I have just finished reading Ben Elton’s book Chart Throb.

While I enjoyed it, I am sure I was missing out. It is supposed to be a satire on all those Pop Idol/X-Factor sort of television programmes, but as I haven’t actually watched any of them I couldn’t really say if it works as a satire.

However, we do manage to absorb a lot of information about these shows without having to watch them (a point made in the book), so I could see that the main characters in the book are supposed to represent Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh – although Elton is careful to avoid litigation by making sure all three are referred to.

I found the book funny, but not as funny as some of Ben Elton’s other novels, and the target for the satire is rather too close to the target in Dead Famous: just another aspect of reality television. However, it was still enjoyable.

I do wonder how much of the detail about the programme’s manipulation of the contestants and audience is speculation, how much is exaggeration and how much the result of some inside knowledge. What I do know is that even the most outrageous stuff seems at least vaguely plausible.

Some of the satire feels clumsy. The way the judges always make variations of the same comments for example. But for all I know it might not be clumsy but totally accurate. One thing is certain, I am going to have to watch a couple of episodes of X-Factor or Pop Idol (whichever one has Cowell, Osbourne & Walsh in) just to see if it really is that bad.

Structurally, the book tells the story of the making and broadcasting of a series of the fictional show Chart Throb from the sifting of application letters, through auditions and then various stages up to the live finals. At the end there is a bit of an unexpected twist – by which I mean that it didn’t seem like the sort of story to have a twist at the end.

I think it might be worth re-reading after actually seeing an example of what the book is taking the piss out of. As someone who is naturally cynical of reality TV I find it easy to believe the central premise of the book, that the whole thing is orchestrated for entertainment rather than for any genuine attempt to discover or create proper singers. I’m not so sure they go to the extremes of writing story arcs for all the contestants and then manipulating them into following those arcs, but even so seeing fictional examples of how editing can make all the difference in how someone is presented was interesting.