Britney Spears might struggle. The censors have banned artists from lip-synching in the most-watched singing spectacular on Earth.

Performers will instead have to sing their songs at the Chinese new year’s eve television gala show, the most popular programme in the world’s most populous country.

The highlight of state television since the 1980s, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala attracts hundreds of millions of viewers who organise their annual family reunion dinners to finish in time to watch hours of comedy sketches and kitsch song-and-dance acts, often heavy with patriotism and national harmony. The show ends at midnight, giving people time to race out into the streets to set off fireworks to welcome in the year.

In recent years the show has been criticised heavily by increasingly discriminating audiences who complain of commercialism, of presenters whose jokes are too old-fashioned and celebrities who do a poor show of miming their way through songs.

The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has now demanded that producers pick real singers, and has issued directives about the need to arrange songs with healthy lyrics — a euphemism for patriotic, good family values. The show must also reflect important events of the previous year — the great earthquake, the Olympics, China’s first man to walk in space and the 30th anniversary of the start of reform.

“Firstly, make real singing as the benchmark, and choose performers who can truly sing. Firmly put an end to miming,” said Zhao Huayong, a SARFT official. If Britney Spears mimed during her recent appearance on The X Factor, Chinese audiences could hardly fail to notice that China’s top film star did the same at this year’s new year show, while lip-synching at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August drew international attention.

Zhang Ziyi, star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha — one of the few Chinese actresses to break into Hollywood — came in for widespread ridicule from internet users and the media for doing a shabby job of miming on the gala spectacular in February. Dressed in a pink dress with sequins, she performed A Fairy Sprinkling Flowers, which had been written for her — but many viewers were of the opinion that her mouth was not in time with the music.

She may not attend the show, to be broadcast on the evening of January 24. The SARFT notice said: “Choose performers with real singing ability.” Last month the Ministry of Culture revealed that it was considering a move to penalise professional performers who fake their singing or their playing of an instrument during concerts. People or groups caught faking it twice during a two-year period could lose their business licence.

That would not affect the girl who, without her knowledge, lip-synched during the Olympics opening ceremony. The incident made headlines after organisers decided that a beautiful nine-year-old would mouth the words while the voice was that of a seven-year-old with crooked milk teeth.

Brief history of mime

— Luciano Pavarotti, Turin Winter Olympics, 2006 The tenor lip-synched his last performance because of illness and cold weather

— Paula Abdul, Super Bowl, 2008 The American Idol judge, previously accused of miming, said that she was not allowed to sing live for technical reasons

Source: Times archives

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