Who’s that behind the mask?
The Masked Singer is a British reality singing competition Talent Show television series hosted by Joel Dommett that began airing on ITV in 2020. It is based on the Masked Singer franchise which originated from the South Korean series King of Mask Singer, but it is more similar to the USA version of The Masked Singer.
Twelve contestants dressed in elaborate costumes go head-to-head with each other, with a panel of judges and the studio audience voting for their favourite performance. The losers of each match-up gather at the end of the episode, and the judges decide which contestant will be eliminated and revealing their identity. The original judges were Ken Jeong, Davina McCall, Rita Ora, and Jonathan Ross.
The show was renewed for a second series that began airing on 26 December 2020. This was the first series to feature Mo Gilligan on the judging panel, as Ken Jeong was unable to participate due to travel restrictions from the COVID-19 Pandemic. A third and fourth series began airing in 2022 and 2023, respectively, and both series debuted on New Year's Day. Following a Christmas special, the fifth series began airing on 30 December 2023.
Just like the US version, a spinoff called The Masked Dancer (UK) started airing in 2021: Joel, Mo, Davina and Jonathan all return, but Rita is absent, with her spot on the judging panel taken by two-time Strictly Come Dancing professional champion Oti Mabuse.
Winners
- Series One: Queen Bee (Nicola Roberts)
- Series Two: Sausage (Joss Stone)
- Series Three: Panda (Natalie Imbruglia)
- I'm A Celebrity Special: Koala (Vernon Kay)
- Series Four: Rhino (Charlie Simpson)
- I'm A Celebrity 2023 Special: Dunny (Joe Pasquale)
- Christmas Special: Partridge (In A Pear Tree) (Ainsley Harriott)
- Series Five: Piranha (Danny Jones)
Runner-Ups
- Series One: Hedgehog (Jason Manford)
- Series Two: Badger (Ne-Yo)
- Series Three: Mushroom (Charlotte Church)
- I'm A Celebrity Special: Kangaroo (Sinitta)
- Series Four: Phoenix (Ricky Wilson)
- I'm A Celebrity 2023 Special: Bearded Dragon (Myleene Klass)
- Christmas Special: Reindeer (Carol Vorderman)
- Series Five: Bigfoot (Alex Brooker)
Third Place
- Series One: Octopus (Katherine Jenkins)
- Series Two: Robin (Aston Merrygold)
- Series Three: Robobunny (Mark Feehily)
- I'm A Celebrity Special: Wichetty Grub (Alison Hammond) and Cockroach (Russell Watson)
- Series Four: Fawn (Natalie Appleton)
- I'm A Celebrity 2023 Special: Huntsman (Linford Christie) and Wombat (Andy Whyment)
- Christmas Special: Sprout (Tony Robinson) and Decorations (Julian Clary)
- Series Five: Cricket (Lemar)
This show provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Invoked and enforced, with videos known as "clue packages" dropping all sorts of hints as to who the singers really are, from obscure to rather blatant.
- Animate Inanimate Object: Series three has the most of these with Chandelier, Bagpipes, Firework, and Traffic Cone. Other series include Grandfather Clock, Knitting, Rubbish, Maypole, Eiffel Tower and Air Fryer.
- Anthropomorphic Food: The third series has Doughnuts, while the fourth series has Piece of Cake and Jacket Potato.
- Back for the Finale: The grand final opening acts have the eliminated singers join the three remaining singers on stage for a final time.
- Bling of War: Fox's outfit could be summed up as a fox meets a disco ball. Joel once joked that her outfit was constantly blinding at least one audience member during the performance.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: As Guest Judge, Matt Lucas combined both extremely outlandish guesses with more sensible ones. In the case of Harlequin, he provided two potential guesses, one deliberately ludicrious (Jedward) and one more sensible (Gabrielle) which turned out to be correct.
- The Bus Came Back:
- After the first series, the winnier of the previous series would return as a guest judge in the final.
- In the third series, each of the finalists got to perform a duet with a contestant from an earlier series. This was continued in the fourth series.
- Bush Baby from the second series returned to give clues about the contestants in the 2022 crossover special with I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!.
- There have been a few occasions where the masked celebrities have turned out to be someone who had previously been on another version of the show. Jellyfish in the fourth series is an odd example, as the UK series was filmed before she went on the US version, which aired all of its episodes of that series before the UK version.
- Christmas Episode: 2023 had the show's first Christmas special, which followed a similar format to the I'm a Celebrity specials with four contestants in Christmas-themed costumes who were all unmasked one by one within the same episode.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Ken. Rita and Jonathan can also come across as this sometimes as well.
