In the embryonic days of UK TV talent shows, Darius Campbell Danesh – whose death at the age of 41 was announced on Tuesday – did two genuinely revolutionary things. Firstly, he succeeded in making a song his own – the holy grail of TV talent shows – via his gloriously OTT rendition of Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time on Popstars in 2001. Dressed somewhere between a roll-necked Steve Jobs and a swashbuckling musketeer, he became the instant star of a show that spectacularly failed in its remit to create stars.
For his second trick, he re-emerged later that year looking like a matinee idol and singing like Elvis to finish third on Pop Idol and later land himself a UK No 1 single with Colourblind. Reality TV is all about narratives and often they can build up around people and solidify like cement; somehow, via an alluring mix of naivety, panache and genuine talent, Darius was able to rewrite his.
