The Sun newspaper is today reporting that X Factor and American Idol boss, Simon Cowell, seems more than a little fond of new American Idol judge, 37 year old Kara DioGuardi, despite the fact he’s done a fair bit of whining about her.

Kara will judge this year’s acts alongside Simon, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson but according to the paper, she’s already upstaging Simon.

Apparently, during filming of the auditions Simon complained, “I can’t get a word in edgeways. She never shuts up.”

He also told the paper that Kara “gangs up” on him with Paula. He said that having the two women on the judging panel was “unbearable.”

He’ll be pushing her over in the playground and pulling her hair next!

Kara isn’t the only change to the show either; this year 36 contestants will go through to the semi-finals instead of the previous year’s 24. American Idol starts on ITV2 on January 15th.

There has been recent speculation that the show and its format have had their day, however, it seems the show’s Producer, Ken Warwick, isn’t too worried. He’s quoted in the paper as saying, “When you get to the eighth edition of any series you’ve got to expect the ratings to slip slightly.”

View the original post Is Kara Simon’s new idol? on Unreality TV

View the original post Upstaged: Watch The Pole Dancer Fall! on Unreality TV

The grown man in the picture is Hal. Hal spends a disturbing amount of his time dressed up as Barry The Badger. And he is – by far – the most disturbing Upstaged contestant that I met. Maybe it’s the badger head he wears makes things a little impersonal…

On our first meeting, Barry tells me that the badger came about because he received a stuffed badger from his grandfather as a child. And for some reason he wasn’t able to explain, Barry Hal took it away and wrapped it in cling-film. Kinky.

I suggested that he may be to badgers what Bruce Wayne is to bats. I think he liked the idea that childhood badger-trauma might be responsible for his destiny.

For a guy in a badger suit, Hal is very intense. He thinks the badger alter-ego is an antidote to his regular job in social care which he says carries a lot of tension sometimes. Barry The Badger is a way of breaking down that tension.

Hal isn’t into over-rehearsing his act and prefers to improvise. He devised Barry last year during a community theatre project in Bristol called Artcast, and he sings the praises of Bristol’s art community.

He says he opened his first show as Barry with the line “Welcome to my set”, and only then realised the badger connection.

Anyway, I’m interested to see how Barry The Badger is received by the audience – watch the video below to see what I mean. It’s a pretty offbeat act, I don’t know if the majority of people will get it.

View the original post Upstaged: Barry The Badger on Unreality TV

Chris Cohen has a unique talent – he can improvise full songs on the spot. Not only that, but the songs are absolutely hilarious.

Like many of the acts featured on Upstaged, Chris rose to prominence on YouTube with sharp songs about sports. His song about Steve McClaren got over 250,000 views on YouTube, and attracted the attention of sports programmes in the UK.

When we met, Chris told me that he’d managed to get a lot of TV work on the back of that song. He’s done performances for Setanta Sports, and was asked to do one song per week for Channel 5. He’s teamed up with another guitarist, Marek Homola and they’re both about to release an album of songs they’ve written.

Chris’ act will center around his improvisational skills, and he’s planning to make up songs about the members of the public standing around the Upstaged box. I asked him if he felt worried about running out of ideas, but he was confident that he could keep entertaining the crowd for a full six hours.

As well as taking the musical mickey out of the crowd, Chris will also be taking requests and instructions from the online community, so he’ll definitely be kept on his toes.

Chris already has the distinction of being one of the most viewed profiles on the Upstaged website, and on the day we spoke, he held the record for the most people assembled around the box.

Chris Cohen On The Web

To get a taster of Chris, go to his YouTube page and watch a few of the videos. He’s starting a series on making music which is pretty funny. He still doesn’t know how he came by the moniker SlurpyJ, so he deserves a raised eyebrow for that one.

There’s also an official Chris Cohen website and blog which you should also check out. Oh yeah, and here’s a clip of Chris versus the formidable YouStage vloggers.

View the original post Upstaged: Chris Cohen on Unreality TV

This vacant looking fella is Terry The Odd Job Man. He’s from Bristol, but he’s really ambitious, so he moved to London to seek his fortune.

“What’s new about that?” you ask, as you stand in the queue for Britain’s Got Talent auditions. Well, Terry’s ambition is to be…an odd job man. He says it’s his lifelong dream to earn more than £8,000 a year and to have his own DIY show. But he’s not going to be Britain’s answer to Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor without working his way up the ladder first (sorry, couldn’t resist!)

Terry Crouch – or Terry The Odd Job Man – is actually the brainchild of actor Jody Kamali. I met Jody Terry during my visit to the Upstaged set, and he cracked me up – he stayed in character for virtually the whole time I was chatting to him.

A native Bristonian, Terry is based on Jody’s own working class family and friends and his observations on their lifestyle and the kind of things they say. He tells me that the idea to post a sketch on YouTube was done on a whim, and that his sudden success on YouTube was completely unexpected.

