another good point, this goes back to what Ade said last week about the total money raised for last CR. £60 million sounds like a lot of money (and it is) but it amounts to about £1 per person in the UK, then you take into account the number of larger donations and you see how 'generous' people are

still I enjoyed this year's Comic Relief and did my bit by donating as well as voting for Edith (of my own free will )

I'm guessing Sam Mitchell won't be in Eastenders much in the second half of April, if at all. (the programme is recorded six weeks in advance).

Kim proved that she is a great ballad singer and she has performed in musicals in the theatre before joining Eastenders (which is her first TV role). If the new executive producer decides that the character needs a rest she will probably go back to it.

She went to the Central School of Drama for 9 months and had the singing training that all other acting students have. I read that she then got a part for a few weeks in a 40s musical in the Kings Head Pub Theatre based on her performances at a showcase before she left Central. She also did one night as a character from the beggar's opera. Then she got Eastenders.
Looks like she had some training, certainly no more than any other acting student and it seems, a lot less than everyone is making out.

From day one in FA the judges (especially Lesley Garrett) bleated on about her "trained voice". I think she had the most pressure put upon her she was expected to deliver. I think she did.

the other thing to take into account is the fact that Edith was on Radio 1 daily, and Colin told her on air that they were campaigning for her now sorry but Edith knew that Colin was campaigning for her.
the thing that annoys me is everyone is saying it was for charity but yet accept the fact that edith was constantly being given an unfair advantage over all the other celebrities taking part and to be honest the text voting on friday night was a joke start as Edith starts singing finish as Kim finishes singing.
the final night should have been on thursday so that people could have voted fairly, not on friday when they knew full well that they didn't have any telephone lines available to them.

She was also coached by David and Carrie for the EE Christmas special, which is where I would imagine she was first considered as a serious contender for CFA. She must have had some previous form, she was bookies favourite weeks before the programme started.

Carrie and David were at the show - I didn't think they coached her - can you show me a link that says she was coached by them?

No link I'm afraid - I do remember reading that Carrie and David had quite a big input on that show.

moogester I think you'll find that Carrie & David actually coach Shane Richie and have done for quite some time.

Good grief , why didn't he do CFA then?

I wasn't criticising Kim, I cannot believe she was asked to do CFA on the off chance and she just happened to have a superb voice

can you imagine the conspiracy mongers if he did as he has starred in boogie nights and grease and has released albums, no way could he go in unless they put some class acts in as he is an accomplished singer. I know plenty of people don't like him (me being one) but plenty do.

It's true that the voting can't be completely fair. That doesn't mean we should accept every unfairness that comes along.

A switch to txt voting is a problem in itself. I'm pretty sure one of your own reasons why Kim might not win was that txt voting might favour Edith. And the Radio 1 campaign is a different kind of influence than the scheduling benefits Kim might have received on some nights.

Indeed, I think the unreasonable unfairness of some things is so clear that Edith's fans have had to resort to muddying the waters to try to obscure that fact.

Not quite. Some people will want to pay attention to the singing and the judges commments, and expect to have some time after in which to vote, even if their decision to vote came earlier. Also, voting in advance will not come naturally to many people.

Plus people like me who had voted earlier but were inspired to vote again.

The advantage of going last (if there really is one) has to be relatively small when there are only two singers.
Last edited by Veri : 14-03-2005 at 21:55

Thanks for all that information!

Also, plenty of stage school graduates (including ones who spent years at such schools) are terrible singers. The ones who come out being able to sing well are ones who at least had talent going in. (Something similar goes for the FA teachers' help.)

It was well-known that she had a good voice after the first Xmas EE show. Richard Parks commented on that during CFA.

Agree - it is complex. Interestingly though the public sift out the comics and let the singers get to the end though, and in the finals, singers win.


Celine and Shania wouldn't qualify - they are singers.

