[Red Moon]

Ever wonder what happened to this lady:

Youtube video

Niki Evans

BLOOD BROTHERS
Phoenix Theatre, Charing Cross Road, WC2

TWINS separated at birth must never meet again or they will DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!

The storyline of Blood Brothers is perhaps a bit far-fetched but if you're happy to leave your brain at home you'll have a lot of fun at the Phoenix Theatre.

A poor mother can't afford to keep both of her sons and gives one away to a rich family, but the dirty deed haunts her in the form of a sinister singing narrator who rasps "the devil's got your number" in her guilty ear.

As the boys become friends and sworn blood brothers every day draws them closer to their inevitable doom.

I found the story a bit half-baked but Willy Russell's show has been running for 20 years so what do I know!

X Factor 2007 semi-finalist Niki Evans steered the show with her strong singing voice, belting out cheesy numbers with enviable ease.

The songs are catchy despite some dodgy Liverpuddlian accents and even now I'm having trouble getting the opening number, Marilyn Monroe, out of my head.

Scenes of childhood - snotty noses, grubby knees and fun pranks - were hilariously endearing and there were some fantastic performances from the two lead men.

If you're after a fun night out with plenty of cheddar you could do worse than this West End staple.

Source: Hornsey Journal

[*mazedsalv**]

Ahh Niki, i thought she was great. Not sure, I really hope that she didnt go back to being a dinner lady as she has/had great potential.

[Tom]

LOL

I can't believe I supported her last year, just shows how bad it was

[MarkWaldorf]

God last years series was terrible.

[Z]

For anyone that's interested - Hope are producing a couple of singles at the moment, one of which was with Pharrell Williams. Leah left the band recently, but that's about it. Yeah I got bored one day and looked them up. Haha.

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by Tom
LOL

I can't believe I supported her last year, just shows how bad it was

I just found the audition video, I think if you watched a video at the same stage of the show that we are now she would have seemed a lot better. Don't forget every week a act stays in the show the more vocal coaching they get and the better they become. And to say last year was bad, is a bit misleading, it's more to do that this year is very very good.

[Tom]

Originally posted by Red Moon

I just found the audition video, I think if you watched a video at the same stage of the show that we are now she would have seemed a lot better. Don't forget every week a act stays in the show the more vocal coaching they get and the better they become. And to say last year was bad, is a bit misleading, it's more to do that this year is very very good.

Last year was bad though. The only category which was strong across the board was the over 25s but Beverley and Niki have no place in the mainstream charts and Daniel could have been a winner but Louis' hatchet job in week 2 sealed his fate.

The only other good act was Rhydian. The girls and groups were awful IMO and I've thought that since last year- this year just reminded me how bad last year actually was.

If you're interested, her performances for the week before the semi final* are:

Youtube video

Youtube video

Looking back she wasn't as bad as I seem to remember ... definitely the best last year though

(*they were a week behind last year because they lost a week at the start of the live shows)

[Red Moon]

Thanks for finding those, she should have got to the final, but the kiddy vote kept Same Difference in the show.... thankfully they didn't win.

I should image she will be good in Musical Theatre and I wish her well, she will be doing what she is good at every night..... singing live.

[Z]

Originally posted by Red Moon
Thanks for finding those, she should have got to the final, but the kiddy vote kept Same Difference in the show.... thankfully they didn't win.

I should image she will be good in Musical Theatre and I wish her well, she will be doing what she is good at every night..... singing live.

Based on singing ability, the final ought to have been Beverley, Niki and Rhydian - but none of them really belonged on the X Factor. At the start of the series, I was fully expecting it to be a group-dominated final.

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by Z
Based on singing ability, the final ought to have been Beverley, Niki and Rhydian - but none of them really belonged on the X Factor. At the start of the series, I was fully expecting it to be a group-dominated final.

Sadly singing ability seems to have little to do with the X-Factor these days, or we wouldn't have the final four we have now. I think we saw that last week when the best 2 singers of the night were Alex and Ruth and Ruth was voted off the show.

[Z]

Originally posted by Red Moon

Sadly singing ability seems to have little to do with the X-Factor these days, or we wouldn't have the final four we have now. I think we saw that last week when the best 2 singers of the night were Alex and Ruth and Ruth was voted off the show.

