by Now that the stardust has settled, I think we can all agree that the wrong act won Britain’s Got Talent this year.
That’s nothing against vivacious West End actress Sydnie Christmas, who has been a favorite since the first weekend of auditions – and the night was in no way detracted from her plum slot get at the end of the show and take home the crowd-pleasing number Somewhere Over The Rainbow.
We wish her all the best for the future, and I am happy to publicly refer to her by the full name that Simon Cowell probably uses in private: Sydnie Cover Versions Album Out In Time For Christmas.
Little Miss Christmas wasn’t the most spectacular turn of the night, however.
That title was associated with a magical act. No, not Jack Rhodes, although he was clearly the best variety performer of the night. And neither is Trixy, although we have to commend him for pulling off a daring stunt that many thought was impossible in this day and age – securing a spot for Peter Andre as a guest on a first class entertainment show.
No, the real magicians of the night were the four amateur illusionists who were sitting behind the desk of those well-worn judges giving us current commentary on events. If we could vote for the well-trained act they did, the result would be even more of a landslide.
The focus of their jiggery-pokery was a group effort to trick the viewing public into believing that outcome was not a foregone conclusion. (Narrator’s voice: “It was really a foregone conclusion. Sydnie drew almost a third of all the votes cast.”)
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There was often a concerted effort to convince us that we were watching the biggest show in the 17 year history of this once great TV show. To be fair to Simon Cowell, he said it was “honestly the best final I remember”, which at least gave him the chance to find out he couldn’t remember any of the others .
That’s the only soft spot I’m willing to cut though. Especially since he tried his trickiest trick yet towards the end of the night. With the most serious face you could expect a man wearing news glasses to pull off, Simon announced “I don’t think one act tonight was professionals.”
In his defense, he seemed to realize he had gone too far, and added with a quick caveat: “They all have day jobs too.”
Sadly, the damage had already been done and, I think, the tea had already spread throughout living rooms across the nation.
Come on, Simon. He went on to suggest that the likes of Sydnie, opera singer Innocent Masuku, the Double Dutch group Haribow and the Taekwondo acrobatic group Ssaulabi had just wandered in from the street for a tee and showed utter contempt for the show and on the audience.
It was like someone saying Amanda Holden can’t be called a professional judge on a talent show because she also has a day job playing CDs on Heart FM. It comes with something when one of the actors themselves gave the only really honest assessment of the performances on the night.
If you didn’t already admire neurotic comedian Alex Mitchell for having the balls to get up on that stage in the first place, you’ll surely appreciate the way he cut through the OTT to all, pre-arranged claptrap to really give us a fair judgment in line with what we had just seen with our own eyes. “I wasn’t very happy with it tonight,” he told contract-strapped Ant & Dec. “It wasn’t great.”
If only the judges could take a leaf out of Alex’s book, maybe this show would have less trouble going forward.
However, that is unlikely to happen. Simon and ITV seem to have adopted the “what we have” policy. The ratings will never be as big as they were back in the good old days when the show was truly amazing and unstoppable, but numbers wise it’s doing ok by modern standards so what why rock the boat?
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I get that. I don’t agree with it, but I get it. What I don’t understand is this growing rumor that ITV is seriously considering extending the show’s run next year to fill the hole recently left by Saturday Night Takeaway — and rightly so — to fill.
Huh? Even the most brainy viewer will assume that there isn’t much talent available to maintain their current paper-thin format. How will they suddenly find enough to fill an extra seven or so weeks of airtime?
It shows a terrible lack of imagination on ITV’s part, and the network’s reaction to the loss of The Jeremy Kyle Show from its daytime block is worrying. It was just an extension of Lorraine and This Morning to fill the hole – and see how that worked out.
Of course, we can all guess how Simon will end the extra hours on Britain’s Got Talent. With more non-British talent.
That is his decision. Hopefully, while he’s busy counting all those sweet YouTube views from the likes of Ghana, South Korea, America and Japan, he’ll at least admit that he’s moving the show further and further far away from what he was so successful at in the first one. place.
British no-nonsense people like Susan Boyle and Paul Potts stroll in from the desert and blow everyone away.
That’s the kind of magic we really want to see on BGT, Simon.
