Frances Grant: A plague on our houses

A tide of song is swamping the telly like a central-American hurricane surge, bringing with it some serious humanitarian questions: will the good done by the charity money raised by celebs in Sing Like a Superstar outweigh the ear-curdling suffering endured by those who watch?

It is perhaps not strictly "slaughter of the innocents" to subject young British public school pupils to the tutelage of aged Kiss frontman Gene Simmons in Rock School, but it's certainly bordering on a violation of human rights.

I normally tend towards the agnostic, but this week, at least, I firmly believe in the vengeful Old Testament God.

He is testing us every time we turn on the telly. Job himself would be squirming in distress and wishing back the boils if he had to endure the aural plague rampaging across our small screens.

That said, I have nothing against NZ Idol, apart from it being awfully old hat. If a bunch of people want to put themselves on stage in front of a barrage of shrieking tweenies wielding glitter-pen posters, or subject themselves to judge Jackie Clarke's eye-watering outfits and flirtations, all power to them. Thou shalt not worship false idols, Yahweh said, and the tweenies are not disobeying. These idols can sing.

The competing teams of celebrities in Superstar cannot. To be fair, one or two show a modicum of talent. Siobhan Marshall's performance hints she may be wasted as a bimbo on drama Outrageous Fortune, and Ghost Hunter Carolyn Taylor proved far more adept at calling up the spirit of Avril Lavigne than the dear departed.

You can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear - but the makers of Sing Like a Superstar have not heard that old saying. They may have surmised that the public enthusiasm for the likes of Tim Shadbolt stumbling about the dance floor would translate to other pursuits. When it comes to singing, it does not. The bad dancing just didn't cross the pain threshold in the same acute way.

TV2's rival show So You Wanna Be A Popstar had not made its debut by press time for this column. So we'll leave open the miraculous possibility that Mikey Havoc playing Simmons may be the genre's saving grace.

In Rock School, the real Simmons is training a new generation about the prerequisites for rock stardom. Singing talent doesn't matter, he insists, it's all about attitude and aggression.

It's thrilling to read on the Guardian website that within the school lurks strong resistance to his creed. The British newspaper quotes a student review from the school's blog: "Poor Gene. In a school debate, he extolled the virtues of money worship and boasted of his 4136 sexual conquests, and you could tell that even his PA hated his saggy chin and implanted hair. His own mother probably doesn't even like him.

"Thanks to the cast-iron self-belief that the man actually had something interesting to preach from Stateside, the posturing continued for hours in a constant stream of verbose twaddle. Yes Gene, we have people like you in Britain, too. They are locked away and given a healthy dose of medication."

Yes, there is a God and His mouthpieces are the babes of the blog.

Meanwhile, I hope those good causes can live with their part in reality telly's bid for cheap'n'cheesy ratings. There's another old saying about being as cold as charity. I'd like to amend that to as tone-deaf.