In the headlights

She stood there trembling; her eyes wide and paralysed like a terror-stricken rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming 18-wheeler. As she opened her quivering lips I thought she was going to scream or perhaps projectile vomit.

Anxious moments passed. She started to breathe erratically and in noisy gasps like one of Dr Kervorkian's patients at the end of a house call. But the real horror was only just beginning.

At first she managed to emit just tea-curdling hissing noises followed by a couple of hoarse grunts. But then she mustered every quivering muscle in her body, gulped another lungful of air and emitted a sound, the likes of which I will never forget. It was frightening.

Chance at stardom

She didn't care, though. To her, this was her chance at stardom in one of South Africa's reality talent searches, but to us it was the sound of a pubescent chicken being slowly mangled in an industrial-strength food processor.

What is it about us that we all have such delusions of adequacy? And it's not just South Africans. Think back to those British Pop Idol auditions with that new age dingbat singing "Cwismis twee, oh Cwismis twee", and you'll understand that this is a universal phenomenon!

What made the pubescent chicken's first and last performance in front of the cameras even more startling was that this competition was to find a gospel singing star. There we all sat, expecting sweet songs of praise, and instead were treated to a foretaste of hell itself!

Utter bewilderment

And she was one of hundreds whose utter bewilderment (possibly due to years of over-zealous praise from dewy-eyed parents) led them to put on their best frocks, queue for hours and then caterwaul mercilessly into the startled faces of the shell-shocked judges.

Now, I'm not trying to be cruel here. And I'm not judging the worth of people by their talent. But please, if your singing voice stops clocks and frightens children and horses, for Pete's sake don't enter a singing competition! Granted, the bible does exhort believers to "make joyful noise", but I don't think the psalmist had reality shows in mind!

Our judges had it particularly tough. They, like me, started out as caring souls, gently encouraging those with voices like strangled macaws to ‘keep at it', and ‘don't give up'. As the day wore on though, the utterances of edification began to take on more sinister tones and double meanings.

Sly panel

Let me explain: on the entry forms there were three main boxes for the judges to tick: 1) No, 2) Maybe, and 3) Yes. So, what the sly panel of professionals eventually started doing after no-hoper contestant number 486, was to shout out in unison, "Number one! Number one!"

At first, I was confused as to why they would be encouraging such outrageously horrendous skirling, but soon I saw the method in their madness. ‘Number one', of course, meant ‘no'!

It was dastardly, but very efficient.

With shouts of acclamation in their ears, the deluded divas and musical deviants could leave the audition confident of having given a winning performance, the judges could smile to themselves happy in the knowledge of not having to ward off hate mail, and the entry forms in the ‘No' basket piled up neatly where they belonged.

To their credit though, I couldn't fault the judges' decisions, and we ended up with 20 semi-finalists who really do have a chance of being worthy of the grand prize of a recording contract with one of the country's biggest music publishers. As for the rest of them, make a joyful noise, but please do it at home.

• Republished courtesy of Screen Africa