THE Beeb promised that their new Saturday night prime time show The Voice would be a celebration of genuine talent — and boy have they lived up to that.

Sorry to return to the programme but this weekend’s double helping was TV gold.

Eat your heart out Simon Cowell.

It showed what great entertainment real singers can provide, rather than the Victorian freak show which ITV keep trying to pass off as family viewing.

I was sceptical about all the hype surrounding The Voice, and particularly the idea of bringing in will.i.am as one of the mentors.

But the man from the Black Eyed Peas has proved to be one of the real stars.

He’s not the ego-driven megalomaniac I’d expected.

Instead his quiet, almost nerdy presence belies a wonderful sense of humour.

This weekend we had the battles, in which singers faced up to each other and belted out a song, with their mentor having to put one through to the live finals and the other being binned off.

Talk about drama, it real was edge-of-your-seat stuff.

Thankfully Pixie and Dixie, or whatever they the obnoxious double act were called, were booted out and the great voices all seemed to survive.

Joelle v Jenny was both a classic and a tragedy as both deserved to go through.

Let’s just hope the live rounds involving the public don’t lapse into X Factor territory.