TV review: X Factor

Sharon Osbourne returns for the X Factor's 10th anniversary series (ITV) to help boost flagging ratings and it seems to have worked. Audiences were well up on last year's opening show although nowhere near their 2011 peak.

The woman is a loose cannon, sliding under the table with laughter at some naughty Busted lyrics one minute and all mumsy and caring the next. At least, I think she was laughing – it gets harder to tell where the botox Boadicea is concerned.

But she brings fun to the table. As fellow judge Louis Walsh might say, and usually does: "You deserve to be here."

The opening 90-minute show on Saturday – where contestants auditioned in front of the judges only – concluded last night as we followed the successful acts through to the arena phase where they performed on the Wembley stage in front of 4,000.

The stand-out act from the night before, 35-year-old prison officer Sam Bailey from Leicester, opened the show leaving viewers with the uneasy feeling it could only go downhill from here.

Stylistically challenged in unflattering leggings and flat heels but with a big, bluesy voice that left the panel scrambling for superlatives, she is already being dubbed 'the new Su-Bo'.

She was followed by Saturday's other big hitter, 17-year-old schoolgirl Hannah Barrett from south London, who serves up sausage rolls at Greggs at the weekends. Judge Nicole Scherzinger called her 'a little Nina Simone'.

There then came a dip in quality but hey, not everyone can get through. So out went a handful of acts including likeable Luke Britnell, a 19-year-old Justin Bieber tribute act, who had wowed judges in the previous show with his own catchy composition.

Also eliminated was self-styled rocker Fil 'with an F' Henley, who had a lot of glam-rock style hair but no edge. The panel gave him a second chance, warning him to find some attitude. He returned with fake tattoos, took a topless runabout into the audience and smashed two of the judges' water glasses. Ozzy would have eaten him for breakfast. No, really. "You're too nice," head honcho Gary Barlow told him.

The night's final storyline revolved around girl duo Silver Rock, only formed the week before, and which the judges split into two solo acts last night. Cruelly, 22-year-old beauty consultant Jerrie Dilla, whose idea it had been to enter the contest, was sent home while her former bandmate Tamera Foster, stormed through to the next round.

But it didn't always look that way. The freaked 16-year-old had hardly started Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing when she stopped, appearing to be either paralysed by stage fright or to have forgotten the words. It turned out to be the latter as, backstage, her mum and presenter Dermot O'Leary manically hissed the lyrics at her.

She continued to falter but this time was prompted by the judges who helpfully mimed the words for her.

This is, by far, the most watchable beginning of the three-month saga. In between the main players, we enjoyed the daft and the plain dreadful. And how we laugh. It all gets a bit serious later on.

When we returned Foster got back on track, bringing the song to a belting finish that had the audience on their feet. Barlow told this prodigious talent she had "potential beyond belief", while Louis Walsh said she was better than sainted series three winner Leona Lewis. Foster's outsized earrings jangled in disbelief and it proved a rousing climax.

Elsewhere, Walsh invented what we shall call "pen dancing", waving his biro around embarassingly when he got into the music; O'Leary's trousers were eye-wateringly tight; and contestants repeatedly misused the word "surreal", which must be the new "literally". It's time . . . to face . . . a dictionary.