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Woohoo! Gerard here and I’ll be liveblogging tonight’s first X Factor audition show tonight. I’m writing this in the middle of the first commercial break – no auditionees seen so far, but a very exciting ‘judges arriving via speedboat up the Thames’ scene. Yes, each judge gets their own boat! Shhh, nobody mention the credit crunch!

First up are The Cheeky Girls Dreamgirls, an almost-twinlike Eastern bloc sister duo with stars in their eyes. “The streets of London are paved with gold, no?” they ask innocently. They audition by murdering Robbie’s Angels, like a tuneless TaTu. And while we’re at it, when did leopard-print become fashionable again? Cheryl tactfully tells them to ‘stick to the modelling’, a classic don’t give up your day job. Did they get through? Nope.

A blurred array of hopeless hopefuls appears, notably Steve Calliegari, who clearly suffers from full moon fever and should be coupled with Marcus from Big Brother for his wolfish qualities.

Next up is hotpant wearing single mum, Stacey Soloman from Dagenham. She’s giggly and a bit dim, so we’re set up for a lousy audition until she blows the judging panel away with Wonderful World. Oh, Cheryl admits she had preconceptions about her. All the judges do. Nice one – see you at boot camp Stacey? Four yes-es.

Manchester auditions next, and a montage of Simon saying “Yes” a lot. Biker chick Katy Bullock takes on a Pixie Lott song and gets full approval. The Mancs look like a talented bunch compared with the crowd at the O2 arena.

Emma Chawner – who’s gracing today’s tabloids – is back for her third audition with her sister Samantha. Calling themselves Sister Act, they’re a formidable duo, but can they sing? Of course not. But not content with being humiliated twice before, Emma’s back for more, singing Hero at half the original speed. Simon says “it was twice as bad as before” and “girls, we have weeks not decades” when they say they can improve. A resounding rejection from the judging panel.

Young Joseph McElderry from South Shields comes on, chats up Cheryl a bit awkwardly and sings a knockout version of Dance With My Father. Could he be this year’s Eoghan Quigg? The family certainly have the support t-shirts already printed. Louis has a bout of verbal diahorrea at him, Cheryl likes him because he’s from round her area and every judge puts him forward. Money well spent on those t-shirts, McElderry family? Looks like it.

And in Scotland, Louis and Cheryl muse on how Simon might look in a kilt.

We meet Kyle, a singer who wants to be Girls Aloud. Hmmm. A self-proclaimed GA fan, he decides to sing Untouchable. Simon tries to talk him out of it, but gets booed by a hostile audience. It’s an excruciating performance. Simon likes him, thinks he has a good attitude, but the bottom line is ‘get off the stage, Kyle’. The best bit of Kyle’s screen time is when he talks about the audition afterwards and spouts hackneyed old lyrics about nothing putting him down and standing on his own two feet.

Irish auditionees (they travelled from Ireland) John and Edward Grimes appear onstage. It’s an automatic “yes” from Louis. Feck, they’re doing a Backstreet Boys song. It’s a mediocre vocal, but they’ve definitely got personality. Simon thinks they’re annoying though. The judging panel seems split – Louis and Danni are in favour, Simon hates them, but Cheryl veers the vote in their favour…excellent.

Triple-Trouble show their collective intelligence by flashing two fingers when mentioning their name. They’re a cool collective, not like those hoodies you read about in the paper. But they can’t count. Well, you can’t win ‘em all. Simon’s in trippy form, because he just laughs at them and calls them rubbish. I think he’s goading the middle guy into pulling out a knife or something, because he gets a righteous rant before the fella throws the mic at the stage. Then he warns Cowell from the safety of the X Factor booth to watch the back of his head when he’s walking down the street. Priceless.

Fluffy blonde students Beyond Reason do a boyband thing and get Louis all excited. Simon points out their obvious tuning weaknesses while their granny storms the stage before storming out. Her ‘pleading’ on their behalf doesn’t work and they still get chucked out.

Leona Lewis’s old mate Duane Lamonte got through to bootcamp last year, but didn’t get to the live shows. There’s something instantly likeable about this guy, and his performance of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough is confident and strong. However, Simon wants him to sing something more modern. He gives the audience a blast of Beyonce and wows the judges. Back to bootcamp for Duane. Better luck this year, man.

Honourable mention for the ‘faces of horror’ that the female judges manage to pull. Cheryl sucks her cheeks in and purses her lips, but it still looks gorgeous. Dannii shows all of her teeth at once, which is somewhat terrifying.

Danyl Johnson is the cool teacher at school who gives an electrifying performance of With A Little Help From My Friends. The dude has a sea of hands waving at him, girl judges winking at him and Simon more visibly excited than I’ve seen him in years. We can only hope that he doesn’t suffer from ‘shit at the live shows’ syndrome, because his audition performance could have won the show in previous years. An early frontrunner? That remains to be seen, but I hope we see him on the live shows.

And knowing that it’s best to go out on a high, Simon & Co fly out on their private jet (sharing one plane this time – they must’ve got my earlier memo about the boats), raving about ‘the teacher guy’. As Lisa said in her post the other day, it seems sob stories have been shelved for the moment in favour of talent.