I Hate Suzie

Something terrible happened towards the end of last year.  As a liberal hipster, my easily distracted thumb was pottering around on the Guardian app and I came across an article counting down the top 50 TV shows of 2020.  Like you, I did wonder for a moment why I hadn’t been asked to write it, but then realised I am not actually a professional journalist.  But, as an amateur connoisseur of boxsets, I quickly clicked it and read it, anxious to see whether I could nod in reassuring agreement or reel dramatically at their choices.  Naturally, in first place we had I May Destroy You.  Well done me; I had watched this.  But, at number two, was I Hate Suzie.  For shame, I had never found the promos of this show appealing.  I had in fact ignored a friend’s recommendation to try it, even though he was the same rascal that turned me on to my beloved Industry.  With lockdown going on forever, I made my way through its eight episodes on Sky Boxsets.

Billie Piper is as much a part of British culture as xenophobic newspaper headlines and voting in comedy prime ministers.  A massive popstar when I was in secondary school, she purveyed pop songs so cheesy and catchy that we laughed derisively about how uncool she was.  We were much cooler, being obscure, untalented children and all.  Until recently, though, my household did contain a CD single of Honey To The Bee, an underrated subsequent release of hers that almost references my surname.  It might still be around here somewhere.  But, thanks to my own perception of her as a singer, I never engaged with any of her acting up till now.  Secret Diary Of A Call Girl was a mainstay of pre-Love Island ITV2, but not of my viewing schedule.  Yet my friend, and the Guardian write-up, promised something worth investigating.  As a sufferer of FOMOIEOYCRL (fear of missing out in end-of-year cultural ranking lists), the completionist in me was prepared to embrace Billie and welcome a bit of Piper back into my life.  Because I wanted to.

Our premise is eerily similar to Piper’s own real-life trajectory.  She plays Suzie Pickles, a national sweetheart shot to fame on a reality TV singing show (hello X Factor) before transitioning into a TV actress.  She’s one of those people in the magazines and on the gossip websites and just doing this now.  Only the last thing she’s just done, putting at risk her entire career, is suffer a leak of private, explicit photos to the media.  Sadly, the shots are not a solo performance and her accompaniment comes in the form of an extramarital phallus, so there’s all that to deal with as well.  Each whirlwind instalment focuses on a single one of the eight stages in Pickles’ response to the trauma.

In the process, Piper and co-creator (and full writer) Lucy Prebble (as previously collaborated with on Secret Diary Of A Call Girl) use the unfolding disasters to provide deliciously inventive commentary on a huge number of our daily staples: the treatment of women, motherhood, fame, disability, loneliness, sexuality and so on.  From the audible diarrhoea-induing first discovery of the pics to a proliferation of meltdowns, via awkward family events (the wedding of Pickles’ sister is outrageous and universal at the same time), frustrated self-loving (for more or less a whole episode) and the ripest sending-up of celebrity culture, Piper’s performance is everything.  The camera often just gives us all that face and it becomes our anchor in the madness, trapping us with Pickles in her nightmare.

Yet more intriguing is her agent and best friend, Naomi (Leila Farzad).  The dynamics of their relationship creak under years of irreconcilable imbalance until we scream at Naomi to respect herself and prioritise her own needs.  Naomi gives one of the best ever shutdowns to casual, micro-aggressive racism I have ever seen, but her wronging by men knows no end (that train journey).  Pickles’ husband is himself human collateral in the fallout.  Daniel Ings (one of the joys from W1A) is exasperated as Cob, eagerly weaponizing their deaf son to his advantage yet less than keen to lose the perks of having a famous wife.  Even with her success, it is he, as the man, who expects to be more important in everything that happens.

I admit to lacking patience with some episodes, but I am learning to love this freewheeling style (as seen in I May Destroy You) where creativity and storytelling gang up not to care about what you’re expecting.  By the final scene of the final episode, my sympathy for Suzie Pickles was at its peak.  I had never hated her and I don’t know who did.  Having it all is simply another thing to feel lonely in spite of, only it emphasises the unjustifiability of that loneliness, so you feel even lonelier.  Does Suzie’s preoccupation with herself drive others away, or do they give up on her when she doesn’t give them what they think they need?  I still can’t work it out.

