It might have been Janet Devlin?s 17th birthday but she looked positively suicidal during an understated version of Somebody To Love. ?I?m losing interest,? intoned head judge Gary Barlow. ?It was a bit boring.? Marcus Collins was an improvement, although his slick, retro, horn-heavy arrangement was much the same as last week?s.
The only two to thrive tonight were girl band Little Mix, whose segue from Queen?s Radio Gaga into Gaga?s Telephone was smartly knowing and full of attitude, and Misha B, who increasingly seems like visiting celebrity talent rather than a contestant.
The seventh and final turn this evening was supposed to be a surprise. After a double eviction last weekend and Frankie Cocozza?s departure in drug-related disgrace during the week, the field was left one act short. A 48-hour phone vote was held to throw a lifeline to one of the four acts eliminated by the judges during the first live show: Amelia Lily, James Michael, Jonjo Kerr or 2 Shoes (who described their return as ?ultimate totes emosh?).
This proved something of a damp squib. Not only did a tabloid website leak the result before it was revealed on-air, but it went the way every bookie had predicted, Amelia Lily winning with 48% of the vote. The Middlesbrough-born teenager should never have been knocked out in the first place yet somehow lost out to charisma vacuum Sophie Habibis.
Still, she took her second chance with both hands and belted out a powerful version of, aptly, The Show Must Go On. Whether people will pick up the phone for her again, only a few hours since the last vote, remains to be seen but she deserves to progress, possibly at the expense of Devlin but probably Brucknell.
The judges also had an off-night. Kelly Rowland seemed strangely manic and barked catchphrases instead of sentences. Barlow accused his colleagues of ?tactical critiques? while blatantly doing the same himself. Tulisa Contostavios repeatedly referred to ?gaps in the market? and ?finding a niche fanbase?, which made an already cynical show seem even colder.
Not as cold, however, as the frosty phonecalls the producers can expect from Cowell.
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