Star Academy: more on the evaluations

Just been watching the "rattrapage" clips where Eva, Lucie, Mathieu, Noemie, Claudia and Yaelle all tackled Amel Bent's excellent "Le droit de l'erreur" in their own way. Eva was good although tried to stick too closely to the original; Lucie provided a more dramatic and different rendition on the piano; Mathieu was OK; Noemie was - well, let's just apologise in advance to any strangled cats reading this, because that's what she reminded me of. Claudia again stuck to the original arrangement, and Yaelle provided her own individual take even if it wasn't quite what they were looking for.

Hadn't seen last weekend's evaluations till tonight, you know who I watched first - none other than lovely, charismatic Quentin who did another one of his jazzy funky songs accompanied by a bit of acapella and beatboxing from his fellow students. I would really like to hear him singing something by Sinclair as I think that would really suit his vocal style.

Jeremy is my other favourite of the boys and he did a nice acoustic ballad.

"Fashion faux pas" might be the best way to describe Bertrand, but behind the crazy image and big personality he actually has quite a good voice and hopefully he'll be there for a while yet.

Alexia did very well, she has good vocal control and I think she will go far. I can also see Claire-Marie hanging on for a few weeks yet.

Current top of the class and most fascinating of the girls, Maureen, also went down the jazzy route.

It's a really strange one this year - more singer-songwriters and different musical styles, it's Star Academy but not as we know it. Less 'variete' and more variety.