With 200,000 original applicants now narrowed down to four, Joe McElderry, Olly Murs, Stacey Solomon and Danyl Johnson this weekend battled it out for a place in The X Factor’s grand final next weekend.

With favourites starting to emerge for next week, the remaining four started off with performances of pop ledgend Michael Jackson’s hits for now. Moonwalking first onto stage was Olly Murs. Having been noted as a “risk” when he made his way through to the live final’s by mentor Simon Cowell, Olly has very much won over the hearts of many-proving to be a great performer week after week. Going for Can You Feel It as his Jackson hit the dancers were back out and the vocals once again resulted in deafening screams from his adoring audience fans-Dannii Minogue, mentor to the last remaining girl in the competition Stacey Solomon, too delighted with what Olly showed.
Due to the fact there’s only four left, like last week, it wasn’t just the one song they had to sing this week and for their second song it was free choice. The Beatles’ track We Can Work It Out was the attempt from Olly and it was no suprise to see Simon Cowell grinning after Olly’s last push to make him a finalist.

Joe McElderry has got the whole of Britain talking of late. With performances that have got all four judges’ on their feet on more than one occasion this series, perhaps pressure could have got to the last remaining “boy” in the show. Singing as his Michael Jackson song She’s Out Of My Life the teenager from South Shields proved again what a contender he is-this before his rendition of Journey’s Open Arms, a great song choice for Joe recieving huge acclaim from all judges.

Stacey Solomon has had a pretty much mixed time of late. At the start of the series Simon Cowell was not entirely impressed yet as things have progressed this view has seemed to chop and change. However, with this week being the semi-final, there was no room for error or mixed judgement but with Stacey performing The Way You Make Me Feel, a giant of the Jackson reign, it didn’t quite get the response she would have wanted, the judges’ failing to see the real, powerhouse that is Stacey Solomon.
Like with her whole series though, she flipped the comments on there heads with her second song. West Side Story hit song Somewhere the track and with notes being hit here there and everywhere her comments for that performance were more than deserved.

Wrapping up the acts this week was Danyl Johnson. As with Stacey, Danyl has been in and out of favour with the judges’, claims of arrogance dominating his early series despite some strong performances. Danyl has bounced back constantly from these judgements though and he was more than determined to show the wonder-Danyl in order to make that final. Man In The Mirror, a song that has became more and more known following the tradgic death of Michael Jackson, was the one he and his mentor of Simon Cowell agreed on and the original favourite of this series sung to the high standard required from the Over 25.
Turn back the weeks a few and you will remember Danyl singing Whitney Houston’s new song I Didn’t Know My Own Strength. With that performance certainly being one to remember from Danyl he decided to relive his Inner-Houston with I Have Nothing. This being an absolute classic it was pivotal he got it right-judging by the audience’s reaction-he did.

After an interesting performance from Lady Gaga and a comeback from Janet Jackson the results were then in. Three would make the final and one would go home. All desperate to make the final it was Danyl who fell at the last hurdle to the final which gave us our final three…
Next week its between Joe McElderry, Olly Murs and Stacey Solomon.
Who will win?

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