Soon, it'll be like Gareth Gates never died

American lives never have second acts, they reckon; sadly, British lives too often have a brief interval, and continue to chunter on. So it is that Gareth Gates has decided to not let the brief pop career he won on a television game show fade with dignity, but, instead, is mounting a comeback, complete with an ITV documentary recording the return.

Gates said: "The past five years have been a rollercoaster. I hope this gives people a chance to see the real me."

As opposed, of course, to the fake him - although wasn't the reason he beat out Will Young was because of his open and honest account of himself and his stutter? What does Gareth have left to unpackage?

ITV, of course, knows something about once having been king of the garden and losing its edge.

An ITV1 spokesman said: "This prime-time footage will show the impacts and consequences that fame thrusts upon artists hoping to survive successfully within the pressures of the music industry, and will also showcase some of Gareth's new music as he prepares to re-launch back into the spotlight to do what he loves most."

Hmmm. To be worth showing at prime time, presumably there's going to be a fair level of stuff about how terrible Gareth's life has been. There might be some sort of ethical question about a TV channel suddenly thrusting fame on someone, leaving them to drown in it, and then making a programme about that drowning, but we'd imagine the bloke who does the ethics has gone the way of regional political programming on ITV.

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