My thoughts on last night’s Britain’s Got Talent.

I do love my Britain’s Got Talent. It’s just so entertaining – mostly for the wrong reasons, but entertaining nonetheless. Yesterday, it hit our TV screens again.
We start, as we usually do, with the London auditions, and almost immediately we are reminded of how farcically deluded some of the acts are. Double Take, two frumpy looking middle-aged women, bring the hilarity. They play an instrument that looks awfully like a tambourine to me, but when Simon calls it that, they got arsey. “It’s a timbrel” one of the women says haughtily. Whatever it is, their act has no artistic merit and they are rightfully given their marching orders. The embarrassing acts continue with Cheeky Boys, a group of old men in dressing gowns, socks and nothing else. They take off their dressing gowns and have nothing but balloons to cover their members. “I think those balloons are a bit big,” Piers observes wryly.

Amanda Holden’s botox agent does a pretty good job, because she does look nice. The next act is a woman with sock puppet penguin. Very lame. Speaking of lame, Kevin Cruise epitomizes “Oh dear”. He works as a cruise guide, and he tries to sing a medley of songs, but it doesn’t go beyond half-baked karaoke act. He’s exuberant, no question, but so, so bad. The audience loves it but there’s just no talent involved. When the medley hits “Boom boom pow”, he sings his own rendition “Put the bread in the toaster” AHAHAHAHA. The medley ends with “I’m Telling You”, which is rather ominous, “You’re Going to Love me”. I’m not so sure. Anyway, Amanda loves him, Simon absolutely loathes him, and has no qualms to say it flat out, “Unquestionably no”, which he gets booed for, but I totally agree with. Piers has the deciding vote, and he picks yes. So we’ll be seeing more from Kevin Cruise. Oh dear.

Thankfully, some of Britain does actually have talent. Josh, a young dancer is a bit good.
His mum is proud and he seems like he knows how good he is, but as Piers observes, “Cocky little devil, but you can carry it off”. He’s cute and cheeky, and it’ll be interesting to see how far he goes in the competition. Another successful dance act are the Ruby Girls, who are very leggy and sport mink coats. Thankfully, for them, it’s not all about sex appeal as they exhibit some dancing talent with a well-synchronised routine that shows off their great bodies. Simon, Amanda and Piers are all fans, and Ant and Dec don’t mind it either, leery men.

Next up Tobias Mead, who seems like a bit of a dude. He tells us that his parents wanted him to be a footballer, but he wanted to be a dancer. When asked if he’s attached, he says happily, “I have the most amazing girlfriend in the world” which I just think is so refreshing and sweet. Onto his performance, it is… spellbinding. On one hand, it’s nothing new, with popping and locking and wobbly legs, but then he puts his hood up and we see he is wearing his hoodie on back to front. On the front, he has a creepy mask and starts dancing backwards. The whole thing looks so bizarre, a bit of a disturbing dance act as well, but I loved it. The audience go wild and Amanda is hugely taken with him, “It looks like your body was made of liquid”. Piers likes it but isn’t overly blown away, for which Amanda reprimands him. Nonetheless, he gets three yeses and will almost certainly feature again.

Now we go to the Birmingham audition. Simon is ill. Everyone is ecstatic.His replacement = Louis Walsh. Hahahah, I wanted Cheryl! The auditions in the midlands don’t start too well, with Dave Lavelle, a stand-up who is not funny at all. The cruddiness continues with Pipes and Drums, who sound like shit. Then we’re “treated” to a reading of poem with The swan in the background which would send even the biggest insomniac to sleep, and I begin to wonder if there is any talent in Birmingham at all. Thankfully, next up is 10-year-old Chloe Hickinbottom. They way they build her act up, you know she’s either going to be really good, or really bad. When asked what she’d do with her prize money, she reveals she wants to spend her prize money on clothes from Primark. High aspirations then. Her song choice is rather unusual - Vera Lynn, but I found Amanda’s reaction to her choice of artist rather patronising. Anyway, true to their word, Chloe is amazing. As Louis says, she has a “Beautifully old fashioned, powerful voice” and what’s more, every line is in tune. Good act.

One performance from yesterday which I didn’t understand much of the love for was the Dancing dog. It’s ok, fairly cute, but I think Kate and Gin will always be my favourite owner and dog act, and anything that follows is somewhat passé. Amanda and Louis actually stand up to commend it, which I really don’t understand. Next is an Irish dancer. He’s an oldie but a sweetie and resembles Louis Walsh an awful lot.

After a brief stint as judge, Simon’s back. Cue dramatic music. They introduce him banterfully, in the style of an audition, for which Piers and Louis press their buzzers. I find this whole cheesy stint hugely entertaining. What entertained me less was the next act: A burper. Gross, and no talent involved whatsoever.

It’s second time round for Kieran Gaffney, who almost made it last year with his drumming. He’s come back with his parents to form a group “Mixed Emotions.” Simon bluntly says it’s “utterly atrocious”, but he’s right, because the mum and the dad have no talent whatsoever. Also, his mother looks like a complete whore in her outfit. The audience cheer to let Kieran audition by himself again and there is dramatic “Hometown Glory” piano chords in the background as Simon asks them if they’ll let Kieran audition by himself, to which Kieran happily says yes. Thank God, he was good but the parents were crud. His act without his performance is as good as the act with them was bad. His drumming bit on the snare is really good, plus there’s a good mixture of timbres
If what he says is true and he has just made it up in the short space of time, I thought he did rather wonderfully. They let him go through.

So that was that for this week’s Britain’s Got Talent. Nothing hugely mind-blowing, but some very talented acts nonetheless. I can’t wait for next week!