Despite once being involved in a romantic fling with Mr Selfridge star Jeremy Piven, former X Factor winner Alexandra Burke didn’t even realise she was in the same room as him at a recent London party, the Daily Mail newspaper reports.

Piven, who plays Harry Selfridge in the hugely popular ITV period drama, had flown back in to the UK last week to begin series two of the show, when he snubbed his ex at the party, not even having the decency to say hi!
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Former X Factor contestant, Diana Vickers, has landed her first television acting role in a new Sky comedy about promotion girls.

Diana rose to fame during the fifth series of the hit ITV reality talent show, in which she was a semi-finalists, before landing the title role in a West End revival of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice for which she won the award for “London Newcomer of the Year” at the Theatregoers’ Choice Awards.
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Former Dancing On Ice judge and Pineapple Studio’s owner, Louis Spence, has been lined up as the next celebrity to stand in for Showbiz reporter Richard Arnold on ITV Breakfast show, Daybreak.

The eccentric dance expert is the third celebrity to take over the hot spot while Richard, who recently competed in BBC dance competition, Strictly Come Dancing, takes a well-earned break from his early morning duties.
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I sometimes don’t notice the product placement concealed within The X-Factor, which is alluded to by that ‘P’ sign popping up at the beginning of the show, however in tonight’s final it was apparent that the show had been paid an awful lot of money by Virgin Trains to advertise their services. So in tonight’s programme we saw finalists James, Christopher and Jahmene travelling from their hometowns to Manchester, where this year’s final was being held, while they later used the trains to see their local fans. Whether these clips were enough to convince anybody to by a return ticket from London to Manchester is unsure but it certainly delivered all of the contestants in one piece to tonight’s event.

Somebody else who was on fire tonight was Dermot O’Leary, as he started off tonight’s show on an entertaining note when when we saw him perform an awesome extended dance routine which saw him waltz into the Rover’s Return, where Nicole was working behind the bar, while later he caught Louis in his dressing room with glamour model auditionee Lorna Bliss… Read more & comment »

So last week we got the annual big X-Factor shot as potential winner Ella Henderson went home over other strong candidate James Arthur, while the less popular Christopher Maloney and Rylan Clark lived to stay another day. Interestingly this week there was no big diatribe from the judges about voting for the right people, or Tulisa delivering a eulogy for her fallen act; instead we just got on with things, which was probably a good idea as each of the final five had two songs to sing.

We did get a slight reminder about Ella’s exit in Rylan’s opening VT as he did feel a tad guilty about staying in the contest over her, however these feelings didn’t last very long as he set about making Thanksgiving dinner for Nicole. While Rylan seemed comfortable participating in this skit, in which he wore an apron that read ‘fancy a stuffing’, James Arthur really didn’t look up for pretending to cook a turkey with the Essex lad while Jahmene only turned up at the last minute, presumably bringing the deserts that he bought from ASDA using his staff discount.

As the first of tonight’s two themes was Abba, I presumed Rylan would do a full-on megamix, but he restricted himself to just singing one hit that being Mama Mia. This of course was given the full Rylan staging which this week saw a full complement of human chess pieces having a battle, which was presumably a tribute to the fact that the men from Abba wrote the musical Chess. Rylan’s first load of feedback was surprisingly positive, with Louis praising the production, telling everyone that Rylan wasn’t a joke act, and adding that his performance could be a big hit in the dance charts. Tulisa praised his energy while even Gary told Rylan that he respected him for going out and putting on a show week after week. Read more & comment »

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been complaining that Dermot O’Leary hasn’t been dancing as much as he had at the start of the series, and at the start of tonight’s show, I did the same. Then something glorious happened and he burst into MC Hammer’s classic ‘Can’t Touch This’ routine complete with parachute pants. This of course was to signify that we’d got to Guilty Pleasures week, which Dermot had to explain to Nicole was a musical term, as we saw the final six acts tackle songs that they wouldn’t readily admit to liking.

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Despite it being the 27th October, both of last night’s TV talent shows would like you to think it’s Halloween so they can add a sort of spooky theme to this week’s episodes. X-Factor’s Halloween episode usually sees one of the contestants sing ‘Thriller’ however this year, we saw dancing Dermot O’Leary giving his unique interpretive dance performance of the Michael Jackson hit. Lucy Spraggan performed a spooky disappearing act by being too ill to perform, receiving a bye to next week’s episode which sort of made Dermot’s comment about nobody being safe fairly redundant.

