The two-letter wild tangent, and a proposed twist for the BBC casting shows
The year starts with a report on the biggest charity shop raid I've ever completed; standout findings were albums by two separate bands formed by students I knew from my secondary school and sixth form respectively. The latter might be interesting, a rock group with string arrangements, and the vocalist (the friend I knew) is a classically-trained soprano - the obvious reference is to Nightwish, but shall judge after listening.

Another find was a double album of musical theatre songs for £1.49. All various established performers, including Barbara Dickson singing Tell Me It's Not True (which Gemma taught me, way back whenever) and most of the expected songs up to the mid-1990s. I'll mention the others as I listen to them.

A diversion on that raid was to the music shop where Alice was purchased. There was a sale on some sheet music; mostly old exam board pieces for piano and sometimes other instruments, but also the odd album from The Dumper. The one I perhaps should have purchased, but didn't: Lucie Silvas, Breathe In, £3.99. The one I took a look at and rolled eyes at: Delta Goodrem, Innocent Eyes, £2.99. Now, I recalled Born To Try being a rather difficult song to sing, but lawks - F3-Ab5! That's... scary.

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The wild tangent was not unrelated to all that, but was sparked by a conversation regarding ATV's tweaks to their use of the soaps - replacing the Sunday evening slots with a permanent doubling of the Tuesday edition of EMMERDALE to one hour (presumably sparked by how special hour-long episodes easily beat EASTENDERS) and the creation of a Friday CORONATION STREET double-header in the same vein as that which exists on Monday - and the resultant weekend rejig, with DANCING ON ICE moving to Sundays in what can only be perceived as admitting defeat on Saturday to WHO... and, after THE ONE AND ONLY, the third BBC1 West End casting show.

Now, my problem with this was that they used the IDLE format where it did not belong. Firstly, you have musical theatre people singing other things, not always befitting of the role. While there's only so many pieces from the musical theatre tradition that would fit (especially when every contestant is theoretically of the same type of voice, and especially when - as with Maria - this is a voice type with a scarcity of musical theatre roles anyway), you are at least maintaining the pretence of an audition for a given role, and should act somewhat accordingly. This leads on to the second flaw, which is the presence of a bog-standard all-in, one-gone-per-week elimination format. It's reasonably sound, but does add to the feeling of being derivative.

How to solve a problem like a copycat, then. I'd suggest splitting the competitors up in some form - although admittedly this'll smack of WHY FACTOR, especially the mildly obvious 'assign a judge to each performer' that goes with that. May be better to put in some little tweaks within that structure, and MARIA pulled that off nicely enough. Perhaps steal the 'live performance semi-finals' idea that IDLE had in its first run, and which gave David Sneddon his lucky break in STAR AC 1; it'd give more people their moment in the televisual limelight, and perhaps could operate like the group stages of a World Cup or European Championship, removing half the field over a few performances. A possible idea: 20 performers, split into groups of 10 performing on alternate weeks. Two eliminated in the first two fortnights, then either merge them right away (leaving 12) or have another fortnight with one eliminated each week (leaving 10). Either way, that's 14 performance weeks assuming a three-way final.

My cousin has suggested a possibly better way: multiple weeks of voting, performers accumulating points Eurovision-style until an eventual elimination week, leading eventually to an all-up final. Creates the impression of 'wasted' weeks, but arguably that exists as it is.

Some kind of theming to the rounds might work better. Some free-choice rounds are essential, and I'd throw them in early, so the judges and audience get a feeling for the performers as individuals rather than simply prospective characters (because, like it or not, this kind of thing is a personality contest). Some rounds of just musical theatre, or clearly not-dissimilar music, would be very useful.

And here's the other concept, which could work for the semi-final; everyone is given four songs to learn. They might be musical theatre numbers, they might not, but they're chosen to roughly fit the demands of the role in question. (This may involve learning something in an unfamiliar key, same one for all.) There's room for creativity here; one could pick a Gilbert & Sullivan piece for Maria somewhere amongst the list, for instance.

Here's the rub. Each performer will sing two songs. Which two, they aren't told until a short time before performance, and each will have a separate combination. (With 4C2=6, one could use this for any round with fewer than seven remaining.) Result: direct comparison without everyone doing the same songs, creates interesting 'oh, wonder what would have happened if s/he had done that one' (with possibly hearing some of the rehearsals for the unused songs in the BBC3 shows?), and mirrors the pressure of musical theatre.

Here's a starter; you (assuming daweaver is the only one reading this) can improve on this, not least because ISTR you mentioning having the relevant score for reference also...

Let's hypothetically imagine that we're casting for Wicked, specifically for Elphaba. There's some rather high (the end of Thank Goodness), low (near the end of No Good Deed) and long (at the end of No Good Deed) notes, all sorts of dynamic changes, and all sorts of nasty leaps (Defying Gravity). Here's my selection:

* Born To Try, Delta Goodrem
* Another Place To Fall, KT Tunstall
* Nothing Compares 2 U, Sinead O'Connor
* It's Oh So Quiet, Bjork

First one, that's the range demands covered - see earlier part of the post. (Is there anything higher than Ab5 that Elphaba has to sing?) Second one, I'm not sure about - again it goes low (to E3, in fact, which is possibly lower than is required), and it's got more in common with the 'big' numbers of the show, but there's probably a better choice, perhaps another musical theatre piece. Third one, that's got a big upward leap in the chorus, plenty of room for emotional vulnerability there; bet it'd be savagely cut. Fourth one, well that's almost too obvious.

Consider this just a wild post to start 2008. Tomorrow - back to Southampton. Normal posting will not be resumed until at least Saturday, owing to Internet downtime at the university. Oh wait. I'll be in Fareham Friday, if I get lucky with the Cable Corp connection there then there'll be a blog post...