Children In Need...

= Adults In Need of some decent entertainment!

Okay, first let's establish, having been 'a child in need' myself (I spent a portion of my childhood in Barnardo’s) the idea is great; the money that’s raised is phenomenal and it will undoubtedly change millions of children’s lives for the better. However, I’ve just endured two hours of mind-numbing, below par "entertainment" by the contributors of the BBC’s Children In Need show.

Poor Tess Daly! I cringed - she had about the same chance of creating a rapport with Terry ‘cardboard’ Wogan - as the ‘night stalker’ did with his latest victim. It was as if the BBC had told him he was co-hosting with Medusa, given the amount of eye contact he gave the poor girl.

As for the Hollyoaks “Queen” medley…please! Poor, poor, Freddie Mercury - is there no end to the limit people will go to, to bastardize his musical legacy? The medley was ill conceived and poorly executed at best. I coulda done better sat in the front sent of a Winnebago, stuck in traffic, with an audience of one, drunk on half-a-can of Stella (if you don't believe me click here). My last public reading was in the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York - a place renowned for its audience’s exacting standards - and trust-me I delivered!

JCB or whatever they’re called - really, little more than a pastiche of the great American boy-bands of the 1980/90’s. I think the kids loved them though, so fair enough.

John Barrowman’s performance was dire (where were his clothes?) and his shameless plugging of his show when handing over the cheque, made me feel quite queasy. As did Peter Kay’s plugging of his Manchester gigs (ps. Erm…4 nights at the Manchester Arena? Please tell me he’s doing at least one at the Liverpool Echo Arena - for all the poor white folks that can’t afford the train-fare to Manc-land).

I’m irked because: while these philanthropic “stars” are “giving” their time for nothing, whilst effectively advertising themselves and their products for NOTHING.  Surely, the least they could do, would be to give the public a half decent performance and create a show that had the semblance of one that was rehearsed. Cos here’s the kicker…while they’re up there raising money for all the “needy” kids (that will undoubtedly be helped by the money raised) there is probably, some poor lad/lass on some council estate somewhere, in some hospital bed somewhere, in some broken home somewhere, that could actually do a better job of singing/acting/performing/dancing/presenting, than the worthy “stars” I witnessed tonight.

Sorry, but the review stops here, two hours was all I could bear. Then I had to get back to my beloved YouTube. – A place where real people (a lot of whom are kids) all over the world, are producing and making authentic shows, which actually empower them. In their own voice; which appears to me to be 100% more genuine and authentic than the drivel on the BBC tonight…and with little more than a computer and their natural God-given ability to entertain and connect with others.

- Cheyelle Omar


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