The X Factor

Picture the scene.  It’s autumn 2005 and rather than spending a third year at university, I’ve been shipped off to Germany to fulfil the position of human dictionary at a grammar school under the auspices of a year abroad.  All my shiny brand-new friends are carrying on to their finals without me.  But, thanks to low-cost airlines, I’m able to come back.  After about nine hours of travelling, which includes a bus transfer to a Swiss airport, a 45-minute flight, further trains and nonsense, I reach my hallowed college and burst into a friend’s room expecting a hero’s welcome.  But everyone ignores me.  On the screen of the television holding all their attention, a swarthy muscular chap is cavorting in what looks like an LA swimming pool.  “Guys, it’s me!” I try, convinced they must not have twigged to the significance of my presence.  “Sssh,” they all go, “we wanna see Chico.”  I drop my bags despondently and sink into a seat, well aware that only an advert break will allow attention to revert back to me.

This was my first real exposure to watching The X Factor.  It was the Judges’ Houses section of the second series, famous for Chico’s yearning to be taken through to the Live Shows manifesting in an electrocution-risking impromptu swim with microphone in Sharon Osbourne’s back garden.  I was derisorily regarding my pals’ viewing choice, but the pressures of final examinations had led them to seek solace in the most mindless of TV.  We had been out and about too much to bother with the first series, its super broad appeal as a shiny-floor Saturday night schedule-filler to replace Pop Idol, Popstars and Popstars: The Rivals sparking only contempt as we had the time of our lives spending our student loans on non-academic pursuits.  But the cultural steamrolling of this reality TV show soon proved unavoidable.  Leaving the oldies to watch Strictly Come Dancing, by its fourth series, The X Factor had struck gold and become essential viewing.  The revolution began with the addition of the fourth judge, Dannii Minogue, only for her to be joined in her second year by the then Cheryl Cole in a race to the bottom of constantly younger and tauter-skinned female judges while Louis Walsh and Simon Cowell aged in peace, subject to none of the same scrutiny despite looking much much worse.

Either way, we reached peak X Factor, with two of the X Factor-iest X Factor moments that stick in my mind being the following:

1.      Cheryl Cole stepping down from the judges’ table to perform The Promise with her bandmates from Girls Aloud, all clad in massive sparkling dresses and ITV’s Sunday night schedule being definitively the epicentre of British culture at that moment in time.  Sigh.

2.      Katy Perry debuting her single Firework on the Sunday results show, daring to sing live despite missing all of her notes and leading to some hilarious comments from various friends in their Facebook statuses decrying lyrics that went “Boom boom boom, even bigger than the moon moon moon.”  Everything about this sentence is now vintage and dated.

Now, after decades of manufacturing music acts, The X Factor has taken on a big refresh of itself, finally acknowledging that there probably aren’t any decent singers left in the UK and that everyone is watching Love Island instead.  Nevertheless, let’s celebrate the stages in any popstar’s life as they make their way from hideous unknown to hideous C-lister.

Auditions

Descending on various cities, the crew take over large venues and erect awnings and queuing infrastructure as Dermot O’Leary shouts at a moving crane camera that Sheffield/Manchester/Newcastle/Sutton Coldfield has the X Factor while crowds of wannabes and their dragged-along families make a cross shape with their pudgy arms.  Series have toyed around with closed-room auditions and demanding applicants sing in front of baying audiences.  Either way, we’ll get a background story about each hopeful singer.  The fun part is guessing whether they are going to be outstanding or appalling.  I’ve covered my disdain for sob stories in a previous post on the much less popular The Voice UK, but I’ll repeat the fact that so many people just “want it so bad” as if that’s reason enough to deserve a successful recording career.  There are two types of delicious moment we are aiming for here.  One is watching someone deluded get a reality check regarding their superstar aspirations: they can’t actually sing in tune.  The other is the genuine excitement when a great new act is discovered.  Nobody mentions the fact that everyone has been pre-vetted by production before being trotted out in front of the judges, as we’re here for the entertainment factor, relying on Cowell to interrupt singers mid-flow to demand different songs in the rudest way possible – leading to one of the best Bo’ Selecta! apings known to the modern world: “No offence, but I wish your mother was dead.”  But in fact, the most offensive part is always Louis Walsh likening any performer of colour to literally any other black celebrity: “You remind me of a young Moira Stuart.”

