France's Nouvelle StAAAAARGH - I beg your pudding!

Have you ever tried making a tarte tartin?

It's a French speciality, much the same thing as an upside-down apple tart with the fruit being caramelised in sugar and butter before being baked. Delicious.

Well it acts as an admittedly rather tortured culinary metaphor for this country's version of Pop Idol, called la Nouvelle Star - although unfortunately it's far from being as appetising.

All the ingredients are apparently there, somehow though the oven has been set at too high a temperature and the whole thing looks as though it's going to be seriously burnt.

For those of you who might not have understood what the blazes I'm on about and think that perhaps I've been popping too many of those little green pills, rest assured I'm fine.

Although after an evening listening to the caterwauling that is supposed to pass for this country's "next big thing", I'm none too certain.

So if your ears are prepared to endure an excruciating assault (you can click on the links provided to hear what I mean) and your eyes are ready to skim through this post, here goes.

Or alternatively you could do, as perhaps I should have done yesterday evening and...Zap.

Still here?

All right - a word of warning. Some of the "performances" (inverted commas absolutely vital) were horrible.

You now have two choices.

If you're really brave enough (or should that be masochistic?) then you can click on the link next to the candidates name for the full length version of their offering for the evening.

All the videos are on the programme's official website so they shouldn't be deleted (although perhaps they should be).

Alternatively you can take a listen here to the so-called "highlights". Ahem. Just three minutes worth and you'll get more than a fair picture of what viewers had to suffer.

A word or two on la Nouvelle Star and how it functions.

It's now in its seventh season and has in the past thrown up some real surprises and introduced some singers who would probably have made it anyway, but were given the extra push by appearing on the show.

Amel Bent (season two, third place), Christophe Willem (season four, winner) and Julian Doré (season five, winner) have all been successful in the French-speaking world, and probably have the talent, voices and following to stick around for a while longer.

Many of the past winners seem to have slipped into obscurity such as Jonatan Cerrada (season one, winner - although he did represent France one year at the Eurovision Song Contest!), Steeve Estatof (season two, winner) and Myriam Abel (season three, winner).

The jury is out on last year's Nouvelle Star, Amandine Bourgeois, as she has yet to release and album.

And that provides a segué into the jury. Yes there is one, comprised of four "heavyweights" from the French music industry.

Another serious clearing of the throat.

They spend several weeks holding auditions held up and down France for hopefuls from this country (of course) as well as Switzerland, Belgium and Canada, before whittling the choice down to the finalists - who then....well you probably know the rest of it, so I shan't explain.

There were 15 who made it through to the last stage in Paris. With one being eliminated by the voting public each week, Tuesday saw them down to the last eight.

The current make-up of the jury is André Manoukian, a jazz songwriter who has been with the programme since it started and makes rather wild and off-the-wall statements.

His most famous this year has been - quite rightly - after being subjected to one of the finalist's performances a couple of weeks ago when he came up with the expression, "I have to admit that there has been an ETC - un erreur terrible de casting"

Then there's Lio, (real name Wanda Maria Ribeiro Furtado Tavares de Vasconcelos), a Belgian singer of Portuguese origin who had several (forgettable) hits in France in the 1980s.

Philippe Manœuvre hides behind his trademark sunglasses come rain or shine and brings yonks of experience as a rock journalist to the show.

Finally there's Sinclair (real name Mathieu Blanc-Francard) who is another singer-songwriter although most French would probably be hard pushed to name one of his hits.

The four have more or less done their job in choosing the finalists and have little say in what happens now as the voting is purely up to the public, although of course after each song they get to "rate" the performance with a "red" (it stinks) or "blue" (thumbs up) and are not averse to having a handbags at dawn moment or two when they disagree.

Anyway, here's that promised selection of contestants still in with a chance of becoming the next Nouvelle Star - in the order in which they appeared on Tuesday night's programme.

First up Mahdi - a favourite of the jury, who was actually a contestant last year but dropped out before the finals for personal reasons. Sadly he didn't make that decision this year.

Here he is murdering a Jean-Jacques Goldman number "Aicha".

Melissa then karaoked her way through one of her favourite songs, the Pointer Sister's "I'm so excited".

"Doing the job of three," said Philippe Manœuvre, giving her the thumbs up. Maybe he should have taken his glasses off. I always find it helps me hear better.

Then it was the turn of the 17-year-old hairdresser Thomas, we know that because we're reminded of it at every available opportunity.

He can sing (now there's a surprise) but is terribly camp and insists on wiggling and strutting his way through a song - this time "Onde sensuelle".

"More Marlène Dietrich, less Liza Minelli next time," was the helpful advice of the jury afterwards. Huh?

Dalé sang what we were told was a Claude François song but in reality was in fact just the French version of a song written and performed by Johnny (good name that) Nash back in the 1970s "I can see clearly".

Next up was Soan (pronounce that Swarn), who took to the stage in a dress and Doc Marten-type boots with the obligatory over-made eyes to give us his rendition of The Cure's "Boy's don't cry".

"Uh sorry - this was done way back when, and you'll never be a Robert Smith, so stop trying." That was the should-have-been fifth member of the jury - me - in case you were wondering.

There was momentary relief as Lary put in the performance of the evening with 10CC's "I'm not in love". Still it was hard to get past the hair.

Leila was next, and after a catastrophic wail the previous week, she "had to improve".

Her solution was to rework "Dès que je te vois" by the sublime Vanessa Paradis.

All right so she looked a little like Vanessa on steroids as she stomped around the stage, but you could tell the jury wanted her to perform well, and she was different enough to get my vote - no I didn't ring in - even if she was as nervous as the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof.

Damien - he of the face made for radio and a voice for the dustbin - then massacred the Corgis "Everybody has gotta learn some time" which brought us finally (hooray) to Camélia Jordana (yes she has two first names).

She's only 16 and clearly the pick of the bunch as far as the jury is concerned, although this time around her version of Marilyn Monroe's "I wanna be loved by you" was not a wise choice.

The warbling was over and all that was left was the result of the vote with the show's presenter, Virginie Guilhaume, calling out each of the successful candidates one by one until there were just two remaining - Thomas and Mélissa.

"And the candidate who will be joining us here once again to continue the adventure," Guilhaume paused for the dramatic effect. "Is Thomas".

So Mélissa out, plenty of hugging and tears - and a huge sigh of relief that it was over for another week.

"Just seven candidates left," Guilhaume reminded us as the she hurriedly wrapped the programme up.

"Join us next week for another exceptional show."

What?

No, sorry Virginie, don't think so.


No, sorry Virginie, don't think so.

Christophe Willem, Jacques a dit