All Choirs Standing

The bane of reality television

The genre of reality television has had me reaching for the sick bag many a time as intrigue, spontaneity and imagination which comes from professional craft is lost to the dregs and rawness of the everyday person with warts and all.

What would normally be spared us for the reason of it happening behind closed doors no matter how disgusting is revealed for public viewing that one is praying before watching two minutes of the show that certain representations of the human race become extinct post haste.

The one that really has you wishing the cast belong to the long extinct dinosaurs can only be the Big Brother [1] genre that takes voyeurism to another level well beneath contempt.

The cry of the banshee

The caterwauls that portend to determine good musical talent in the various transmogrifications of musical performance are as subjective as they come – where a whole range of has-beens are given new limelight to shine as judges.

The idle public who need more excitement in their lives get fleeced of millions as they phone in to premium lines thinking they are in some participatory exercise of community think to the end that something gets crowned as the best of barely talented lot that has percolated to the top.

One can sympathise because the compelling television viewing allows from nastiness to be expressed as a form of mentoring and encouragement, if you did not have thicker skin than a hippopotamus after running the gauntlet of a reality show, you have no hope in this world – nada.

Come dance with me

Out of this morass of nonentity seeking adulation has come some rather inspiring work in this reality genre as Strictly Come Dancing [2] where left-legged and flat-footed celebrities are paired up with professional dancers to create really good entertainment.

Through the weeks you see the celebrities become so fancy-footed, watching their performance has you doing either a Fred Astaire [3] or Ginger Rogers [4] in your day-dreaming before your are jolted out of the mesmerism but a rather unkind comment by a judge.

So recently on television there has been this new entertainment thing called Last Choir Standing [5], obviously a pun on last man standing – here, choirs gather to sing impressing a number of judges who seem to be contemporary, knowing their trade and giving a bit of insight into what tone deaf people like me would never pick up.

Singing their hearts out

Having watched two episodes, I have been drawn into the humanity and human expression that comes out of singing together with all sorts of conservative to daring arrangements.

By now, I know that I should have to hand a box of tissues as sometimes, a tear or two roll down my cheeks in empathy – I have found each personal story and consequent performance a realisation of what makes us amazing human beings and gives one hope about the creativity of man that makes them the most unique being that has ever inhabited the universe, as we know it.

The Open Arts Community Choir [6] stole my heart and made me cry as I saw beyond the frailty and disability to people who could do whatever they were determined to do regardless of what others might think about them and excel.

Imagine a choir where the tenors were ladies and that does not begin to express the raw emotion of their rendition of Something inside so strong [7].

In all, even out of deprecating expression masquerading entertainment, there are gems, I commend with all fullness of encouragement and admiration – All Choirs Standing.

[1] Big Brother (TV series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] BBC - Strictly Come Dancing – Homepage

[3] Fred Astaire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Ginger Rogers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] BBC - Last Choir Standing – Homepage

[6] BBC - Last Choir Standing - The Choirs - Open Arts Community Choir Profile

[7] Labi Siffre - Something Inside So Strong [Nelson Mandela/Racism theme] - YouTube

Open Arts homepage

Could have danced in a dress

When Reality is Good

There are aspects of Reality TV that have served as entertainment, for instance, Strictly Come Dancing on the BBC had me looking for my dancing spirit as my body twitched as I imagined myself twisting hips for the Rumba and all that footwork for the fox trot.

I would not have minded being in a coat and tails or some regal dress – don’t get ideas – doing one of those many moves, it was good clean fun and the judges were not mean-spirited humourless know-it-alls, it is unlikely that a complaint was ever registered for that show.

Not really me at all

I watched a few episodes of the UK version of The Apprentice, but I could not identify with that naked ambition and the Jekyll & Hyde nature of teaming up at one time and back-stabbing later on – I expect better of humanity in all walks of life, which is me being naïve.

The US version of The Apprentice was a complete turn-off, if The Donald does not have an honest friend or employee to tell him to get rid of that comb-over then, they are either so fearful of him or he is completely intolerant of basic truths – I cannot work in such an environment.

I have been through a lot less for better paying jobs that would not carry that much stress and would be just as challenging.

Another reality wreck

However, it would appear Channel 4 reaches for the underbelly of what is all too rotten in human expression; Celebrity Big Brother would appear to be just the tip of the iceberg of revelations that might soon reach your screens in the expected episode of Shipwrecked.

In Shipwrecked, groups of people are supposed to be marooned on islands and through survival skills and other activities get voted off till the team with the largest number wins the prize. There was a similar genre episode that plumbs the depths of bad history when the teams were separated by race and pitched against each other.

If we could, the future, see

However, from the snippets we have seen on television of the one to be aired, an 18-year old gap year student – the gap being where her brain should be – has been schooled in the vitriol of race supremacy when she says things like, “When I look out at what Britain is, it's just a complete mess. I don't appreciate how people come into our country and take over our country. Britain's really not Britain anymore. My mind is completely open to different cultures, but I don't think they should bring them to Britain.”

Well, I have news for that girl, I do not like what Britain has become either, such unschooled, pig-ignorant, brainless kids being born into my country by irresponsible parents without an iota of societal responsibility or any gumption to bring up their kids properly, animals in the zoo present themselves in better light.

Neuter them all

And I have been a Briton for at least 22 years before that oaf was born, I am utterly distraught, if we could see into the future, no greater service could have been done for the memory of the British Empire than for her parents to be sterilised.

Then she goes on to say, “I'm for the British Empire and things. I'm for slavery, but that's never going to come back.” Well, I wonder what history book she has been reading and since it is possible she has been reading history backwards, I’ll give a version that sits well with me, I will bring back the old times, I am also for slavery and I’ll have her for a slave, not for a nickel, not for a dime, not for a farthing but for a shovel of guano and I would have paid too much.

We are told she was redeemed during the show as her views changed after she was challenged by other contestants, I wonder if that is good or it is better she had never been born.