- Clueless Detective: Just like the American version, Ken Jeong is one due to his over-the-top and nonsensical guesses.
- Jonathan Ross also comes off as one.
- Matt Lucas was also this during an episode where he was a guest judge.
- Commercial Break Cliffhanger: Often done to delay the results of the individual matchups. The third series tones this down by either having the voting take place during the break, or the voting and result being revealed before it.
- Costume Evolution: Some of the contestant's costumes will get a slight upgrade between episodes. For example, in the first series, Daisy's outfit became more sparkly and she wore different sunglasses, while in the second series, Harlequin's mask changed from white to gold. Sausage also had a subtle one - the headline on the newspaper chip cone changed in each episode, while in the third series, Traffic Cone would change the jacket or accessories they were wearing each week.
- On a technical level this was the case for Octopus in Season 1 with wheels being added to the underside of the costume due to how bulky it was.
- Costume Porn: Like the international versions, all the contestants are hidden under elaborate costumes that covers their entire body. Some of the backup dancer's outfits also qualify, as do Joel's suits.
- Crossover: With I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in 2022, with a special episode in which former I'm A Celebrity contestants compete on The Masked Singer in I'm A Celebrity-themed costumes. There was another special with 4 more contestants from I'm A Celebrity in 2023.
- Elimination Catchphrase: Right before a contestant is unmasked, Joel will say "Who's behind the mask? Take it off!" Then the judges and audience will keep chanting "Take it off!" until the mask is off.
- Elimination Statement: After being unmasked, the contestants will be asked why they did the show, and also do a reprise of the song they sang earlier in the episode with their mask off.
- Female Feline, Male Mutt: In series 3 they had a male Poodle in a head to head against a female Snow Leopard. Also in the Love theme week Poodle sung 'What's New Pussycat?' where in the performance he was flirting with female cats.
- Foreshadowing: As in all other editions of The Masked Singer, the intros for each performance contain a variety of subtle clues for the identity of each contestant. Clues are also provided after the performance, and in one round, the acts sing songs which provide clues about their true identities.
- Hidden Depths: Rock star Skin covering opera and Stormzy? Katharine Jenkins covering Disney songs? The show is full of singers performing songs they wouldn't be expected to cover in other circumstances. Aled Jones, who was revealed to be Traffic Cone in Series Three probably summed it up best: as someone who is best known for singing the kind of music, and presenting the kind of shows that your Gran likes, he admitted probably wouldn't have had a chance to perform such upbeat party songs such as "Never Going To Give You Up," and "The Pina Colada Song," anywhere else. Additionally, some of their clues can reveal facts about them that most people didn't previously know.
- Politician Alan Johnson and footballer Teddy Sheringham were the only contestants on Season One with no prior singing experience note , so seeing them unmasked as Pharaoh and Tree respectively was quite a surprise to many.
- The second series revealed that Sue Perkins is really good at singing, having made it to the semi-final before being unmasked as Dragon. The other remaining contestants at that point were professional singers.
- Zig zagged with Glenn Hoddle, who turned out to be Grandfather Clock in Series Two. He is primarily known as being a football (soccer) player and coach, but did have a brief stint as a pop star back in the 80’s as a duo with fellow footballer Chris Waddle..
- Subverted by footballer Michael Owen, who was revealed to be Doughnuts in Series Three - he was great at getting everyone to get up and dance to his performance's and creating a party atmosphere, but was somewhat lacking in the singing department.
- The 2023 Christmas Special winner, Partridge (In a Pear Tree), was revealed to be none other than famous chef Ainsley Harriott.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Despite the fact that he was dressed as his country’s most famous export and sang his own very famous song, the panel still couldn’t work out that Viking was Morten Harket of a-ha..
- The Host: Comedian Joel Dommett hosts the show.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: If there's a pun to be made, expect host Joel Dommett to make it.
- Insane Troll Logic: Guest Judge Matt Lucas guessing that Badger in Series 2 was Boober Fraggle from Fraggle Rock from a clue in video package that Badger's like to look out for people, and somehow linking that to lighthouses.
- Rita's attempts to try and suggest that Robin was actually a flock of ravens underneath the costume in Series 2, and then somehow managing to link a tap dancing to tap water in Series 3 came off as this. The last one even got her a Flat "What" from a very confused audience member.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Each episode after the first shows the previous celebrities who were unmasked in the opening, though later seasons toned this down and only featured it in the finale. Additionally, the finales of season 2 and 3 had the previous season's winner make an appearance, spoiling their identity in the process, and starting from the third season some of the previous contestants would return to duet with the finalists and be unmasked afterwards. Also, as a crossover from the US version, one episode in the first season had a contestant from there as a guest judge, while bringing up what his costume was.