Bootcamp

This is my favourite part but it’s always rushed through.  By this stage, you’ve forgotten everyone from the Auditions, let alone the ones you really liked.  Clusters of hopefuls are cut willy nilly, sent packing to a big waiting coach for the long trip back to the regions.  There’s always a silly sausage who gets trolleyed the night before and then stinks up the stage as a result.  Cruelly, acts are made to sing together in an unnecessary test of their ability to collaborate with other artists before they’ve even established themselves.  The culmination is the judge reveal to each of the categories.  In separate conference rooms, the Overs, the Boys, the Girls and the Groups wait anxiously, hoping more than anything that their chances aren’t killed by being assigned Louis Walsh.

Six Chair Challenge

This was injected in recent years to overhaul the tiredness of the format in its later decades.  A final bunch in each category is whittled down to six.  One by one, they sing before an incensed mob, receiving a chair/wonky stool if they’ve done well enough.  Gripped by their own emotion and attention-seeking, the judges give away too many chairs too early, resulting in cruel swapsies where the privilege of sitting is snatched from young hopefuls.  However, the cruellest part is the fact that they only supply one wobbly stool for the groups, leaving the majority of the band hovering awkwardly on foot behind a frontman.

Judges’ Houses

If you end up with a chair, then you get to go on holiday with your judge.  You don’t get to take the chair with you, though.  This is the best product placement opportunity for airlines on UK television, as we’re guaranteed overexcited scenes in airports where the acts in each category find out their destination.  The unlucky bastards under Louis Walsh are guaranteed a trip to drizzly Dublin, so you can always manage a smile at their disappointed faces.  Meanwhile, Cowell and the others hit up glamorous US and European cities, though the contestants with criminal records conveniently drop out when they are denied visas.  Everything that takes place from this point on is pure over-emotional slush, but first each judge reveals their celebrity help-judge.  Usually it’s some famous pal who has nothing more interesting to say than “I’m glad I’m not the one deciding,” which is beyond unhelpful, though at least you can rely on Sinitta to be making suggestions about how to use foliage as a clothing option.  Each act performs, normally in an awkward spot by a swimming pool, probably with the sun in their eyes.  The judges stay up late agonising, before the most drawn-out sequence known to broadcasting.  Each act is told face-to-face if they’re being taken through to Live Shows.  A masterclass on how to respond was given by Rylan in 2012, but we end up oscillating wildly between happiness and devastation.  It’s at this point that all my favourites are normally culled, but Dermot is always there to show he doesn’t really care either way.

Live Shows

And then here we go: the countdown to Christmas.  All the acts sing every Saturday, usually according to some sort of theme.  Big Band Week seems sadly to be long gone, but sometimes it’s Guilty Pleasures and occasionally it’s the back catalogue of whoever they can get to sing on the Sunday, however spurious.  I like to imagine the least appropriate acts for this sort of week: the greatest hits of System of a Down or Marilyn Manson for example.  If you thought Judges’ Houses were drawn out, these shows can sometimes take several years to get through.  Each judge intros their act, typically looking down the wrong camera.  Cue jeopardy-emphasising VT where expressions like “Barry’s gotta nail it this week, or he’s going home” abound, and we forget these people literally get to return to warm homes and gainful employment, rather than the religious persecution and unbridled violence we’re all too willing to send Syrian refugees to.  The acts perform in front of cameramen who can’t keep still for five seconds, so you see many shots of everything and nothing, before the judges give unfounded criticism based on how much they want to be cheered by the studio audience.  Dermot then opens the phone lines and you vote to save your favourite act.  I’ve never missed an election (though nobody I’ve ever voted for as ever got into power) but I wouldn’t be caught dead actually ringing up to vote on this show.  I prefer the sense of disappointment when my favourites are ejected.  Voting stats are released once the series are over and the outright winner has normally already stretched ahead by week one.

