Stars In Your Eyes – one viewpoint

Les Dennis, Bonnie Langford, Jim Davidson and Marti Caine were all catapulted to stardom from such shows as Opportunity Knocks, New Faces and even Ted Rogers classic quiz show 321. These were the type of talent shows that gave the Working Mens Clubs variety performers a shot at fame and the chance to climb the ladder to bigger and better things. In 1990 hosted by Leslie Crowther, a new show was spawned called Stars In Their Eyes. This gave the ‘ordinary’ person a chance to be a star for the night by pretending to be someone else. Often the contestants fell into oblivion, but for a few of the lucky ones it opened up the chance to completely change their profession and enter into the world of Clubland and Theatre.
Running for 16 years Stars In Their Eyes made compulsory Saturday night TV viewing, where we cheered for the shy ones, commended the brave and gasped in astonishment at the make up departments talents for the transformations of the contestants ‘into’ the stars they were portraying. Tense nail bighting live finals were the culmination of to the often very exciting season.
Endemol, the Company responsible for many future reality based TV & Quiz Shows recently decided to return Stars In Their Eyes to our Saturday night viewing and have placed Harry Hill as the host. Oh what have they done to this once popular ‘must see’ TV Show. I endured the airing of the first show and sat aghast at the draw droopingly horrendous format it now seems to have adopted. The contestants performances have clearly taken a back seat to the overwhelmingly puerile comedy only Harry Hill seems to be able to have mastered. As I sat with a cushion clutched firmly in front of me for protection I watched in amazement as the contestants are included in this slapstick mania and to a point, even encouraged to participate in such foolhardy nonsensical drivel alongside a handful of non descript Z -listers.
Matthew Kelly, the most prominent host to this show from 1993 – 2004 even makes a cameo in the opening credits. I wonder if he would have done such a thing had he watched the revamped show first?
It may now be predominantly apparent that I am not a fan of Harry Hill, but I was a fan of Stars In Your Eyes — sadly no longer.