First let me say I'm over the moon with the Jodie win.
But where did the ALW & CM machinations go so horribly wrong for them ( towards the end there, it was an anybody but Jodie campaign!)?
Was it when ALW threw out Sarah at the first chance. I think if she had went on in the competition she would have been the most likely of the girls to challenge Jodie for her natural demographic so splitting some of the vote off.
Whether this would have been enough to allow a younger filly through on the rails I don't know?
As it was the younger girls split there demographic completely.
What do you think?
By the way I think Jodie certainly deserved to win on merit.

For me I think they lost it when they didn't give the viewers clearer guidelines as to what they wanted Nancy to be. We were given so many different types of Nancies and the programme gave the impression that we were voting for a "type" of Nancy. People went for the "traditional" Nancy in the end but, if CM and ALW really wanted a "raw" Nancy then they should have given the girls songs to reflect this and the audience could have voted on this.

I've nothing against Jessie but hate the behind the scene machinations.

Last night's show was clearly set for Jessie to win. E.g. She had the best musical arrangement when they sang As Long As He Needs Me. I noticed that when Jodie sang at the end it was a similar arrangement to Jessie's.

When did it all go wrong? They tried to be too clever by not making the chosen one the stand out winner from the beginning. A few weeks ago we got the beginning of the drip-drip persuasion. ALW mentioned a number of times that Nancy could be Irish. He gave some stats re Irish in London. But at that point there were other Irish Nancies still in the comp. - Niamh & Rachel.

There was talk of the 6 months before the show opens and there's plenty of time to teach/train a raw/untrained girl. Then there was the younger/older Nancy debate and a few fattist comments along the way. But it just didn't work. I'd have loved to be at the after-show de-brief.

I think this is spot on. The producer seemed to be clear that he wanted a less sterotypical stage Nancy to fit in with the new production. Given that the judges initially and then the public were playing the role of casting director, they should have been given the approprate brief.

Problem is when you're casting a role in this way - on a family entertainment show - you need to appeal to a wide audience. Not surprisingly Jodie, the traditional style Nancy appealed to the public who did not share the producer's vision for his show.

You know I just wonder whether Andrew saved Sam last week to help this happen. Cameron was counting on having Rachel in the final as he thought she'd share Jodie's vote. When ALW saved Sam he made sure this wouldn't happen. I'm probably being far too kind to ALW in letting myself even think this but there is a tiny doubt in my mind. Is this result ALW's 2 fingers to CM?

Exactly.

So where it went wrong really was in the choice of this production on which to base a competition based on the popular taste when the director really wanted something unusual.

Cam Mac bleating 'Jessie is Nancy' in the final show was just pathetic. Silly man. I don't see how 'Judy Garland' Nancy is that new an idea anyway.

The choice of the twelve was very strange if they wanted a young raw talent - they should have all been untrained and under 20. If they'd been that committed to it being someone young and untrained why put all those more mature and trained people in in the first place?

Maybe ALW has a show in mind for Jessis to be his star.

The way i see it is CM has no right to moan aout who the public chose, after all, HE decided to have the role picked through a TV talent show so he could get lots of free publicity for his show, If he wanted a certain type of person for the role then he should have simply auditioned the normal way and not have been greedy for free publicity. As he got all the publicity etc, and he also got a nancy who is very talented and loved by the british public, also a girl who is consistant in her performances, hes not really done badly at all.