Girl band EFX have made it through X Factor's TV casting bear pit to the Boot Camp stage - but without one of their line-up who is too young to take part in the competition.

Girl band EFX have made it through X Factor's TV casting bear pit to the Boot Camp stage - but without one of their line-up who is too young to take part in the competition.

The talent show hopefuls had to drop from a five piece to a four piece, although band manager Richard Copland stressed that 13-year-old Remi was an equal member of the band who would accompany them all the way.

Mr Copland said that although Remi was “completely gutted” she would travel alongside the girls and support them as they reinvented their image to please judges Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Danni Minogue and Cheryl Cole who loved the girls voices but not their image. The minimum age for the competition is 14.

At the London auditions on Saturday Katrice, Remi, Charlotte, Kalli and Courtney “took a risk” and sang acapella. Mr Copland said the judges loved the harmonies but not the song and sent the girls away to come up with a new tune and they “pulled it off” with a Girls Aloud hit.

Mr Copland who is also Katrice's dad said the atmosphere was intense and that it was “virtually guaranteed” the girls would feature in the TV show, such was the amount of footage that was shot on the day.

Getting through to Boot Camp means the girls have already left an estimated 500,000 acts trailing in their slipstream to get to the final 200.

Ahead of Boot Camp at the end of July the girls have got to come up with five new songs and prepare themselves for a task, which will be announced nearer the time.

And aside from the X Factor competition the girls have won first place in their categories in two prestigious competitions Talent Quest and Festival4Stars going through to the finals in September and November.