The Voice UK

It’s never a good sign when a TV show’s name has to be suffixed with the name of the country it’s being shown in.  But such is the case with The Voice.  It’s our UK version, because there are literally hundreds of other ones going on all around the world, so we don’t want people getting confused and ending up watching The Wrong Voice (which sounds like an Aardman Aninmation).

Nevertheless, within a year of the Dutch format hitting airwaves in Europe, we welcomed series one to our BBC screens in 2012.  Now, series six is desperately trying to fill that Saturday night hole where X Factor used to be over on ITV.  Surely this is just the X Factor, though?  Of course not!  This is the X Factor, but with blindfolds.  Contestants cannot be seen at their first auditions as the judges’ chairs are all facing the wrong way, so they can only be assessed on their… voice.  Keeping up?  It’s a neat concept and actually the rest of the show is all downhill from this initial phase.  If one of the celebrity judges likes what they hear enough, they have a button to hit on their chair that turns them around to reveal who they’ve been listening to.  This adds great tension: will the singer totally nail it and get four chair spins, sending the crowd wild?  Or will a judge turn around and have to maintain a poker face when they see the contestant they’ve wasted a turn for is an absolute hogpig?

This whole part is best watched on fast forward, not least because its new home on ITV means there are more adverts than you could possibly use in your future purchasing decisions.  Naturally, each singer comes with their own sob story: I have a baby, I have to work in Topshop, Voldemort killed my parents.  Then, if multiple coaches turn, they have to pitch for that singer and it all descends into showing off.

The following stages don’t make much sense.  There are Battles, where two singers must duet, but then only one can actually go through.  This often becomes competitive caterwauling, adding a great dimension to love songs as the two singers give each other snake eye over romantic lyrics.  After that, the producers try and think up other ways to cull the field.  Sure enough, as a last resort, we resort to a public vote.  As we know, the British don’t have a great track record with democracy: Leon Jackson winning X Factor 2007, Tory governments, Brexit.  Therefore, The Voice UK has yet to produce a household name.  Stevie McCrorie, anyone?  What about Andrea Begley?  Thought not.

So why on earth am I watching?  Occasionally, just occasionally (and particularly in the 2013 series) there’ll be a performance that transforms a well-known song into something completely different and amazing.  Get your ears round this number here or indulge in the brilliance one of the Battles can produce here and here.  It’s even more reassuring when some old lounge singer limps through a boring old standard and all the judges fail to turn.

What of the judges?  Well, you’ve got Tom Jones looking confused.  So confused he missed a whole series while Boy George sobbed in his chair.  Otherwise, it’s been a home of the over-exposed: Jessie J, Rita Ora.  But the only interesting one is will.i.am – you just know he is looking for something bonkers.  I went to see the second series recorded with a good friend who worked on the casting and Will spent every gap in filming glued to his smartphone.  But then, there was also a lady in the front row waving her crutch about in time to the music, so there was a lot to take in.

The good news is that I was born tone deaf, so I’ll never be among the 310 (so far) winners of different versions of The Voice around the world.  But I can just imagine my VT playing out as I approach the blind audition from backstage: “I watch a lot of bad TV and then write about it in a blog.  But I want more from life!”