Who Dares Sings!

Image:Who Dares Sings logo.jpg



Ben Shephard, Denise Van Outen


ITV Productions for ITV, 28 June to 9 August 2008 (7 episodes in 1 series)


In this competitive karaoke contest, 100 people gather in a studio together with well-known singers Denise Van Outen and Ben Shephard (eh?). The aim of the game is to sing as closely as possible to notes in the original songs in order to potentially win thousands of pounds.

At the start of each show, and after an upbeat but entirely pointless mass sing-a-long, with Miss Van Outen getting far too into it, and Mr Shephard looking far too self-conscious, the game begins. Of the 100 people, five are selected at random, without them knowing to have their vocal skills judged by a computer referred to as SAM. (We assume it was decided to call it SAM, because Sound Analysis Machine sounds really dull). The song strikes up, and the 100 sing again, this time with close-ups of the chosen five interspersed. Their vocal skills are judged by their ability to hit and hold ten pre-determined 'Hot Notes'. The contestants don't know which notes these are, but the audience is shown which they are via the on-screen lyrics. After the songs ends, the two people from the chosen five who were judged by SAM to be the best are invited down to play the next round. At this point, it's time for an advert break. However rather than just getting on with it, we are subjected to another entirely pointless mass sing-a-long.

File:Who Dares Sings hosts.jpgHosts Ben Shephard and Denise Van Outen

After the break, we move on to the Pitch Battle. Here, the two contestants must choose songs from an on-screen 'karaoke songbook', which as the name suggests, largely consists of well-known karaoke classics. As before, they are required to hit and hold pre-determined 'Hot Notes' spaced throughout the song. Their accuracy is measured on a scale of 100, with the contestant who manages to score closest to 100 progressing into the semi-final. Following this, the first round is conducted a second time. Of course this means that of the 100 people in the audience, only ten (five in each round) have any chance of winning at all, and only four of those ten will even know about it. The other 90 are quite literally just making up the numbers. Following this re-run of the first round, a second Pitch Battle is also conducted, to the same rules as before.

After another advert break, and another entirely pointless mass sing-a-long, we move onto the semi-final, aka Pitch Battle 3. As expected, this section follows the exact same rules as the previous Pitch Battles. It might have been nice for the semi-finals to offer something different from the previous rounds, but we digress.

Anyway, after another advert break, preceded by the now obligatory entirely pointless mass sing-a-long, our lone surviving contestant reaches the final. Here they are offered the choice of five songs. Of these they will sing a maximum of three. For the first song they sing, they must achieve a score of 40 out of the maximum 100 to win £5,000. The second song is worth £25,000 if they achieve a score of 60 or more, with the final song being worth £50,000 if they achieve a score of 80 or more. The contestant can leave with the money they have before the second and third songs. However should they attempt a song and fail to achieve the required score, they leave with nothing. After the game ends, the show concludes with another entirely pointless mass sing-a-long.

The show received a generally luke-warm reaction from viewers, and was not picked up for a second series.


"Singing for Sam"

See also

Don't Forget the Lyrics

Night Fever

Weaver's Week review



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