Anyone watching ITV on Sunday evening as a pharaoh’s headdress was yanked pitilessly from my sweating face might have wondered: is this a dignified late career option for a 69-year- old former Home Secretary and a member of Her Majesty’s Privy Council?
To those cynics I say two things. First, you bet. And second, get a life!
When I was approached to appear on a brand new TV show called The Masked Singer that required me to sing, incognito, in front of a large studio audience, I did not hesitate.
Not for a moment. Not even when it turned out I was required to prance around the stage doing my very own version of Walk Like an Egyptian by the Eighties American band, The Bangles.
‘When I was approached to appear on a brand new TV show called The Masked Singer that required me to sing, incognito, in front of a large studio audience, I did not hesitate’
In this new ‘talent’ show, so-called celebrities are forced to dress up, don a mask and compete in a sing-off against another similarly disguised famous person.
The audience then gets to vote for their favourites and after the lowest-ranked singers compete in a losers’ round, a panel of judges, which includes Jonathan Ross, Rita Ora and Davina McCall, gets to guess who they are — before deciding which of them should be unmasked and booted off. Brutal.
Of course, when you write that down on paper it sounds absolutely barmy. But the show has been a roaring success in the U.S., Australia and South Korea, where it first aired in 2015. Even Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds deigned to fly to Seoul to compete in it there . . .
In this new ‘talent’ show, so-called celebrities are forced to dress up, don a mask and compete in a sing-off against another similarly disguised famous person
Each of the contestants is given a new, mysterious identity at the start of the show. It turned out I was to be a pharaoh, in competition with another singer doubling as a Tree. I lost to that Tree, which is something I must learn to live with. And then in the next losers’ round, I was soundly beaten by a Monster and a Daisy.
That’s life, I suppose. I was voted off the show, along with former EastEnders actress Patsy Palmer (who was disguised as a giant butterfly), which at least has the consolation of allowing us to be the first to describe the joys and comical furtiveness of appearing on The Masked Singer.
These days, I describe myself as a ‘writer and ex-politician’. (The emphasis is very much on the ‘ex’ part of that designation. I remain a member of the Labour Party, but hold no office.)
The audience then gets to vote for their favourites and after the lowest-ranked singers compete in a losers’ round, a panel of judges, which includes Jonathan Ross, Rita Ora and Davina McCall, gets to guess who they are
In my own mind, in my private world, I am not a former postman, trade union official, member of Parliament or Cabinet minister. Instead, I see myself as a rock star and always have done.
Even when I left school at 15 with no academic qualifications and packed supermarket shelves for three years until I joined the Post Office, I was dreaming of being the lead singer of globally famous pop group. I was in two bands in my youth called The Area and the In-Betweens. My passion for pop never died in later life.
When I produced four volumes of my bestselling autobiography, all took their titles from Beatles songs. (This Boy: A Memoir Of A Childhood; Please, Mister Postman; The Long And Winding Road; and In My Life.)
I grew up in a two-room slum in West London, where I was a solitary child. But Paul McCartney was my hero.
As a boy, I would mime to his vocals, strumming my beloved older sister’s hockey stick, then trying to fashion my wavy hair into his mop top.
The best thing about appearing on the show is that you are assigned a professional voice coach, something I never had access to as a boy when I dreamed of stardom
Many years later, when I was Education Secretary, I met Macca at a function in Liverpool. But I could scarcely speak to him I was so starstruck. I was a government minister, but I didn’t know what to say to the man I’d idolised since I was 13.
Even now, at 69, I am, if you will indulge me, still a huge pop star waiting for the appropriate levels of fame and wealth to engulf me.
I am also a brilliant and grossly underrated songwriter. When besieged by an early-career midlife crisis at the age of the 32, I sent Elvis Costello, who I much admired at the time, ten of my best songs. I am still waiting for his response.
So all this explains why, when offered the chance of grasping a microphone and performing to millions of people, rather than a few dozen somnolent MPs in the House of Commons as I did for so many years, I did not hesitate. I was all in for The Masked Singer.
I have watched my share of these prime-time TV shows, and I always assumed they were rigged and phoney.
But I can assure anyone that is not true after my experience. The show was recorded back in September, but not a word of my humiliating exit at the first hurdle was leaked. The audience and the production crew must be the most discreet crowd in the land.
As Home Secretary a decade ago I oversaw MI5, but our spy agency could learn something from ITV’s special operations.
The contestants all had our own dressing room. We were not allowed to mingle with each other, and there was certainly no green room where we might have enjoyed a calming glass of wine before our performances.
I could not leave my private space without donning a balaclava and, on top of that, a reflective visor which allowed me to see out, but no one else could see my face. We were not allowed to speak to each other when we passed in the corridors.
While I did tell my wife in strictest confidence, neither my children nor grandchildren knew that I was doing it. Instead, I told them enigmatically to watch the show on Sunday night as they might enjoy it.
I can honestly say I had no idea who any of the other contestants were, or they of me.
The best thing about appearing on the show is that you are assigned a professional voice coach, something I never had access to as a boy when I dreamed of stardom.
The singing is taken very seriously, and you must not ham it up for laughs. You have to prepare six different songs, any one of which you could be required to sing. (Mine included Home by Michael Buble and Take That’s Rule The World.) And you really have to try to do your best.
It would be dishonest to say that I was not disappointed to be voted off.
Worse still, was the moment the judges had to try to guess who I was. They speculated variously that I might have been Ed Balls, Vince Cable or even Ann Widdecombe.
But my favourite reaction after my unmasking was from pop star Rita Ora, who clearly had no idea who I was, but plumped at one stage for Rod Stewart. Typical.
Still, I didn’t feel entirely robbed. When I heard two of my competitors, dressed as a Daisy and a Monster, perform, I knew instantly that they were in a different league from me.
And so, after my defeat, I am now reconciled to the sobering truth that it was not just politics that got in the way of my vocation as a global rock star.
I am just not a terribly good singer, and the judges on The Masked Singer picked up on that painful reality.
In the past 24 hours I’ve been deluged by friends asking me who I think is going to win, and to speculate as to who are the people behind the masks.
I can honestly say that I have absolutely no idea.
But if I had to put a bet on the eventual winner, I’d go for my kinsman Boris Johnson, who is obviously in there somewhere.
I hope it’s the last contest he wins. But I would say that, wouldn’t I?