of Controversy

"A night of controversy" said Graham Norton, and he's not too far off. This week the horrible songs and frocks were back, the performances were slightly off and Andrew Lloyd Webber showed a nasty streak. From the first moment in which the Nancys were shown explaining who they thought was NOT Nancy it was fairly obvious that gloves were off.

After a group performance of "It's a fine life" Jessie was the first to sing her solo. She fought her way through "Fighter" and did okay but ALW admitted this wasn't really the right song for her, which makes you wonder why she was given the song in the first place. John Barrowman made a point of her problematic diction and "Irish lilt" but ALW didn't want to hear any of it and reacted rather irritated.

Next up Niamh with "True Colours". Again a lovely performance but she's getting a bit samey and ALW did seem to hint at her not being totally right for Nancy. After that is was Ashley's turn. She got "I say a little prayer" which according to the panel lacked persona even though her voice sounded rather good. If we weren't sure about ALW's dislike of her there was no doubt now, as he said she should, according to the lyrics, start running for the bus now. The audience gasped and the other girls, especially Rachel and Jodie, looked very shocked and angry.

Next up was Sam who sang "Survivor". She had worked on her acting (with a pep talk from the girl in Dirty Dancing) and ALW was positively glowing again watching her performance. After her performance we saw Laurence becoming the next Oliver, while the boys sang a song from Bugsy Malone. Then Jodie came on with her rendition of "If I ain't got you", for which she got high praise from both ALW and the panel. JB stated he definitely wanted to see her in the final and it seems that ALW wants just that, along with Jessie and Sam.

Last up was Rachel singing "You've got a friend". The pressure is still getting to her but nevertheless she sang it well. Unfortunately the panel weren't sure if she was special enough, Barry called her the perfect understudy and ALW said he'd worked hard with her on really acting out the words but he still saw nothing coming out of it. This does seem a bit strange seeing as during the first couple of weeks she was singled out as one of the Nancys being the best in acting out the songs, but then again this show has rapidly become inconsistent in a lot of things during the last couple of weeks...

This week we were also shown two trio performances of "young vs old". The footage of the groups of girls slagging each other off was rather funny and also gave a bit of comic relief after all of the nastiness. Jessie, Niamh and Sam danced their way through a version of Christina Aguilera's "Candyman" in which it became obvious that Niamh is the worst mover of the three of them. After that the "older" girls sang "Man, I feel like a woman" and it was good to see that especially Ashley and Rachel came back fighting after getting those comments.

Tomorrow we'll be seeing one of the girls sing a song with the Olivers, just like Sarah - Let's hope for this girl's sake that there is no "curse of the Olivers" involved there.... In the meantime, come and discuss the show on our

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