Can you believe that we’re more than halfway to the X Factor final for this year? Wow!

As you already know, tonight’s X Factor was themed around songs by Take That, so there was a range of classic British pop to choose from.  Now, if we can forget the phenomenal bickering between judges this evening, let’s try and work out who was the best act on tonight’s show:

1. Alexandra Burke – Alexandra has established herself as a frontrunner in this year’s competition. She’s leapfrogged Diana in terms of performance, confidence and singing ability. Tonight’s performance (and show opener) has proved that she’s going to be a really slight pop star after this show.
2. Ruth Lorenzo – Ruth normally reserves her best performances for when she’s in the sing-off, but tonight she gave a passionate rendition of Love Ain’t Here Anymore that got some good feedback from the judges. She still needs to deal with the poor diction when she’s singing softly, but otherwise a powerhouse performance.
3. Eoghan Quigg – Eoghan’s confidence is growing week after week. We thought he’d stumble with the Take That song, but he put on a strong show on Never Forget.
4. JLS – As we said earlier, Louis dresses these guys up in Westlife’s hand-me-downs. He’s trying to package quite a funky act as a traditional boyband, like a square peg in a round hole. While their performance wasn’t bad, they were outclassed by the three above this week.
5. Diana Vickers and Rachel Hylton – Now, this one will be controversial. The former darling of the competition, Diana is joint bottom with Rachel who has been almost universally bad throughout the competition. For the second week in a row, Diana has tried to sing a song which doesn’t suit her distinctive vocal style. Rachel’s performance was a huge improvement, but was marred by her seeming to shout more than sing.

Well, that’s our verdict on tonight’s show – over to you for your opinions: are we right, or are we wrong? And who’s going to end up in the bottom two tonight?

If I can offer one more comment on Diana – she has a voice that people either love or hate. Unfortunately, when she tries to sing songs that don’t suit that singing style, it isn’t just bad, it’s horrible. I think this mostly comes down to song choice, but it’s very late in the competition, and I think Diana and Cheryl need to play it safe.

Rachel has suffered from exactly the same thing throughout this competition, which leads me to ask more questions about the format. Rachel has shown that she’s got ability, but the song choices (largely as a result of the themes each week) have limited how much she can show off her individuality. What a shame. And while they seem to be slowly starting to get it right, it may just be a case of too little too late.