Nigel Lythgoe is in the process of bringing his reality-dance juggernaut, So You Think You Can Dance, from America to the UK. Best known on these shores as the first ‘mean’ Pop Idol judge, Lythgoe went on to produce the enormously popular American Idol (you might have heard of it?) and created SYTYCD in response to the rising dance phenomenon.

I managed to pin Nigel down for a far too quick chat at the end of last week, and we chatted about the show and just how hard it is to carve a career in the dance industry. He also gives us a great insight into what SYTYCD can do for a dancer’s career…

Gerard: So You Think You Can Dance is quite a new series to us in the UK, but you’ve had 6 series’ of the show in America and sold the format on to various other countries around the world. Why did it take so long for SYTYCD to come to the UK?

Nigel: Well, I think the BBC were attempting their own shows, because they did Dance X and Strictly Dance Fever and they also were successful with Strictly Come Dancing, so I think they may have felt that “Well, we’ve got a dancing show, and we’ve failed with the more modern versions we’ve tried to do.” With ITV, they’ve got three shows where viewers call in, which is X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Dancing On Ice. So, I figure everyone thought “Well we don’t need it.”

Gerard: Was the BBC the only choice for you?

Nigel: No, I’d have been very happy to put So You Think You Can Dance on any television station here – there’s no guarantee of success with any programme that you do. But I would have thought that with the viewing figures we were getting in America and the success of it, like most countries around the world, they would have wanted it.

Certainly, when it went to Australia, it became the number one show there and won their version of the television awards. In Canada it was huge. It’s in France, it’s in the Ukraine, its in about 17 other countries around the world and successful in every one of them.

Read more & comment »

It’s been a couple of weeks since the Jedward phenomenon were ejected from this year’s X Factor, and they’ve been non-stop busy ever since. Unreality TV finally caught up with the Brothers Grimes for a chat about their journey from unknowns to having the most recognisable haircuts on television!

Hi guys, this is Gerard from Unreality TV. How’s it going?

It’s going great – we’ve just come off the X Factor like, I can’t believe we were part of X Factor.

It’s been about two weeks now since you were eliminated from X Factor – what’ve you been up to since you left the show?

It’s been kinda crazy, we’ve done so much stuff. We’ve been doing photoshoots and everything we’re doing is a highlight. We’ve done late night performances and appearances in clubs and going out and performing for the fans.

We never visualised it like we had 16 million people watching us on TV, now we can actually believe it because we’ve got so many people coming up to us on the street and everyone recognises us. And when we’re together, we’re even more recognizable.

Can people tell you apart?

No-one can really tell us apart when we’re together, but everyone who knows us, like friends and family can tell because they’re used to us. I have a scar on my lip and John has a scar on his nose. John got his when we were playing hurling, and he just got hit.

You guys had such a lot of negative press during your time on X Factor. How difficult was that for you to deal with?

It’s kinda weird, because we always said our prayers and stuff and we always knew we had our family there. Whatever was written, our friends and family knew it wasn’t true. No matter what was said, if it was bad, we didn’t let it get us down. If it was good we didn’t let it go to our heads. We always stayed removed and focused on the show and every week we’d just go out and do a performance that was memorable and made an impact.

Why do you think people were being so harsh about you?

I think people weren’t used to change. Think about it, 16 million people watch this show and there are going to be people that don’t like you. I think we accepted that when we went into the show, even in general people don’t like everyone.

We always had a really good fanbase out there and we always tried to perform for them and not worry about the negative. You get 100 good things written about you for every one negative, so we try to always focus on the positive.

I think the most common complaint I heard about you was that people didn’t see you as a legitimate act.

What’s ‘legitimate’?

I think people saw you as more of a comedy routine…

I feel that everyone just looks at these reality shows and people wanting to be the next Whitney Houston or the next such and such. We came onto the show and we were just ourselves, just John and Edward, totally different to anything that’s ever been on these shows. We used the stage to its full potential and we did things that had never been done on the show before.

We never went onto the show thinking we had to be a certain way – we always wanted to paint the big picture – it’s about showing the full performance, how you can dance, how you can entertain, not just standing there and singing. If you want to just stand and sing, you can go to a gospel choir – its called The X Factor.

I think that people are not used to change, they’re used to these shows like American Idol and everything with people just standing there and singing a song and we’re just completely different.

When you auditioned for the show, did you expect to get this far?

I think when we went in, we knew that we loved music and we thought that the X Factor would be a good way to go about it. And we just took every single step, every single week that we could. And we’re really grateful to the fans for voting for us.

We always zone away from the hype – we’re the same guys who entered the competition. A lot of people go into these shows and start thinking they’re celebrities or whatever. We never ever think we’re bigger than what we are, we’re always John and Edward. We’re really happy about it though, because we did things that had never been done on the show before.

We always stayed true to ourselves – we never thought we had to change. We just stayed ourselves because that’s what our fans fell in love with.

Were there other contestants on the show whose behavior changed during the competition?

I couldn’t really analyze that, because we haven’t known them that long. I think that certain people think they have to act a certain way, like I want to be the next Spice Girls or the next Justin Timberlake. You should never want to be the next anything. I think that’s why me and Edward got so far, because we were just ourselves.

How much did you guys think about your image before going on the X Factor?

We never really thought about it much. We never thought it was going to be a big deal – we like wearing shirts and ties and if it wasn’t that it’d have been t-shirts. We don’t like to overthink things – if we wanna pick our nose on stage, we will.

We always spiked up our hair, because if you’re playing sports or something and you get all sweaty it’s always in your face. We just liked to have our hair up because it was really slick and aerodynamic or something.

One of my favourite performances from you two was your Queen week song, Under Pressure. Do you have a particular favourite from the live shows?

