The Ex Factor. Gest with former partner Liza Minnelli. Photograph: Yui mok/PA
Ever mindful of his image as stone hearted executioner, Simon Cowell has at last culled both Louis Walsh and Kate Thornton from the X Factor with David Gest lined up as a replacement for Walsh. It's long overdue.
Ever since he guided the unfancied Popstars: The Rivals spawn Girls Aloud to the Christmas number one spot in 2002 (effectively ending the career of lantern-jawed bozos One True Voice) Walsh has been an increasingly irrelevant figure, mismanaging his X Factor acts with poor song choices and fussing his way through erratic crowd appeasing performances on the judging panel. And Thornton's broadcasting persona appears to have been modelled on a less edgy version of Malibu Stacey; she is possibly the best living example of the star who rose without trace.
The changes are welcome but they must capitalise on Gest's appointment. Don't get me wrong, in principle The X Factor format is great - the weekly Eurovision where YOU decide never fails to produce terrific drama, (not least when £200,000 of the public's money gets misplaced and our hero David is no stranger to phone vote intrigue . But to echo a favourite Cowellism (or, indeed, Minnellism), it's become very Cabaret. It seems to be based around a fictitious stardust-sprinkled music industry that never existed.
Gest's years in the business make him the perfect person to inject some reality into the show. More of the boot camp episodes (held in Gest's plush Albino Heights hotel could be given over to real-life music industry skills like Lessons in Cloaking your Sexuality for boy bands and Rehab for Dummies where our plucky hopefuls are shown how to hide meds under their tongues and the Quickest Way to Scale a 9 ft Wall Without Being Papped (a marriage to Liza Minnelli will make you an expert in such matters.)
As 2004 winner Steve Brookstein plays to crowds of barely over a hundred, it's time we faced some facts about the X Factor. For too long it's been portrayed as a kind of Jim'll Fix It show which makes contestants' dreams come true when we know the music industry will just chew them up and spit them out.
It's about time we started preparing the X Factor contestants for their inevitable downward spiral into mental breakdown - a territory Michael Jackson's best friend knows only too well.