At least with Pop Idol, it always seemed to whittle down to the best singers at the end of it. In the X Factor, I don't think this has ever really happened properly - sure you always get at least one who can really sing at the end of the competition, maybe not the winner, but in the final at least, but there are always better singers who are voted out too early. It's annoying, because you just know that the likes of Leon Jackson will NOT be popular in a year's time (and look, he's not!) yet somehow he wins. It's stupid.

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by Z
At least with Pop Idol, it always seemed to whittle down to the best singers at the end of it. In the X Factor, I don't think this has ever really happened properly - sure you always get at least one who can really sing at the end of the competition, maybe not the winner, but in the final at least, but there are always better singers who are voted out too early. It's annoying, because you just know that the likes of Leon Jackson will NOT be popular in a year's time (and look, he's not!) yet somehow he wins. It's stupid.

I agree, the pop idol format works so much better than the X-Factor format. You do tend to end up will all the best acts in the final and the judges comments actually mean something because they aren't playing silly games.

It's easier to believe Judges and you can see them actually working on the contestants. The positive criticism given to David Cook by Simon Cowell actually helped him win the show. Every week he took it on board and acted on it and in the end it worked in keeping him in the show that he eventually went onto win.

However saying that, it doesn't mean that the pop idol acts are successful. David Cook album is okay but he has lost his edge from what I have heard of it. Some of his pre pop idol stuff is much better like the track Makeover from the album Analogue Heart. It's like they polished off the rough edges for the pop market and the new album hasn't been a great success.

[Z]

Originally posted by Red Moon

I agree, the pop idol format works so much better than the X-Factor format. You do tend to end up will all the best acts in the final and the judges comments actually mean something because they aren't playing silly games.

It's easier to believe Judges and you can see them actually working on the contestants. The positive criticism given to David Cook by Simon Cowell actually helped him win the show. Every week he took it on board and acted on it and in the end it worked in keeping him in the show that he eventually went onto win.

However saying that, it doesn't mean that the pop idol acts are successful. David Cook album is okay but he has lost his edge from what I have heard of it. Some of his pre pop idol stuff is much better like the track Makeover from the album Analogue Heart. It's like they polished off the rough edges for the pop market and the new album hasn't been a great success.

Obviously the X Factor format has some advantages to it - apparently the post-show product is much more polished, I didn't really follow that series of American Idol so I can't comment, but certainly it comes across that way. However, during the actual competition, you get the satisfaction of seeing the good singers do well. I don't mind popularity contests, so long as there is justification to the popularity of a particular person. With the X Factor you just don't get that. This year, I can understand why Diana and Alexandra are in the final four, I don't really think JLS and Eoghan are worthy of a spot in the top four though, they've both essentially started fighting for the teenage girl vote by putting on their cutest faces (in JLS' case - making Aston lead singer) in the hope that it'll be enough to get them to the final, and at least one of them is going to get there.

Gareth Gates falls into that category too, but he was a genuinely likable guy, and you felt pity for him because of his stutter - it wasn't a sob story, because you couldn't help but feel sorry for him and be amazed by the way he could go out and sing no problem. Yet when it came to the final, Will won, because he was the better singer. On the X Factor, the reverse is true - people pick a favourite based on a sob story or how cute they are, and they forget all about them once the show has ended.

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by Z
Obviously the X Factor format has some advantages to it - apparently the post-show product is much more polished, I didn't really follow that series of American Idol so I can't comment, but certainly it comes across that way. However, during the actual competition, you get the satisfaction of seeing the good singers do well. I don't mind popularity contests, so long as there is justification to the popularity of a particular person. With the X Factor you just don't get that. This year, I can understand why Diana and Alexandra are in the final four, I don't really think JLS and Eoghan are worthy of a spot in the top four though, they've both essentially started fighting for the teenage girl vote by putting on their cutest faces (in JLS' case - making Aston lead singer) in the hope that it'll be enough to get them to the final, and at least one of them is going to get there.

Gareth Gates falls into that category too, but he was a genuinely likable guy, and you felt pity for him because of his stutter - it wasn't a sob story, because you couldn't help but feel sorry for him and be amazed by the way he could go out and sing no problem. Yet when it came to the final, Will won, because he was the better singer. On the X Factor, the reverse is true - people pick a favourite based on a sob story or how cute they are, and they forget all about them once the show has ended.

I agree the post show stuff on the X-factor is much better than on the idol format, but that can be corrected if they wanted too. I just don't think they see it as being so important to them.