I think one of our favourites was Oops I Did It Again (by Britney Spears). We never really knew the lyrics to any of the songs. Other acts did songs they knew, but every song we were given we just tried our best with. We really liked Queen week, they really respected us a bit more because we’d already done one of their songs.

Finally, what’s next for you guys – will you continue with the singing career or will you branch off into TV work?

For us, the sky’s the limit. We’re not going to turn down anything, we’ll try anything out - we’re really excited about it.

Finally we got to catch up with a ridiculously upbeat Jamie Archer to talk about what he’s been up to since leaving X Factor on Sunday night. I’d already read a few interviews by the time we caught up, and Jamie was refreshingly candid in each one.

Often, when you chat to an X Factor contestant they’re media prepped to the point that you get nothing interesting or relevant to report – not so with Mr Archer, who spoke openly about his frustrations with the X Factor format and his gratitude to the show for giving him such a big break.

Here’s the transcript of our chat (and thanks to Jamie for being a great interviewee!)

Read more & comment »

I’ve interviewed a fair few X Factor contestants over the years. It’s always on the Monday after their elimination and they’re always quite bullish about their post-X Factor singing careers.

Kandy Rain, who were formed well in advance of this year’s X Factor, are in frighteningly good form. All four of the girls are bellowing down the line at me excitedly. These girls are a force of nature – laughing and talking over the top of each other. And they’ve got that weird synergy that when one girl stops talking, another will pick up from where they left off and continue. And spookily, all four frequently say exactly the same thing at the same time.

And that’s where we pick up our interview, with the Kandy Rain girls excitedly screaming hello down the phone lines…

Hello!!! We were sorry to hear that you girls got eliminated on Sunday night’s X Factor. We’d hoped that you’ve get a little father than this in the competition. Did you feel it was unfair that you got eliminated in the first week?

If we’re going based on our performance, then we don’t really feel it was fair. We went out there and gave everything on Saturday night and we felt we put in a really good performance, but due to the press and everything – we’ve had a lot of bad press – so in that respect, it wasn’t much of a shock. Read more & comment »

She’s been described as musical marmite, she missed a week of live shows due to laryngitis, and on Saturday, Diana Vickers left the X Factor after losing out in the public vote.

You’d think she’d be devastated: getting to the semi-final and being in her strongest form in weeks, but Diana is every bit as positive as we’ve been told repeatedly by her admirers throughout this competition.

Hi Diana! How are you feeling this morning?

Heeeyyyy! You know, I’m feeling fine, I’m quite content, and I’m just excited about starting my new life basically.

We’ve been watching every week, and everything seemed to be going so well for you until the week you got laryngitis. Then for a few weeks, things didn’t go so well for you.

Well, you know, it knocked my confidence a lot and it took me a while to build it back up. And I was never the most confident girl anyway – it took a lot of guts, because everybody had an opinion on it. But people did support me, and thanks so much to them, because they really had faith in me.

Read more & comment »

Yesterday, I got the chance to speak to one of the sweetest X Factor contestants in this year’s show: Ruth Lorenzo.

Ruth was voted out on Saturday night, and we received a storm of comments complaining that Eoghan or Diana should have gone instead. Many of our commenters said they’d never watch the show again!

And so we catch up with Ruth to chat about how she came to audition for X Factor, what her real musical tastes are, and where her career is headed after this. In fact, we may have solved the conundrum that was bothering me on Saturday night (I couldn’t work out how she could be marketed as a singer) – we have decided that Ruth should front her own rock band!

Read more & comment »

Well, after a run of good luck that even John Sergeant would be proud of, Daniel Evans has finally bowed out of The X Factor. He’s incited a support campaign from Chris Moyles, and even received a letter of support from Gordon Brown (that’s the Prime Minister, for those of you who are apathetic about politics).

Despite getting a critical bashing week on week from the judges, Daniel remains on chipper form, and he’s full of chat on the phone as we talk about X Factor, older contestants and what he’s up to next.

Read more & comment »

Saturday night, and Louis Walsh, the man responsible for booting most of the talented acts OUT of X Factor put an end to Laura White’s dream of winning the competition. Described by the evil Irishman as “The Voice Of The Competition”, Louis chose to save the inferior Ruth Lorenzo instead.

We catch up with Laura after she’s finished her early morning round of TV interviews, and surprisingly she’s very upbeat. In our chat with Laura, we find out how to get her original music online, and how she feels in the aftermath of Saturday night’s shock eviction.

Read more & comment »

Every X Factor reject has a busy day on the Monday after getting voted out – but none more than Austin Drage, who is at Number 1 in the singles chart with the Help For Heroes charity song. So this Monday is a little busier than usual, and we eventually catch up with Austin in the afternoon.

He’s getting a little tired out from all the questions, but we get what is possibly the most frank and honest X Factor interviews we’ve ever done.

Unreality TV: Harking back to Saturday night, one of Louis Walsh’s comments was that you were failing to connect with your audience.

To be honest with you, I thought that was a bit of a silly thing to say, because obviously I’ve connected with the audience every week since starting the competition. I’ve connected with the audience as much as anybody else, but I haven’t had the great songs that everybody else had, I haven’t been that lucky.

Read more & comment »

A devastated Scott Bruton shuffled off the X Factor stage on Saturday night, having lost his place in the competition to an outstanding last-minute performance from Daniel Evans.

Still choked up after Daniel’s performance, Louis Walsh sealed Scott’s fate and sent him home. And as Dermot O’Leary attempted to interview him, it was obvious that Scott was shell-shocked from the sudden defeat.

We caught up with Scott during his hectic Monday morning interview schedule and asked him how he felt in the wake of Saturday night.

Read more & comment »