Jody says that he does very little preparation in advance when he shoots his videos, so they’re mostly improvised. Having said that, some of his videos on YouTube have had upwards of 20,000 views.

Talking about the effects of Internet stardom, Terry says the funniest thing that’s happened is an adult shop owner from LA wanted to fly him across to work in her shop. Even when he explained that he wasn’t really and odd-job man, she still wanted him to come across!

If you want to get a taste of Terry’s act, here’s one of his earliest videos where he advertises his services on YouTube…

View the original post Upstaged: Terry The Odd Job Man on Unreality TV

Somehow in the grand scheme of ergonomic office furniture, I can’t see the Hawaii Chair satisfying most people’s health & safety requirements!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled reality TV programming…

View the original post Scott Mills’ Hawaii Chair Goes Nuts on Unreality TV

Back when I visited the Upstaged set a couple of weeks ago, I had an excellent opportunity to meet some of the huge gang of video bloggers (or Vloggers) who are participating in the contest. They’re through to the final, by the way, so you’re going to see them on TV. And they’re very popular, so they might actually win the contest!

I got to interview the three vloggers at the front of the picture above: Dave from Blue Skies, Els (with the pink hair) and Davey the comedian.

Because these bloggers cover a range of styles and topics, they’re collaborating to perform a variety act that’ll include music, comedy and lots of fun stuff.

We talked a lot about the Vlogging community in the UK. I’d never given it much thought really, but Dave told me that there’s actually quite a tight UK community on YouTube, formed from comedians, musicians and bloggers.

Despite that, many of the Upstaged vloggers had never actually met in person before, so the whole project to get them performing together could have fallen flat right away. However, according to Els, their act has become one of the most popular, mostly due to the variety and unpredictability of the show.

If you want to get a quick taster of what the vlogger’s act will be like, watch the video below – fast and funny…

View the original post Upstaged: The YouStage Vloggers on Unreality TV

First, can I say that as a blogger, it’s refreshing to be invited along to the set of any reality-type show and allowed to wander around and talk to the contestants. I was able to explore the set first hand and talk to some of the people behind and in front of the stage. The only downer was that Scott Mills, who’ll be hosting the show when it airs, wasn’t available for the day. But I can live with that.

Innovative Stuff

BBC Three are working hard to bridge the gap between on-air and online. It’s not as easy as it looks. The more Internet-savvy the audience, the more cynical they are about anything that looks like a big marketing ploy. Put it this way, ITV couldn’t get away with this.

However, with Upstaged, the Beeb have managed to attract some talented and high profile members of social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube. Some of these people are musicians, others are comedians and vloggers* who’ve made a name for themselves on YouTube.

Anyway, here’s where having a huge online following comes in handy – each of the acts has to be voted into the performance boxes. So the more people voting, the merrier. And anyone can potentially be a contestant – which gives the public the ultimate say over who gets to perform.

Interviews With ‘The Talent’

I got to interview a number of the contestants, like Elle from HiFlyer, Barry The Badger and the very improvisational musician/comedian, Chris Cohen. I’ll be posting them online very shortly.

I’m always a bit cynical when publicists describe performers as ‘the talent’, but all these folks came across as hardworking artists looking to break in front of a larger audience. I was gobsmacked when I got home and listened to Elle’s band HiFlyer – they’re amazing and definitely a chartworthy act.

None of the performers I spoke with came across as the deluded mentalists you’ll see in more frivolous TV talent shows.

The Vloggers…

I got chatting with some of the UK’s best-known vloggers. That was an interesting conversation, as they opened my eyes to the massive community that exists on YouTube. And you thought it was just about music videos and fat kids dancing.

A disgustingly good-looking bunch, I could have chatted to them all day about how they got started on YouTube and what it means for a video to go viral. They’re apparently one of the most popular acts on the stages so far, and I’m not surprised. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine that some of these folks could cross over into mainstream presenting jobs if the opportunity arose.

And Bristol…

Ask me today and I still don’t know for sure what part of the country I was in. Bristol is undergoing a huge amount of regeneration at the moment, and as a result, the place doesn’t look as glamorous as a trip to London. But at the same time, it’s nice to see a show like this exploring talent in another part of the UK.

Anyway, I’m glad to have been invited along to the Upstaged set, and my thanks to the publicity team and everyone backstage who was so helpful and welcoming during the day.

* A vlogger is a blogger who blogs on video. Paris Hilton’s well-known video doesn’t count, even though it was obviously a day-in-the-life type of thing.

** Yes, that’s my ugly mug in the photo above. I’m the second from the left. The full line-up is Elle from HiFlyer, me, Chris Cohen, Terry The Odd-Job Man and Barry the Badger.

View the original post My Visit To The Upstaged Set In Bristol on Unreality TV