Media Reviews?

This one came from the Media Thread and is probably one of the few actual reviews I have seen:

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'Joyful Noise' tour hits a flat note
Elyssa Andrus DAILY HERALD

After being named runner-up on the Fox reality talent competition "American Idol," releasing two successful albums, and attracting a legion of screaming prepubescent female fans, Clay Aiken has made a truly bizarre career choice: He has cast himself in a high school musical.

At least that's what it felt like watching his "Joyful Noise 2005" tour at the Delta Center's Nu Skin Theatre on Tuesday night.

The first half of the roughly two-hour show featured a script that Aiken wrote himself. It stars the orange-haired crooner as a sort of magical, white-suited angel narrator who can freeze time and is given to bursting into song.

The script itself is so riddled with cliché that one couldn't help but be embarrassed for the actors, for Aiken himself, and for everyone in the audience.

Basically, the plot revolves around a crotchety but tender old widow, Beverly, who is sad at Christmas because her husband is dead and her son doesn't call. Tommy, a neighborhood boy from a broken home, pays a visit hoping for attention and cookies. Both -- this will shock you -- rekindle the Christmas spirit. Peace on earth, goodwill to men, and so on, and so on.

Starring Aiken's former high school music teacher as the widow, the production serves as a framework for Aiken to run through a number of popular Christmas tunes, hymns and songs from his own Christmas album.

The acting and dialogue bear an eerie resemblance to the aforementioned high school musical, complete with over-exaggerated gesturing and pure, sweet schmaltz. (Says Bev to Tommy: "I think Christmas is a holiday for everyone, and it just takes kids like you to show us that.")

There is also, and I'm not making this up, a Christmas pageant scene within the Christmas musical.

What's saddest about the whole hokey production is that Aiken is one of the last people in the world who needs this sort of desperate embellishment.

All he really needs is an orchestra and a microphone.

Aiken's appeal has always been rooted in his stunningly powerful voice, and not the lounge singer-esque persona he sometimes slips into.

Early rumors of the pageantry may have influenced ticket sales, because even with the Delta Center's Nu Skin Theatre configuration, more seats were empty than filled.

Still, there was a moment, at the beginning of the concert's second half, as Aiken sang "O Holy Night," when all of the bad acting and fake snowflakes fell away. And at that point it was easy to remember why people love Clay Aiken.

It's the voice, stupid.

In fact, the entire second half of the production -- when the "musical" calmed itself down and Clay sang several Christmas hymns -- was measurably better than the first half.

"We took a few risks this year," said a very tongue-tied Aiken at the end of the show.

Indeed.

But perhaps I'm being too harsh on the show in general. Clay loves his family. He used to teach special education. He's an ambassador for UNICEF. If he wants to write and star in his own corny musical, well, he's a UNICEF ambassador, for crying out loud. Let's cut him a little slack.

And skip the first half of the concert entirely next time.

SALT LAKE CITY REVIEW