Charity cases in talent contests

The reason why I rarely watch TV is because the majority of it in the UK consists of talent (less) contests/shows. The whole thing is so tiring, with most talent contests consisting of singers. The majority of the singers who win these programmes do not go on to achieve much success. There are of course, exceptions, but only a handful.

The thing I detest the most however, is the almost compulsive desire of the producers to portray a charity case in every talent show series.

I sense you may be confused. In my mind the 'charity case' is the singer who has extremely personal reasons for singing on national TV, who cries in front of everyone, and who gets through every round usually because of their sad story.

I tonight watched 'Britain's Got Talent' which I actually quite enjoyed, because unusually, it has a variety of people with a variety of good and bad performances. But this was completely spoiled by the final performance: the charity case.

This episodes charity case was a woman from the Phillipines, who came to Britain to perform, in order for her children to have 'a better future.'

Bollocks.

If that woman cared so much about her children she would have found a steady job, and not risked it all on a talent show. Of course, she made sure she cried on stage, and told her story to gain the audience and judge support.

To be fair, she sang well. But I honestly feel that background stories should stay out of these contests in order for it to remain impartial and unbiased.

Of course, she went through to the next round...