Brewing TV stars is difficult. Just ask Simon Cowell. Talent-spotters earmark an individual with the obvious qualifications. They pick a perky person – let’s call them the “PP” – who has adorned a boyband, or has brought us the weather, or has sizzled on reality TV. If a reliable star-creating formula existed, they’d be onto a winner. The PP would soar straight up to the twinkliest constellation. The movers and shakers would go all out for their chosen one, syphoning the PP onto panel shows, daytime telly and up red carpets.
The strategy, of course, is that, once we are sufficiently exposed to the PP’s charms we – the impressionable viewers – will take them to our hearts and want nothing more than to watch him or her unveiled on The Masked Singer, buy yogurts they claim to adore and listen to them blathering about their passions on a BBC Radio 2 special.
Alas, as Simon will confirm, hatching a star isn’t that simple. The mission to discover someone who exudes the X factor is fraught with frustration and disappointment. Despite the agent’s best efforts, not to mention a hefty investment in a full set of gleaming dental veneers, hair extensions and a Brazilian butt lift for the brave new hope, the perky person tipped for the top can end up leaving the British public stone cold.
No one can explain why, but we simply don’t warm to them. They are the dampest of squibs. They are forgettable. We don’t care for or about them. They may sizzle on paper, but in person they lack the indefinable, elusive and incandescent quality that separates stars from the common herd. They bite the dust.
To the chagrin of media management gurus, stars are like buses. You wait in the pouring rain for ages and then two turn up at once. Stand up Strictly’s Pete Wicks and I’m A Celebrity’s Coleen Rooney. Both could have been consigned to the wheelie bin
of reality TV history, outperformed by fellow contestants, criticised as lacklustre or even worse, consigned as dull viewing.
Instead, Pete dazzled both on and off the dance floor. His self-deprecating humour and dedication, coupled with sultry good looks, endeared him to millions. Coleen lit up the Australian jungle with her down-to-earth charm, deadpan one-liners and robust resilience.
Stars are born, not made. Pete and Coleen, thanks in no small part to supportive mothers, are confident enough to be authentic. Expect to see much more of both, and expect, as I do, to thoroughly enjoy their ascendance.
