Great Entertainment in Tonbridge....

I'm having a bit of an arty week this week. What with being a judge on Friday night's Tonbridge Has Talent (Tonbridge School, Big School, 7-30pm) I'll be doing my best Simon Cowell impression, giving my honest, positive, and hopefully witty criticism of the acts. There's prize money and school reputations at stake and so the whole thing is taken fairly seriously by the entrants. If last year's event is anything to go by the audience is in for a right old treat. Mind you they'll have to go some to beat the night's entertainment, not as a judge this time, I had on Monday evening at Hillview School for Girls' Stars In Their Eyes Celebration of Talent held at the Angel Centre. There was Cheryl Cole, S Club, Rhiana, Myria Carey to name just a few. There were solo singers, duets, quartet, rock groups, dancers, you name it. They were all superb, and I'm not just saying this because my daughter goes to the school, if you ever get the chance to go to their perfomance evening you really should make the effort. The vast majority of the girls are genuinely enthusiastic about performing arts and quite a few of them West End Standard, I kid you not. There's are always one or two outstanding perfomances and, if I was forced to single them out, apart from my daughter's dance routine of course, I'd say that the Witney Houston "I Will Always Love You ou a ou a hooo" was technically the best and the Nina Simone A New Dawn, A New Day and I'm Feeeeling Goooooooooooooooooood! just brought the house down. And incidentally the two comperes, sorry I'm rubbish with names but I know they were the dance and drama teachers at the school, held the whole night together with their larking about which is actually quite tricky to do without straying into stretching and straining the jokes. They always knew how far they could push it with the audience and when to introduce the next act. In fact I'd much rather see them than Horne And Corden presenting the Brit Awards this year. And as if that weren't enough, on TV last night I was treated to a double bill of the new series of Shameless, which I never even knew they'd made, and then there's all new Mad Men this evening. How much better can it get! I wish every week could be as packed full of quality entertainment as this week....