Starring former X Factor winner/finalist/applicant...

In fairness, as you said, some of them do amazingly well in their respective roles. Of the ones mentioned, I have seen:

Alexandra Burke as Rachel Marron
Matt Cardle as Huey Calhoun
Marcus Collins as Angel/Understudy Lola
Matt Henry as Lola
Zoe Birkett as Lead Female Singer (Thriller)

And all of them were amazing in their respective roles, particularly both Matt's in their respective roles, who were simply stunning.

Don't think we can really group Matt Henry in with them. Prior to The Voice he had done Avenue Q, The Lion King, Miss Saigon, Hair, Saturday Night Fever. He was a musical theatre performer going on The Voice, not a reality TV show person diversifying into theatre.

Exactly, he is a totally different story in my mind. He's earned his stripes, and consequently appears in these shows in his right, rather than being starry casting.

The unsettling bit is when those who have chewed up and spat out by the Cowell money-making machine feel that it's "The next best thing".

I agree they're in a separate category. What do we think of Kerry's appearance? I thought she really didn't do herself justice. It was weird for a bona fide star of musical theatre to be judged alongside amateurs like that.

Agreed. I'm still reeling that they didn't turn for her. But still, as it has been said, she never needed to do it. She set herself up for a fall.

I don't think you can lump them all together like that. A number of them have continuing music careers, they don't just do MT so they aren't "restarting a failed pop career"

Lloyd Daniels was also Joseph, and Ray Quinn was Danny in Grease. Him out of G4 was in Whistle Down The Wind. Shayne Ward was Stacee Jaxx. Brenda Edwards was Mama Morton and Killer Queen.

Can we say Dean John Wilson from BGT in Eternity, SFANW, Miss Atomic Bomb and Aladdin (I know it's not the same, he always wanted to do theatre anyway).

I think these are a separate category too. The wonderful siobhan dillon also came from one of these shows

I saw Brenda Edwards in WWRY and thought she was great. She has a brilliant, storng voice.     Ray Quinn was Warner in the Legally Blonde tour and I wasn't impressed with him it all...
It's fine when they have talent and suit the role but sometimes you can kind of tell they are there as a 'name'.

For me, when I pay to see a musical I want to see musical theatre actors appear. They spend years and years training in acting, singing and dancing, and when they leave drama school they are fully prepared for the job. Popstars from xfactor etc can be good (Matt Cardle was great in Memphis, Gareth Gates was a great Marius in Les Mis) but not always. They often have a pop sound not a musical theatre one, they're often not prepared for the demands of 8 shows a week, their presence often equates to a more concert-ish vibe for some audience members who just want to gawk at a celebrity. And I don't like the mentality of 'well, my pop career isn't taking off so I guess I'll do a musical instead.' because there are thousands of talented and passionate trained actors really to take on roles because they want to, and they are passionate about musical theatre, not because they see it as a back up option afforded to them by the overblown platform that gave us Wagner and Jedward. Yes, these talent shows do produce some fabulous singers, and some trained mt people have entered them before as well, but I don't think that appearing on a talent show via open audition, is really the same as devoting your teenage and early adult life to training in the field of musical theatre.

I know there are exceptions, but personally when I pay £30+ for a ticket, I want to be safe in the knowledge that the stars are going to be 100% up to the job. I don't want to see a great singer with 0 acting chops, mincing his way through a 2 1/2 hour show while the audience laughs obnoxiously at every remotely amusing line of dialogue spoken.

Can you tell I've been burned before?

The thing is these shows are looking for singers, not recording artists. A hell of a lot of the applicants have probably been singing in amateur musical theatre productions prior to auditioning - some of them will even have trained a bit or even worked a bit prior.

It's not as cut and dried as 'these people wanted to be pop stars and used musical theatre as a back-up'. A lot of them just do it for the exposure - you'd have to be an idiot not to realise that the number of winners who have genuinely ended up with a pop career is tiny.