Televisual Cheese

ITV, not happy with ratings winners The X Factor and I'm A Celebrity have decided to give us a right tea time treat: Movie Music Mania where famous singers with nothing better to do than turn up to the ITV studios and sing a song from the movies, all presented by Martine McCutcheon.

It all kicked off with the musical Tommy and the song Pinball Wizard performed, bizarrely, by McFly. I was pleasantly surprised by their efforts. Then tribute was paid to cult movie Pulp Fiction and the song chosen to be performed by ex-Atomic Kitten member Natasha Hamilton was Son of a Preacher Man. She did a poor impression of Dusty Springfield and by backed up by some strong voiced backing singers. The next film selected was The Graduate and Jamie Cullem was to be Simon & Garfunkel and performed Mrs Robinson (surprise, surprise). He did it in his typical blues/jazz style, and was not nearly as good or as catchy as the original or the rock cover version by The Lemonheads.

The next film featured was Breakfast At Tiffanys and the song Moon River which was sung by Audrey Hepburn in the film but was most famously a hit for Andy Williams. To prove that tonight was Easy Listening Heaven (or hell, depending on your perspective) they got in Katie Melua to warble in. Wobble was more like it. I would dread to think what Simon Cowell would have made of this if she had gone on The X Factor later, her voice just could not cope with it. Unusually the next film was Love Story and the song Where Do I Begin? which will help Rick Astley's career revival. I am not overly familiar with the song, but Astley probably has the most versatile voice over the previous performers and thus did it very well. For some reason the next film was the Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman racing flick Days of Thunder which our hostess Martine McCutcheon sang the theme song Show Me Heaven and proved that she could no do better because (as Cowell would say) the song was too big for her and she just couldn't belt it good enough.

The show got more promising for the final number when Bee Gee Robin Gibb performed from the soundtrack that they did for Saturday Night Fever with How Deep Is Your Love, not strictly a cover version when he was a third of the original, but even he wasn't that good live, and on his own, as opposed to with his brothers. So not actually living up the promising final number at all really.