After the first four weeks of this BBC One Saturday night singing and dancing talent show, I almost wrote a review with the heading, ‘IT ONLY SHINES WITH YOUR FINGER PRESSED ON FAST-FORWARD’.  This was because of the large amount of dross on it compared to the odd bit of good singing that we actually heard!

There were too many cringe worthy moments in the first four episodes.  Nowhere was this more apparent then when we had the contestants introduce themselves, which was reminiscent of those fools years ago that went on Cilla Black’s hit game show Blind Date,.e.g hello Cilla, I mean Gary(Barlow), I’m David and I’m from Blackpool(cue OTT audience applause).  This was then followed up by the producers of Let It Shine, trying to make the boys appear funnier than Peter Kay(none ever were)!

A second irritant were the surprise sequences that unofficial head judge Gary Barlow, did to the supposedly unsuspecting victims.  This involved him travelling to see one of them by surprise and asking them if they would audition for the show.  The first was interesting to watch but then the shock value wore off and they became boring to watch.

Nevertheless, my greatest bugbear with the show was the very corny sequences we got when some of the singers walked on to the stage.  As they walked towards the studio door which gave connotations of ITV’s Star in Their Eyes, we then got these really cringe worthy montage clips from family friends about them,e.g. ‘Jonny is the nicest guy in the whole wide world’, ‘Tony spends all day in the gym’, ‘Trevor doesn’t eat or drink because he just sings and dances instead’.  OK, hands up, I made those comments up but hopefully you get my point that this element of the show was excruciating to watch.

Therefore, this fifth episode worked a lot better because all of the annoying things that I have just listed here were no more.  This week was ‘collaboration week’ and in the words of co-host Mel Giedroyc, ‘tonight things get serious’.  The boys had been whittled down to forty and put into five groups of eight, to which three would be eliminated from each.  Their groups performed with one of five superstars(which was debatable) and then judged on their performances.  The superstars(AGAIN this was debatable) comprised of Mel C, Olly Murs, Beverley Knight, Busted, and The Kaiser Chiefs!

The show went on for a mammoth and far too long one hundred and five minutes, however I found myself actually rather enjoying it.  It would have been better to have been split up and shown over two nights but overall the singing was good.  Some of the lads were like overly excited little puppies though as you’d expect.  The only real car crash bit of telly was the medley that the band Busted had with their gang of eight.  Lead singer of Busted, Charlie, looked about as thrilled to be there as a vegetarian at a butchers.  Mel was funny as she mocked him for being sooooooooooooo posh.

In the first four episodes I wasn’t sure if the show needed both Mel and Graham Norton co-hosting together, but it seemed to work more this week.  Both of these comedy performers are funny and extremely likeable.

Nevertheless, the funniest bit of the show for me was at the start of it when Gary Barlow said, ”I want to see them working together as a team because when people truly work together as a team, great things happen.  Was I alone in then thinking to myself, hold on a minute Gary, Take That(his group) have lost two members through the years(Robbie Williams and Jason Orange), great team work that then my son!

At the end then we were left with five new boybands for the live shows that start next week.  As Saturday night TV goes this fifth instalment was not that bad an effort.  It was stuff fit for all the family and I have to admit that it slightly got me hooked towards the end.   I also have to admit that for the first time ever with this show my finger never touched the fast-forward button…NOT EVEN ONCE! 3/5.