Judges' houses: The Groups

The show continues and, with Robbie Williams selecting his four groups, we will know half the acts for the Live Shows by the end of this edition.

I thought it would be a pretty straightforward choice. But I was wrong.

LMA Choir

Almost everyone says at some point that, whilst there are some good individual singers in this big mass of people, we never really get to know them or to see them shine. At best, we see someone for a few seconds and, no matter, how good the choir's interpretation of a song may be, it is still a sort of distant bit of entertainment and not anything we can feel connected to. Their Hold Back The River is good enough but it just seemed to be a group of individuals singing and left me feeling nothing great at all. BGT material, really.

A* or maybe A Star

The two youngsters. Back To Life starts as a bit boring but then they bring it to life and take the track in a completely new direction. The girls are too young to call 'hot' as Robbie or maybe Dermot wanted to say but stopped as we are now in an era where I can't even write that without getting sent abuse. They look good and you'd certainly not guess they were merely 14 and 15! They are current and very together and their audition went down very well. I can see them succeeding whatever happens but they should make the Live Shows.

Panda & Burgandy

Ain't No Mountain High Enough started way off key. This was all very old-style and not really that good. They seemed to be two separate acts. It got a bit more solid and they can each perform but really they are fortunate to have got this far. This has to be the end of the road, despite a possible 'TV' appeal of the pair.

Vibe 5

They look very good but didn't do at all well as a group singing.They have five very different voices and the nasal, high stuff was not great. Some harmonies worked and they seem likeable, not that we really got much character coming through. There is no obvious lead or style or, for that matter, market for an average white boy band. I'm not at all sure they're worth pursuing any further.

Sweet Sense

They do 1D's History and it's an OK sort of audition but lacking anything we'll remember. They're good together and have much more personality than the boys. I can recall previous Judges' Houses, especially at Simon's House with the girls on X Factor USA, when some real class performances were put together and they stay in one's mind, even for acts who didn't do a great deal afterwards. Drew Rienowicz, and I may have got her last name a little wrong, for which I apologise to her now, for example, was absolutely stunning. I expected so much more from these girls.

Misunderstood

Now here is a good group. These two guys are brilliant and will surely fly through to the Live Shows. They sang their own number - I think that could be a first for Judges' Houses - which was London Girls and that was a sure-fire hit. Far superior to every other act there by a huge margin. They could well win the whole thing.

My votes go to Misunderstood, A Star, Sweet Sense and LMA.

Robbie chooses Vibe 5 instead of Sweet Sense. Oh well. They'll go pretty early unless the intervening weeks gets them serious coaching and performance advice.