But maybe that is the problem with the X-Factor, the post-show stuff relies on the sob stories and us getting to know the singers. And it is at that stage all is lost because what you are creating is a popularity contest. People start to forget about the singing and start thinking poor x losing her brother like that or y seems cute and so on. However it's not just the Judges fault for picking the sob stories, they see about 200 people picked from 180,000. It is the researchers that are told to pick the interesting people rather than the people with the best voices. And remember some of those 200 judges do see can't sing at all and are picked to be ridiculed by them. In theory you could walk into the auditions with a voice like Leona's and be shown the door before you even get to sing, just because you are normal and boring to some researcher.

At the start of this years live show if you had asked me who the final 5 would have been, I would have said the 5 girls on ability. I'm no Diana fan now, but I was at the start, but even though I'm not a fan she is different enough to make the last five as for the rest they should have sailed it, although I always thought Rachel could go off the rails and self destruct. The only male that had a chance of breaking into the final 5 was Austin and he was completely ruined by the show. Looking at some of his live stuff before the x-factor he looks and sounds really good. So again I agree two acts in the final four are more than forgettable and they are JLS and Eoghan. Although given time JLS could become a very good band, but it's going to take years and years to get there.

I actually never saw the UK idol shows, it was on when I had a break from TV. I even missed BB3 and thankfully BB4. So I couldn't comment on Gareth Gates or Will Young other than what I knew from the radio at the time.

[Z]

That's the problem with this series - people are infuriated because this series looked to be the most promising yet in terms of talent, and how wide open it was even up 'til week 5. That week was a shambles to be honest, everything from Laura being voted out to Diana getting to skip it, it was a mess. People were annoyed at Austin getting voted out the week before, but it wasn't a massive reaction, even though he should really have made the top 6. I think ideally the show should have gone:

12th - Girlband
11th - Daniel
10th - Scott
9th - Eoghan
8th - Bad Lashes
7th - JLS
6th - Austin
5th - Rachel (imagining she had not been so hit and miss on the live shows)

Thereafter the top 4 could have finished in any order, at least to me, because I would have been satisfied that we'd had a top 7 who were worthy of being there. I just don't agree with Eoghan and JLS still being in the competition based on the fact that girls fancy them, over the likes of Laura, Ruth and Austin who gave it their all every week and were rarely (if ever) off form.

[Red Moon]

Great minds must think alike. I agree, that is how I saw it once the live shows started, and if Rachel had been consistent I wouldn't have been surprised if she had made the last four at the expense of one of the other girls. In the audition she was wonderful, it went wrong from that point onward for her. She just didn't have the right attitude.

You could see the real class on Big Band night, after that the show went wrong... the girls really stole the show.

[Z]

Originally posted by Red Moon
Great minds must think alike. I agree, that is how I saw it once the live shows started, and if Rachel had been consistent I wouldn't have been surprised if she had made the last four at the expense of one of the other girls. In the audition she was wonderful, it went wrong from that point onward for her. She just didn't have the right attitude.

You could see the real class on Big Band night, after that the show went wrong... the girls really stole the show.

Absolutely, and yet we're only left with two of the original front-runners to win. You could argue that JLS were favourites to win too, but I'd have placed them as rank outsiders to be honest. JLS have not lived up to expectations; Eoghan has exceeded mine but still is not good enough, Diana has gone downhill but is still in on merit and Alexandra has been the only one to be consistent throughout. I was even annoyed that Rachel made the last 6 because of the erratic nature of her performances, I felt that she should have really gone before Daniel who, bless him, never gave a bad performance, he was just totally undermined by Louis Walsh saying he didn't deserve to be in the competition.

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by Z
Absolutely, and yet we're only left with two of the original front-runners to win. You could argue that JLS were favourites to win too, but I'd have placed them as rank outsiders to be honest. JLS have not lived up to expectations; Eoghan has exceeded mine but still is not good enough, Diana has gone downhill but is still in on merit and Alexandra has been the only one to be consistent throughout. I was even annoyed that Rachel made the last 6 because of the erratic nature of her performances, I felt that she should have really gone before Daniel who, bless him, never gave a bad performance, he was just totally undermined by Louis Walsh saying he didn't deserve to be in the competition.

I agree with you about Eoghan exceeding exceptions, although he is not the strongest of singers overall he has done very well, and it's only been in the last few shows that his dropping down into the bottom two in terms of his performances. But really he is no better or worse than the likes of Daniel as a singer who has already left.