Live Shows – The Results

In historical times, people would find out who had got the fewest votes on the same night, like barbarians.  Now, to stretch things out, the results are in a separate Sunday show.  This was to complement perfectly the winning Sunday line-up of The X Factor Results and Downton Abbey, trapping millions of Brits on their sofas for two whole hours.  The show used to open with the never well-rehearsed group number, a highlight for fans of awkwardness.  Guest acts perform, and things get meta when a previous season’s winner comes back, free to deliver their single without the judges being allowed to slag them off this time.  Finally, Dermot reveals the bottom two and then the judges decide who to save.  There are tears and tantrums, but nothing beats Deadlock.  This is when the judges are split and we have to go back to the vote result.  The nation comes to a standstill and everyone has carte blanche to rape and pillage freely until a disappointed minstrel is being shown their best bits.  Through attrition, we are finally left with the, er, finalists.

The Final

Hello Wembley!  These days, the Final has outgrown a TV studio and a whole arena needs hiring out to get through the inordinate pageantry of selecting who’s got the X Factor.  Established acts clamour to promote latest releases in and among the finalists’ own best songs, with a quick comedic break offered by the exploitative but necessary wheeling out of all the worst singers from that year’s series.  No expense is spared, as long as that expense is spent on confetti cannons.  Tradition dictates the finalists duet with the planet’s most successful popstars.  One peak year saw Beyoncé grace our stage, but these days it tends to be the awful Robbie Williams, who is guaranteed to forget his own lyrics.  Our winner is crowned and rather than crossing live to Andi Peters at the CD factory, the winner’s single is available for immediate download.  Our champion tries to perform it before being rushed by the other finalists and Dermot eventually gives up trying to keep control of the activities on stage.  Even winning the show doesn’t guarantee success – more than half of the victors have faded into obscurity.  But, sure as eggs is eggs, another generation of schoolchildren will expect overnight success in pop music, should their careers as YouTubers or pro footballers not work out.]

I jest!  I’ve slagged this show off throughout, but I really do bloody love it.  Working in media buying, I dreamed ITV would one day invite me.  But then my team did a licensing deal for a client directly with the production company.  Next thing I knew, I found myself at Fountain Studios for a results show.  I was meant to be looking after clients, but I was so excited that they were forced to take on a parental role to my hyperactive teenage behaviour.  Taylor Swift performed Shake It Off and I forgot to breathe throughout the whole performance.  Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to be invited back, both to the Live Shows and The Final itself.  The best part of the Live Shows is mingling backstage with the friends and family of the contestants, lording it over them with my free-drink wristband while they’re forced to pay.  The acts then emerge from their performances and I’m always surprised by how tiny some of them are.  Throughout filming, Cowell spends every commercial break outside smoking (assuming the fag packets are stored in his vile bootcut jeans, while the lighter nestles among his toilet brush barnet), while the female judges have their hair and make-up constantly touched up.  The Final is a massive undertaking, with a VIP ball in a nearby hotel before and after.

This blog has made it clear on repeated occasions that a lot of my viewing tastes align with those of teenage girls, so my fandom of The X Factor should come as no surprise.  This year, it’s taking a break while other formats are trialled, and while it may never ascend to its giddy heights, it still remains one of the biggest shows on commercial television, despite its overly commercial, sensationalised and desperate-for-drama tendencies.  Let’s be honest, nobody delays their Saturday evening out any more to catch The X Factor, plus you can always catch up the next day with the benefit of fast forward.  But I’ll never stop being charmed by the great unwashed’s unbridled desire for five minutes of fame.  So, in tribute, let’s make me famous by telling a friend how good this blog is.

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!”