Did anyone here go on a reality singing / talent show?

No, but at a karaoke night I used to go to there was a scout from the Voice who was interested in my friend.
He was contacted but didn't go through with it.

I also know a woman who went on the X Factor as part of a group, they just missed out on going to judges houses. The stories she told of the process were worse than I had imagined! We know that there is an amount of staging but there is much more to it.

Are you going to do one of these shows?

I auditioned for Big Brother.

My choir have been asked to go on BGT a couple of times...we declined. We were asked to audition for a new BBC choir talent show, but they changed their mind, so fame and fortune (ha!) was not to be...

We also came *this close* to being Michael Macintyre's 'unexpected guest' at Christmas, but alas logistics didn't work!

I haven't, but I know people who have, and their experience was not good.

I did once get filmed by a company as part of a promo piece - the company was trying to sell the concept to various TV networks. Apparently the networks were keen, but in the end consigned it to development hell because one channel produced something else considered to be too similar. It's a shame; unlike most reality shows, which I hate, I thought the concept for this was actually really good and would have been a great chance to be involved in. Still - even then, I had to force myself not to roll my eyes at some of the things the producers wanted to do.

I bloody loved Stars in Their Eyes. Ah what a sweet innocent era of reality TV.

Love Matthew Kelly, was a treat to see him in Pride and Prejudice the other week. Was a gent when I ran into him later in the week and complimented him on the good show too.

Any X Factor goss? What's Dermo like in real life? Lovely, I bet 😊

Which one was he, the less over the top of the two? Cause the one I can't stand (sorry if this one is your friend) is the dark haired one, who dresses wayyyy to over the top, cant sing or dance, has a sh*t personality and is basically only wanting one thing, attention haha.

I never tried for a performing talent show - but I have been through the Bake-Off and Masterchef application processes on a number of occasions - always falling short (as there is only usually 1 place for a male in the 40-55 category)

I did, however, succeed on getting on to a Channel 4 baking show - called Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard. It was a 20 part series of mini-bake offs. Each show had a different theme - mine being Fruit Cake. So the three of us had 2 hours to bake our version of a fruit cake - and the winner got a masterclass with Lanlard.

It being pretty much impossible to bake a proper fruit cake in 2 hours - as they normally require much more time than that, I did my research and found a recipe for Pain d'epices aux fruits - which is a French gingerbread with added dried fruit. 75 minute bake time - sorted!

My rivals baked a booze-laden West Indian fruit cake (which didn't bake in time) and a Pineapple and Banana cake - which didn't cool in time and so melted her frosting.

So even though I hadn't done a traditional fruit cake (which is what he wanted) I still won! And got a masterclass on how to bake a chocolate fruit cake decorated with baked figs. Only the production runner couldn't find any figs locally. So we had a massive hiatus as he went all over South London looking for fresh figs in December.

It was 8 hours of filming/waiting for at most 15 minutes of screen time!

When my episode finally made it onto the screen, it turns out that one of my rivals accused me of sabotage with her oven! All I did was help her set the temperature - which wasn't easy without the instruction manual. But apparently it is my fault that she tried to bake something for 90 minutes that needed at least 2.5 hours. Such fun.

The process is always so slow when it comes to filming. From the horror stories I hear from those who did get on to Bake Off proper, I am not that unhappy that I never made it. The pressure they are put under is not fun.

Ah okii... well your ex friend came off better than the other one haha.

Absolutely agree.

I have heard tales of the ovens in the Masterchef kitchen being tweaked so they are actually cooler than the temperature you set them - so that things take longer to cook and thus there is more jeopardy/fake drama as the clock runs down.

Apart from being on a show for 5 seconds as part of a show we had in Northern Ireland when I was 9/10, called "School Around The Corner" (2 hours of filming for 5 seconds of screen time, we missed our break because of it, wasn't amused) I haven't, but my 2nd cousin Jeff Anderson did "Superstar" and was then understudy Jesus (even though he never got to play Jesus), then he did "The Voice"...and then he had a few shall I say, personal issues which can be googled...and now my side of the family pretty much don't have contact anymore.