The results wouldn't have been any different. Craig voted for Edith in the SF and if you listen to how he defines Edith - as original - and Kim - as nice or beautiful I think it was clear where his vote would go whoever was there.. Lesley voted for Ade in the SF but she didn't have to vote for Edith as Craig already had and Richard certainly would.

Its true radio listeners may listen to their favourite DJ but its also true many won't fork out money unless they like the singing. Its also true many Eastender's fans swoon when babs Windsor is shown on TV suporting Kim or phoning her up or telling people to support Kim. Swings, roundabouts..

it was a singing competition. Ade had no voice for half of it. both girls covered lots of genres, Ade never left the 70s. He did what he was there for though - made people laugh - and then he stood back for the singing final - couldn't have gone better.

Obviously phone would have been better but once they decided to put the CFA final into Comic relief Night itself it was inevitable corners would be cut. I think its shortsighted as they could have got even more out of it rather than fill the evening with some of what they did fill it with but thats what they do every time. Not sure how it matters though as whilst a phone vote might have allowed more older Kim fans to vote, it might have produced the opposite result as the FA audience that preferred David and Alex voted for Edith - who was more in their mould than Kim.

I don't know what difference text voting makes - you would need an exit poll and quite a big one and for all we know the voting was decided by the phone vote after Thursday's show or during Friday anyway. I assumed at first a Radio 1 audience might be younger on average but its much smaller than the Eastender's audience - so does that even things up or change them and if so how? Eastender's has a lot of younger viewers who would be able to vote even if its non texting oldie fans could not. Kim is one of the younger (and younger looking still) stars of Eastender's so you might expect her to have lots of those fans with their fingers primed on send as soon as the final started.

Another unknowable for me is the song choices and styles and their impact on those who were not just voting the radio or TV ticket. Would the texting or the phone generations prefer Edith's mix or Kim's mix of songs, and regardless of that ,which songs as sung on the night would have most appeal. Not sure, for example thar Somewhere Over the Rainbow sung that way is going to enthuse the teenies as much as singing something uptodate like Delta or if those with the Cassidy version might not just be reminded that they prefered Edith's singing style. its not only who has the ability to text - but what they actually like.

Deciding what effect a text vote has gets even worse as the rather large questions of who the public felt sang best on the night, which audience was watching, and who was up at that time of night voting, still remain to decide the vote and for all we know did. At that point it seems wise not to assume what the change to text voting did and just admit we don't know.

True. but there were umpteen posts claiming going last was a disadvantage to Kim. In the first poll there was time to vote and she had the added advantage that Edith was voiceless - in the second the vote was cut off early which might have disadvantaged her. Its the cock ups that matter not who goes first.

If something's unfair, it doesn't stop being unfair just because some other thing is also unfair, or because it doesn't actually make a difference to the outcome.

I don't think the Radio 1 audience is so much smaller when total audiences are considered, even though many fewer will be listening to Radio 1 at any one time than watch Eastenders when it's on.

However, I'm not thinking Edith gets the Radio 1 audience voters while Kim gets the Eastenders ones. Instead:

I think it's likely that, statisitcally, Edith's fans are younger than Kim's. I think that because of the sorts of songs she sings, because she's a daytime Radio 1 DJ (chosen in part because she's popular with the young), and because Eastenders will give Kim fans of an older age that Radio 1 won't give Edith.

Also, probably more of Edith's fans than Kim's listen to Radio 1 (with Edit's ahead even more for Colin's show).

So, Edith's support population will tend to be better able to use txt voting than Kim's (because a greater proportion is young) and will tend to be better informed about the voting switch (because a greater proportion listens to Radio 1).

So the switch to txt voting interferes with Kim's support more than with Edith's.

While it's true that I don't know that my statistical assumptions are correct, they're at least more likely than their opposites. (Does anyone really think that a greater proportion of Kim's fans listen Radio 1 than Edith's or that Kim's fans probably are statistically younger than Edith's?)

[BTW, I use "fans" just as a convenient word. I don't mean that all of them are fans as such.]