First up this week was Kye Sones, who didn’t have to look back at his bum notes with Gary as his mentor praised his performance and his flawless turn in last week’s sing-off. A lot of us, including myself, equate Kye with slow songs, but this week he got a bit more energetic with Robbie Williams’ ‘Let Me Entertain You’ and luckily, he also got to perform it in front of Robbie himself. It didn’t seem to me that Robbie was that bothered, though he did applaud Kye’s enthusiasm and energy, something that he believes we hadn’t seen from him before… Read more & comment »

When most of us go out to a club the first tune we like to hear is obviously a bad rendition of Boy Meets Girl’s seminal 1988 work ‘Waiting for a Star to Fall’ followed soon after by a mash-up of Crystal Waters’ ‘Gypsy Girl’ and Tinie Tempah’s Pass Out. If that’s not your cup of tea then it seems you wouldn’t like the sort of club that X-Factor wants to create as we enter the dreaded ‘Club Classics’ week for the third live show.

Judging from the tweed suit that Gary was wearing the club in question was in fact a golf club, while the now urban ‘Uncle Louis’ was ready to embrace his new favourite genre of music despite the fact he’d left his Timmy Mallet glasses at home. Dermot was also on fire from the start of the show by getting a stuntman to perform his opening dance before saying that Tulisa lives in a club as she doesn’t even own a home.

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As we’re in series nine of The X-Factor now things have started to become a bit repetitive so I’m loving these guest judges as at least it’s keeping things a little bit fresh. Even when their incredibly dull, step forward Rita Ora, I still like to see a fresh face every audition and when someone like Mel B actually makes an impact you wonder why they went with charisma vacuum Nicole Scherzinger to be the permanent fourth judge. Mel was back this week but our primary guest judge was Geri Halliwell who long term X-Factor fans will remember also filled in for Danii Minogue back in 2010 and really was a trifle bland. Since then it seems she’s gone incredibly insane, possibly something to do with dating Russell Brand, as she arrived at the Liverpool auditions hanging out the back of a car shouting through a megaphone. The producers seem to want to set up a rivalry between Gary and Geri due to the fact they were both in 1990s pop groups however they were never competition for each other because as Gary says Take That set the blue print while Spice Girls simply copied it. Though at least this showed Gary recognised Geri while Louis had no clue who she is and this has to be evidence that he’s gone slightly senile and possibly has finally gone round the bend after years of enduring the likes of Jedward and Wagner.

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Another week of TV highlights, including at least one that will be with us for the rest of the year, and plenty of new and returning dramas to wet your whistle. More below.

Red or Black?/The X-Factor/The Jonathan Ross Show (ITV1, Sat, from 7:15pm)
It does feel like the year is moving incredibly fast as we’re already looking at shows that will be with us till Christmas. First up is the surprising return of Red or Black? The programme that suffered from both critical backlash and low viewing figures while it courted controversy throughout its run yet it has been bought back. We’re told that the format has been altered slightly in order to increase interest however there are still two instalments either side of the reality juggernaut that is The X-Factor… Read more & comment »

The popular quiz show, All Star Mr & Mrs, will return this autumn, featuring a wide selection of guests, including it’s first ever Mr & Mr as Coronation Street’s Anthony Cotton takes on the challenge with his boyfriend!

That’s not the only change to the shows formate either, as host Philip Schofield will be going solo this series as his TV ‘wife’, Fern Britton, has been axed from the show as co-host!
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Carolynne Poole failed to find fame on the X Factor last year, but it seems that she might be finally about hit the big time.

The stunning singer made it as far as judges houses on the ITV show last year, before being dropped by Louis Walsh in favour of Goldie Cheung – no one could ever say the Irish star had good taste – however it seems she can act as well as sing and may be about to make her debut on a popular British soap.

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When Jeremy Clarkson opens his mouth these days, the whole world stops and holds their breath in anticipation of just what might come out of it, and today we have not been disappointed!

The opinionated Top Gear presenter has confirmed that he is cancelling the popular car show for the rest of this year because of the competition in ratings it has experienced in the past with the  X Factor, or, to quote the notoriously childish motor fanatic, “fat people singing”.
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Downton Abbey‘s Brendan Coyle has openly criticised the “X Factor generation” blasting all those who believe they were born to be stars.

The bafta-nominated actor, best known for his portrayal of Bates in the ITV1 blockbuster periodic drama, has told the Radio Times that he felt being told he was no good at the age of 13 helped him become a better actor, and that  he had always dreamed of following in the footsteps of his great-uncle, Sir Matt Busby, the famous Manchester United manager, by becoming a footballer!
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It was the interview we were all waiting for, and who better to extract the information about that tape from Tulisa than chatty man himself, Alan Carr?

In her first public appearance since the tape showing her performing a sex act on ex boyfriend, Justin Edwrds, AKA MC Ultra, hit the press, Tulisa stocked up on Dutch courage (four vodka-redbulls to be precise) before opening up to notoriously comical chat show host Alan Carr about the incident.

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