Ex-Factor

10 Jun 2007

Well boys and girls, everyone knows I like karaoke. So every year when the X Factor show is on, I daydream about trying my hand at it. I finally plucked up the courage to audition for the show for this year's fourth series, curiously in advance of my wedding, and my 30 birthday. But don't read too much into that...To save you reading ahead (or not) I didn't get through.

I guess I wasn't as good as I thought I was. Fair dos.

I was however, thoroughly surprised at how the audition was structured. Here's what happened:There are two types of audition, those you send away for and a few people randomly chosen receive an audition time to come along and sing in front of producers (not the judges as it appears on TV) from Talkback Thames or A&R Sony BMG. You don't get to see the (now four) judges until later on. I'd assume that these judges choose a set quota of people who were either really good or embarrassingly bad (to make for good TV).The other audition is the Open Audition, where everyone just turns up on the day. I got a letter about the second one (which was yesterday) and was told that I'd need to be there from 8am onwards and to expect a long day. The audition venue was at the Arsenal Emirates Stadium, which is on the other side of London to where I live, so I had a reasonably long journey. I checked the weather and saw that it was for the most part sunny. Sadly, when I stepped out of Holloway Road tube station, it was pissing it down.

I met the chap I was going with at the station, we picked up some umbrellas from a local shop, and eventually joined the end of a very, very long queue. Each person is given a coloured armband (I had orange) and this would dictate the rough order in which you got in. We were standing near to the famous football agent agent Eric Hall who was there supporting his nephew Michael. We all had quite a laugh in the rain, largely due to the, eh, colourful people elsewhere in the queue. We got bored very quickly. The sun came out, but that too started to become a bit of a problem as it was just too hot and there was no shelter. The mood in the crowd sooned turned a bit sour as we were shunted, moved, pushed back, pushed forward and asked to cheer silently (?!?) for several hours.

The announcer on the PA either catagorically lied about our progress or didn't tell us anything, so he got booed alot. What he did helpfully say, was that we should drink loads and helpfully pointed out that they were selling water for £1.50 a pop from the stadium staff. I was quite surprised at this as if the sun is ever a problem at a festival, it's not unexpected to get this free. The judges appeared on a balcony above the crowd, waving like the royal family. The restless crowd around us were freely booing at the wait they'd endured.

The two new judges, Brian Friedman and Dannii Minogue were also introduced. Simon Cowell spoke for a few minutes, displaying his customary charm. I don't remember the exact quote, but he said something along the lines of "We'll see you all today" and "It's worth the wait, and if you don't like it, go home." Nice.Eventually, seven hours later at 3.30, my face quite literally burned to a crisp, we were shuffled slowly into the stadium itself and directed to a seat pitch-side. It took ages for all the thousands of people to get into the stadium and get seated. A few people (and I mean a few) were auditioned by their seats in front of two execs.

More crowd filming, more silent cheers, more direct sunlight and more lobster faced Stef. After the filming, the proper auditions began, at around 4.30pm, an incredible 8 and a half hours after we arrived. When I say auditions, I mean X Factor staff wearing polo shirts, some looking really quite young, began working through the crowd, seat by seat- in front of hundreds of other people - and listening to a verse and a chorus. It began to get really demoralising as a lot of really good singers were publicly turned down to jeering and booing at the 'judges'. The guy I was with gave up at 6 and went home. I didn't want to give up as I'd wasted the whole day, and eventually got seen at at 7pm by a chap who looked around 21.

He asked me to sing a verse and chorus from two songs, and I was pleased with how I did, despite not being successful. So there you have it. An 11-hour day, 2.5 of which were auditions, and in a very different format to what you see on television. It soon became clear that the priority on the day wasn't to find the best singers, it was to get background shots for the filming, and we were one big (free) rent-a-crowd for the show. Oh well. I'm just hoping my poor sore looking skin recovers before Glastonbury, which begins a week on Thursday. And I really can't wait.