The Voice UK. Discuss.

Now then folks. The Voice UK. Addictive viewing isn’t it! (Note: “addictive” does not necessarily mean “nice”, I mean take crack cocaine for example.)

Danny, the incredibly handsome and charming Irishman, has his big chance to become more mainstream. This roughly translates as: Danny, of whom most of us have been hitherto unaware, has suddenly erupted into the nation’s (mostly female) consciousness because, let’s face it, we all secretly want to ruffle his hair.  Can he actually sing? We have no idea and it’s mostly irrelevant since it is unlikely to diminish our enjoyment of him on our screens every Saturday night.

Most viewers of my age or above may have felt a certain amount of relief when Will.i.am mentioned “The Peas”, and particularly when he mentioned “starting The Peas”, because we have heard of the Black Eyed Peas even if we have not up to now considered ourselves cool enough to call them “The Peas”. But at least from that point in the programme on we felt considerably cooler because he is, of course, Mr Cool out of all the coaches, and now we can place him as well. It’s a win-win.

Jessie J is Boxer’s favourite singer, so I for one knew all about her, as did, I imagine, most Mums of little girls. It’s difficult to determine if it’s cooler to know about Jessie J or not to know about her. I mean, she is very young, and her target audience is very young, but on the other hand she is strangely likeable on the programme, mainly because she knows she cannot name drop like the others and is very self-effacing about it (“Woo! I met Justin Bieber once!”), and because she weeps on prime time TV. Also, it turns out she can actually sing! Clearly this means that she is not quite the manufactured young female pop star we have been subjected to over recent years, which makes us like her even more.

Sir Tom Jones. The only man on the planet, and definitely the only person on the coaches’ panel, who has enough charm and wit to name-drop with impunity. So what if it’s a thinly disguised way to attract a younger fan base by appealing to the BBC’s audience on prime time Saturday night TV? And if he has to lower his standards by singing someone else’s songs in an oddly-matched, randomly assembled quartet, then so be it. Sometimes these sacrifices just have to be made. It just leaves me pondering what on earth possessed Sir Tom to take up The Voice UK cudgel. I mean, I cannot believe he’s in a tight spot, financially. He’s not short of fans or renown. Does he need an extra million to buy a racehorse or a 747? I seriously doubt it. Someone talked him into it. Someone who should be brought in at once to sort out Afghanistan by talking the Taliban into abandoning their life of crime and suppression, chucking their weapons into the sea and retiring to the mountains to tend goats and grow organic tomatoes.

However, let us not beat about the TV ratings and general broadcasting skulduggery bush. The main reason we are so enamoured of The Voice is because it beats Britain’s Got Talent into a cocked hat, and it means that we now have at our disposal some blindingly brilliant diversionary tactics with which we can effectively distract our children from the awful cringe-worthiness of BGT and in particular Simon Cowell’s pathological inability to be respectful to anyone. And by the time they have realised that BGT is on, it’s past their bed time and we don’t need to subject ourselves to it at all. Four yesses!