- Leitmotif: Each of the singers have a snippet of a song that relates to their costume in some way - for example, Monster having "Monster" by The Automatic and Octopus having "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid (1989) - that plays when they're first introduced to the show, and after most of their performances.
- Multilayer Façade: When Ghost is unmasked, it turns out that he's wearing a skeleton mask and costume underneath his mask costume. As a result, he does the Dramatic Unmask twice.
- Mutual Masquerade: It's not just the panel and the audience who don't know who the contestants are; the singers themselves don't know who they're competing against. They don't even get to find out until the show has aired on TV months later, with the exception of Jellyfish in the fourth series, who was told after being unmasked that one of the songs she'd performed earlier was by a band that the previous unmasked celebrity had been in.
- Product Placement: The fifth season prominently featured Amazon delivery boxes in several of the clue VTs.
- Pungeon Master: Host Joel Dommett. It got to the point where he started introducing the panel in each episode with puns of a random theme that often had nothing to do with the actual episode content.
- Red Herring: Often employed, with varying degrees of effectiveness. The "Two lies and a Truth" section in the second round is a particularly notable source of misdirection.
- Refuge in Audacity: Some of the judges' guesses as to who is performing are so bizarre they make left field look right field.
- Running Gag: Jonathan Ross will always guess that one of the female contestants will be Mary Berry in each series, especially if the costume or one of the clues involves food.
- Rule of Funny: You get the sense that some of the names are said just to invoke this, as some of the guesses as to who are under the masks are so outlandish and improbable that they are clearly not meant to be taken seriously.
- Samus Is a Girl: Sometimes the judges attempt to invoke this by guessing the opposite gender to what the contestants appear to be. They're almost always wrong.
- Played a bit straighter with Dragon, who the judges are implied to have initially believed she was a man until she started singing. This is probably because the second season has more variation in the disguised speaking voices than the first, as well as the fact that not all of the female costumes have eyelashes.
- It's easy to think Sausage is a man if you haven't heard her sing, but even while disguised her speaking voice shuts that down quickly.
- Panda's outfit in the third series appears to be that of a boy, but their singing voice sounds like a woman's.
- The third series also has a gender-inverted version with Lionfish, who appears female at first but has a male singing voice.
- Similar to Panda in series three, Owl in series five was dressed up in a male school uniform, but the singing voice was that of a female.
- Sarcastic Confession: At one point in the competition, the contestants play "Two Lies and a Truth". One of Monster's statements was "I am Cee Lo Green" (based on the panel's guesses), which was eventually revealed during his unmasking to be the truth.
- Secret Identity Vocal Shift: When not actively singing, each of the contestants speak with an electronic voice filter. Some of them also speak with fake accents to further the disguise - Bush Baby, for example, spoke with an exaggerated Australian accent, while Bagpipes and Ghost both spoke with exaggerated Scottish accents.
- Ship Tease: Joel and Fox were teased quite a bit. When Fox sung "On My Own", she ended her performance by hugging a picture of Joel which she didn't realise was upside down.
- Squee: Both Rita Ora and Joel Dommett react like this when two of their teenage crushes are unmasked in the Series 3 grand final: Rita when Mark Feehily is revealed to Robobunny, and Joel when Natalie Imbruglia is revealed to be Panda.
- Joel gets another squee moment in Series 4 when he rumbles that Rhino is the lead singer of one of his favourite bands. It should be noted the Joel worked this out after Rhino’s first performance on voice recognition alone - it took the panel until halfway through the series until they started suggesting the same name.
- Stock Animal Diet: Used as part of some of the costumes in series 3. Robobunny had mini-greenhouses on his shoulders growing carrots, and carrots featured in almost all of his performances. Panda had bamboo in her backpack, and some of her performances featured other pandas eating bamboo.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics:
- Duck and Octopus in the first series have eyelashes as part of their costumes.
- Averted in the second series with Dragon and Sausage, whose costumes do not include eyelashes.
- Averted again in the third series with Robobunny, Poodle, and Bagpipes, who have eyelashes but also male singing voices. On the other hand, Panda lacks eyelashes but sounds female.
- The fourth series also averts this with Otter and Pigeon, who lack eyelashes, and Knitting and Jellyfish, who don't even have faces at all. Fawn and Piece of Cake do have eyelashes, however. Cat and Mouse are an interesting example; Mouse is female and lacks eyelashes, while Cat is male and his eyes have lashes on the outer corners.
- The fifth series plays this straight with Rat and Bubble Tea, but averts it with Owl (who lacks eyelashes and is implied to be female), and Piranha (who has eyelashes and is male).
