X Factor 2018, week one, review: Even tears of joy can't stop Cowell's contest from being an annoyance
The bottom of the barrel was surely scraped in the X Factor auditions episode when Andy Hofton, 40, a bald man from Macclesfield, achieved a lifelong ambition by singing a duet of Angels with Robbie Williams. Mr Hofton looked like the stalker in Alan Partridge. Perhaps he has Robbie’s face tattooed on his chest.
It’s the first time I’ve watched The X Factor. That means I’ve not watched it 417 times. That shouldn’t debar me from an opinion. Indeed, as with going to a new country, impressions are more vivid for me than for someone who watched every episode at their Nan’s before she had to be taken into a home.
Joining the mandatory Simon Cowell (whose little face, constantly wafted with a tiny blue electric fan, now looks out from a frame of chubbiness), Robbie was the most characterful of the show’s new judges. At 44, he is getting so craggy that he’ll soon be scaled by rock-climbers. Facially, he now strongly resembles Colin “Mad Mitch” Mitchell, who made a name in Aden in 1967 aged 41.
He (Robbie not Mad Mitch, who is no longer with us) sat next to his wife Ayda (pronounced Ida) Field, who figures in many websites under the question “Who is Ayda Field?” She is American and wore an evening gown while the boys wore short-sleeved shirts. When thoughtful she often left her mouth open a little.
Louis from One Direction is the youngest new judge. He is still so young that he has not yet acquired a forehead, only a messily combed fringe.
As for the poor contestants, the teen girls were told to join girl bands, or not; two bouncing black guys were told by Ayda “That was epic, sick, cool”; and a hungover barman from Bradford via Benidorm, with a face creased like a Shar Pei dog, was left bathed in tears of joy.
I wasn’t. If Vanity Fair is like a comfort film on a long-haul flight, X Factor is like an annoying distraction in the departure lounge when the plane home is delayed.
