Stars in Their Eyes

Host

Chris Tarrant (non-broadcast pilot)

Leslie Crowther (1990-2)

Russ Abbott (1993: Elvis special)

Matthew Kelly (1993-2002)

Davina McCall (2003: 3 Celebrity specials)

Cat Deeley (2003: Kids series 2)

Matthew Kelly (again, 2003-4)

Cat Deeley (again, 2004-6)

Co-hosts

Announcer:
Andrew Brittain
Peter Dickson (stand-in)

Broadcast

Granada for ITV, 21 July 1990 to 23 December 2006 (166 epsiodes in 16 series)

as Star in Their Eyes: Kids, 21 July 2001 (Pilot)

31 August 2002 to 18 March 2006 (Series: 33 episodes in 4 series)

Synopsis

Singer impersonation show. Five people who think they sound like a musical star talk to Matthew about their job, their life and the universe. They then go through the "star door" and (kaboom!) after a few dry ice clouds they suddenly become the star of their choosing. You don't see the bit where they're done up in Make-Up for an hour but still...

The lighting effects do overtime.

They then give a performance sounding like the star of their choice. Of the five, an average of two or three will be people you're guaranteed to have never heard of, the audience has never heard of (but will clap exactly four bars into their song regardless) and the producers have never heard of, but the performances are usually of a high standard.

A member of the public becomes George Michael for the night

At the end of the show, the audience votes for whoever they thought was best, the winners going through to the live final. In the live final, the 12 heat winners (10 from 2000-6) each sing on live television and there is an hour-long phone poll to decide the winner.

The final scores for the 10th series final.

...and "Chris de Burgh" is the winner!

Matthew Kelly congratulates the winner.

Often, record companies watching the show ring up offer contracts to certain contestants and aren't told about it until their amount of votes is read out in the results show. The winners are always the bloke playing Marti Pellow from Wet Wet Wet (even if he isn't actually in the final) and BT who take over a million 0898 calls.

Celebrity special

A special show in 1998 allowed celebrities to become other celebrities (confused?) for a night. It's fair to say there were some surprises.

Promotional postcard for the first celebrity special

Tricia Penrose (actress from Heartbeat) portrayed Lisa Stansfield; Frank Skinner (comedian) was Elvis Costello; Carol Vorderman (Countdown) became Cher, Steven Houghton (from drama series London's Burning) was Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley. Five of the cast of supersoap Coronation Street became The Spice Girls.

Host Matthew Kelly (third from right) with the cast of Coronation Street, before their transformation.

There have been several more of these since then.

Catchphrases

"Tonight, Leslie/Matthew/Cat, I'm going to be..."

Inventor

Based on Joop van den Ende's Dutch format, The Soundmixshow.

Trivia

The finals during Leslie Crowther's era were pre-recorded.

Peter Dickson temporarily replaced Andrew Brittain as announcer when the live final and a celebrity special both had to be relocated to BBC Television Centre because of an asbestos outbreak at Granada's Manchester studios where the show was usually recorded.

Matthew Kelly was inititally hired as caretaker host following Leslie's car accident in 1992, but became permanent when Leslie was unable to return and later died in 1996.

For the first two series (1990-91) the shows were 30 minutes each. From 1992, the shows were 45 minutes each and also filmed profiles of the star guests were added.

In 1994, Greg Bannis landed the job of lead singer of Hot Chocolate after appearing on the show as the group's former lead singer Errol Brown. He's still touring with them to this day.

Champions

Year	Champion	Impersonating
1990	Maxine Barrie	Shirley Bassey
1991	Bernard Wenton	Nat "King" Cole
1992	Amanda Normansell	Patsy Cline
1993	Jacquii Cann	Alison Moyet
1994	John Finch	Marti Pellow
1995	Lee Griffiths	Bobby Darin
1996	Paul Doody	Marti Pellow
1997	Faye Dempsey	Olivia Newton-John
1998	Jason Searle	Neil Diamond
1999	Ian Moor	Chris De Burgh
2000	Garry Mullen	Freddie Mercury
2000*	Nicola Kirsch	Maria Callas (*Millennium special show)
2001	Emma Wilkinson	Dusty Springfield
2002	Stewart Duff	Elvis Presley
2004	Charles Ngandwe	Paul Robeson
2005	Gordon Hendricks	Elvis Presley

Champion of Champions

1999 Ian Moor as Chris De Burgh

Stars in Their Eyes: Kids

2002	Charlotte Geffen	Eva Cassidy
2003	Laura Jenkins	Connie Francis
2004	Paul Cowperthwaite	Michael Jackson
2006	Christopher Napier	George Formby