On the subject of Daniel I can see what you are saying about he was better than Rachel, at least he was consistent week in and week out, okay his performances weren't memorable, but he got a lot of undeserved flack from Simple Simon. It can't be hard after taking a knock every week to come back and face them all over again.

JLS are good compared to bands that have appeared in the past, but like Cheryl said about her own band it takes years of hard work to get it right. They need that time to learn to work and perform as a team, I see promise but they are not winners of the X-Factor. The also need all be able to take the lead at times, something they are not doing now. Relying on the same lead singer show in and show out has only shown the himations in the lead singers voice and relegated the rest of the group into the role of backing vocalists.

Finally Diana, a girl with lots of promise at the start but as the show has gone has shown her limitations and weaknesses by being stuck with a single style of singing. Now couple with this the fact the other acts have improved as the show has gone on she is now struggling to match the standards set by the others. As you said it now appears, because of that she has gone downhill.

So only really consistent singer left, that has done all that has been asked of her is Alexandra. A show that showed so much promise this year has once again been ruined with good singers leaving to early, leaving weak acts, bar one in the final 4.

[NettoSuperstar!]

"Daniel could have been a winner"

LMAO never in a million X factors

[NettoSuperstar!]

"Finally Diana, a girl with lots of promise at the start but as the show has gone has shown her limitations and weaknesses by being stuck with a single style of singing."

Thats her style of singing what do you want her to do come out and sing like whitney or start doing a rap, dance around like a spice girl? lol

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by NettoSuperstar!
"Daniel could have been a winner"

LMAO never in a million X factors

Nobody said he could be a winner, just that he was more consistent than Rachel, who really had only one really good performance on Big Band Night.

Originally posted by NettoSuperstar!
"Finally Diana, a girl with lots of promise at the start but as the show has gone has shown her limitations and weaknesses by being stuck with a single style of singing."

Thats her style of singing what do you want her to do come out and sing like whitney or start doing a rap, dance around like a spice girl? lol

I want her to show there is more to her than just a squeaky voice and that she not just going to carry on getting worse week in and week out when you compare her to the other singers in the show. To the question, "Does she deserve a place in the final four based on her recent performances?" the honest answer is no.

[NettoSuperstar!]

Tom said Daniel could have been a winner...but it was louis's fault for slagging him off lol

[NettoSuperstar!]

"Does she deserve a place in the final four based on her recent performances?" the honest answer is no.

well yeh because there have been worse. And does she deserve a place in the final based on all of her performances, yes

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by NettoSuperstar!
Tom said Daniel could have been a winner...but it was louis's fault for slagging him off lol

Sorry, I thought you were talking about Daniel from this series rather than Daniel DeBourg from last year.

Originally posted by NettoSuperstar!
well yeh because there have been worse. And does she deserve a place in the final based on all of her performances, yes

Really, well looks like we are not going to agree on Diana.

Her performances have been rubbish since she returned from illness. Yes she has got better from her first performance since she returned but she left the week when she came back to the show. She hasn't been consistent over the whole of the live shows, she limited in what she can do and her voice is weak. Yes, she might make a recording artist but as a live performer her skills aren't strong and her nerves get the better of her. She lacks self belief and self confidence.

But I'm never going to change the opinion of any person that like her votes for her, I know they see her through rose tinted spectacles and girl can do no wrong. It's just like Britney, you can't criticise because she is just the person to like at the moment. The thing is people put these people on pedestals and they become blind to the truth.

[NettoSuperstar!]

Originally posted by Red Moon

Sorry, I thought you were talking about Daniel from this series rather than Daniel DeBourg from last year.

Really, well looks like we are not going to agree on Diana.

Her performances have been rubbish since she returned from illness. Yes she has got better from her first performance since she returned but she left the week when she came back to the show. She hasn't been consistent over the whole of the live shows, she limited in what she can do and her voice is weak. Yes, she might make a recording artist but as a live performer her skills aren't strong and her nerves get the better of her. She lacks self belief and self confidence.

But I'm never going to change the opinion of any person that like her votes for her, I know they see her through rose tinted spectacles and girl can do no wrong. It's just like Britney, you can't criticise because she is just the person to like at the moment. The thing is people put these people on pedestals and they become blind to the truth.

lblind to the truth lol, I think shes had a couple of low points but I quite like the imperfections in her voice generally. And it is just X factor