Manchester, England - 42-year-old singer Gary Barlow thrilled audiences during his concert at the O2 theater just as much for his own X-factor of talent as for his special invited guests.

For starters, Barlow, who was part of the popular English pop band "Take That" in the early 1990s, performed one of the band's biggest hits "Prayer" with none other than comedian/actor/singer James Corden. Both Corden and Barlow wore identical outfits and even imitated Take That's signature moves to the delight of the audience. The vocal performance of the duo was also said to be top notch.

Next, Barlow brought out his fellow X-Factor judge Nicole Scherzinger to perform the duet "Relight My Fire" and once again Barlow delighted the audience. Later, Scherzinger joined comedienne Dawn French and the embattled former X-Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos to provide backup vocals for "Fairytale of New York".

By any measure, Barlow himself was worth the price of admission. However, his surprise guests just kept arriving and surprising the audience. One person in attendance summarized the concert by calling it a "Royal Variety Performance". The evening turned out to be magical and will air on the ITV network this coming New Year's Day.

On The Web:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/x-factor-video-watch-gary-1478767