Britain’s Got Talent… Or Has It?
Britain’s Got Talent hits TV screens in April for another series trying to find the most talented person in Britain. Filming for the auditions started in Manchester at the Lowry Theatre on Tuesday 13th January for 3 days. I was there on Wednesday 14th in the audience to witness some of the most least talented people and some that weren’t too bad, although I don’t think I saw the winner.
Tickets didn’t guarantee entry so together with my friend we joined the queue in the cold Manchester weather at 9.45am (doors should have opened at 11.15am). Talking to others in the queue I found out that the first people to arrive had travelled from Liverpool and been there since 7.30am to guarantee they got in. The queue grew rapidly all morning with people of all ages, I think the oldest I saw was the granny behind me who had even come with a fold up stool to sit on, she looked about 80. In front of me was Cliff Richards biggest fan with her concert t-shirt and diary who’d been to each series of BGT and spoke like she knew Simon personally!! At 11am the cameras outside the theatre rolled and we were asked to shout ‘Welcome to Manchester’ and ‘Manchester has talent’, as is the case with those who want their 10 seconds of fame there was lots of hands in the air and screaming. It was good fun for the first few takes, but after what felt 20 takes of this I was beginning to grow ever so slightly bored and was losing the feeling in my feet due to the cold.
Doors should have opened at 11.15am but things appeared to be running behind schedule. The judges arrived one by one, each in their own car and were greeted by the usual screams from the crowd. Being just under 5”4 and in flat shoes I couldn’t see a thing so I had no idea who was arriving, but did manage to judge from other people that Piers Morgan arrived first followed by new judge Kelly Brooke and finally Amanda Holden….I can only assume Simon Cowell was already in the theatre.
Finally at 12pm we were shown in and directed to our seats, we ended up on the 2nd row of the circle behind where the judges were in the stalls. Ant and Dec came on stage to introduce themselves and I got more excited about seeing them than I did about the rest of the day. I love Ant and Dec, can’t beat them. The judges were introduced to everyone before taking their seats and I have to admit there is something about Simon Cowell that makes you very drawn to him and I’m not sure what it is.
We saw 19 acts perform which ranged from a woman with 3 dogs who were very talented but the same couldn’t be said about the owner to an 80 year old granny in her purple dress and suspenders who was virtually deaf! Her singing and dancing were awful and needless to say she got 4 buzzes off the judges. We had a cheerleading squad, street dancers, guitar players, a Kylie impersonator who was nothing like Kylie in looks or dress; her silver boots would have had the fashion police on full alert. My favourite for comedy value was the Scary Elvis who mimed to a backing track which had been adapted to make the singing sound ‘scary’ and he just pranced around the stage in an Elvis suite and Halloween mask. Those that went through to the next round included a puppet show and a Street Dance Team.
Besides seeing the acts it was really amusing watching the activity in between acts whilst they got the stage ready with whatever props and mics were required. Simon had his make-up re-touched up in nearly every break and someone would run on with an espresso for him whilst he checked messages on his mobile phone. He was more high maintenance than the women. Glasses of water would be topped up so they constantly looked full in the takes and someone would re-adjust Amanda’s hair.
Audience participation played a big part in the day as we were the 5th judge! We were told if we liked an act to clap, shout, scream and dance or do all 4! If we didn’t like an act we had to shout ‘off, off, off’. It was good fun getting involved and after a while I even forgot about the camera swinging across the audience in the circle.
Small things please me so I got giddy on noticing the souvenir stand during the interval and got myself a Britain’s Got Talent mug. Overall a fantastic day and experience and I’ll be applying for tickets again next year.
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I went to see BGT on the Wednesday the 14th January 2009. I have to say it was fantistic. I even spoke to both Simon & Amanda. Yes simon actually spoke to me. I was lie ‘did he just speak to me’. I was not too keen on Kelly, infact i’d say she was not too keen to be there. There was nothing about that girl that shone. We were sat on the 2nd row smack bang behind simon and the team. We had a great time, we screamed, shouted off, off, off, we laughed soo much and cringed. If you ever get the opportunity to see the live shows, you must go, it was fab. Cath. Manchester
cath Lowe
January 20, 2009