t has been a long time since I spent my weekends engrossed in a TV talent show, but there’s not a lot else to do on a Saturday night at the moment, which is how I came to be watching Little Mix: The Search and became an enormous fan in the space of roughly an hour and a bit. The show, for the legions of viewers who failed to tune in in sufficient numbers to witness its charms first hand, sees the pop group sort a load of singers into groups, then choose one group to support them on their next arena tour, whenever that may be, should arenas still exist, or tours, or live music. (They don’t say that in the show, that’s just my take, though granted, it does deflate the cheery atmosphere somewhat.) It only took one look at The Search to see that it was set up to lift moods rather than crush dreams. Contestants emerge from a pink tunnel into a pink room that looks like an Instagram filter theme park, where they are greeted by all four members of Little Mix. They chat, sing and their talents are assessed with a blend of warmth and frankness. There is a lot of harmonising and so many variations on the ripped jean that older viewers may wonder if there is a national denim shortage. All the contestants have at least a modicum of talent, but the panel’s assessments are decent and largely kind, without being toothless. Most of their observations had a practical, businesslike edge. Also, it was fascinating to see an all-female panel judging young men on their talents, which felt like a fresh power dynamic for this sort of thing. I don’t think it is a coincidence that the TV competition with the most longevity has been Bake Off, which has always known the virtue of kindness. (If anyone would like a novel-length assessment of why Mak was cheated last week, I have many thoughts.) The Search feels like a throwback to earlier times, to TV talent shows that did not engineer everything towards a storyline at the cost of all else. It comes with a lack of drama, a lack of bickering – Little Mix seem to really, really like each other, which is no small achievement, 10 years after they were forged in the X Factor kiln – and a lack of cruelty, even, but none of that translates into a lack of pizzazz. It is the gently cheering television that the weekends need right now. Simon Armitage sheds new light on the lure of poetry For National Poetry Day on Thursday, the poet laureate, Simon Armitage, did his duty and read a new poem called Something Clicked on Radio 4’s Today programme. He explained on air that it had been commissioned by BT and was intended to celebrate something positive in these troubled times, most of which, from what I can gather, is made possible by having a good broadband connection. I imagine those villagers in Aberhosan who finally discovered that a neighbour’s old television set had been responsible for knocking out their internet for 18 months will truly appreciate the sentiment. Like many people, I have found it difficult to see much of a bright side to the horror show that is this year, but Armitage has an uncanny ability to raise the spirits. Simply hearing him read a poem on the radio was enough to cheer me up. Speaking to the Yorkshire Post recently, he talked of his disappointment at the suggestion that poetry may be dropped as a GCSE English requirement and said that “poetry at school is one of those few occasions when you can experience language for something other than information”. He pointed out that poetry is having a moment of enormous popularity among young people. It is not just among the young. Armitage’s Radio 4 series, The Poet Has Gone to His Shed, in which he talks to guests such as Chris Packham and Antony Gormley, ended in May, but via BBC Sounds, it was one of my favourite lockdown discoveries, as soothing as any freshly baked banana bread. Slowthai: a bum wrap for the rapper At the start of the year, the rapper Slowthai found himself engulfed in a momentary storm when he got drunk at the NME awards, tried unwisely to out-joke Katherine Ryan, a professional standup comedian, then threw a drink into a confrontational crowd. Short clips of the incident circulated on Twitter and it turned into a whirlwind cancellation. Slowthai apologised profusely and sheepishly offered Ryan his hero of the year award; Ryan told everyone that she had not been offended and told him that it would all pass. Last week, Slowthai spoke to Noisey about how it felt to be on his side of that storm. “A lot of the people who were so quick to speak badly of me were people who, the whole time I’ve been doing well, have stereotyped me,” he said, suggesting they felt it was only a matter of time before he messed up. If the “cancellation” summed up something of the era – kneejerk judgments, devoid of context, a narrative crafted regardless of what the participants had to say about it – then the Noisey profile gave him the space to explain it on his terms. It felt like a shift towards a different moment, if not kinder, then at least more capable of grasping nuance. • Rebecca Nicholson is an Observer columnist