IN a break with tradition, this year’s Britain’s Got Talent champion wasn’t declared by Ant and Dec, live on ITV, but by the Press several hours before the grand final.
Without leaving any shred of doubt, the winner would be, they all agreed, professional West End singer Sydnie Christmas.
News that deserved neither fanfare nor any spoiler alert because we’d all seen what was going on, by that point, with the running order and half-time entertainment on the five preceding live shows.
For Britain’s Got Talent is a variety show where there is never any variety about the special guest stars.
They’re always singers.
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If we’re lucky, they’ll come from a West End show, like Sydnie. If we’re not, it’ll be Alesha Dixon, but the message remains exactly the same.
A singer MUST win BGT, and if you ever doubted that aim, then it was all but confirmed by the news that, just as she had done at her semi-final, Sydnie would be given the final performance slot, which all but guarantees victory.
Before we reached that sorry and inevitable pass, though, we had to endure the five live heats, where the public were given the responsibility of weeding out the re-treads, foreign ringers, bus nutters, sob stories and shape- shifters — like the dog-conga woman, Lucy Heath, who made the 2010 final and 2017 semi — while still producing a decent line-up for the main event.
An impossible task, as it transpired.
It wasn’t helped by the fact that no sooner had they got rid of “dog-conga woman” than she was back as the “unanimous” wildcard choice of the judges, but the more brutal truth was that, along with the British part, the talent element of BGT has been one of the two obvious things lacking this year.
There was certainly no one who was going to threaten Cowell’s preferred winner, Sydnie, come Sunday night.
Instead, we had: South Korean taekwondo act Ssaulabi battering the hell out of some kitchen tiles; an informal chat with neurodiverse comedian Alex Mitchell; and magician Jack Rhodes, my own favourite act, who inadvertently provided the highlight of the series when he got Cowell to wear “the hat of truth”.
A temptation Amanda Holden really should have avoided, but didn’t.
“Can I be on the show for the next two years, with an uplift?” she asked Simon, before remembering to add: “Obviously, with Alesha and Bruno as well?”
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Cowell didn’t miss a beat and all the tensions of the previous six weeks unravelled before our eyes. “Yes to the first part, no to the second.”
You knew he meant it as well, even before the stories about Bruno leaving the show leaked, on Wednesday.
But why end there? Why not extend the courtesy to Alesha and even Amanda, whose every forgettable judgment is now preceded by the two most annoying words on TV.
“I mean, you really upped your game.”
“I mean, the audience reaction speaks for itself.”
“I mean, what a song choice.”
I mean, would the show really miss her that much?
Probably not, but the fear of too much change will save her and we’ll be faced with nearly all the same issues this time next year.
In such circumstances you look for a moment that can unify the nation, in some small way and it was provided by Ghanaian dance duo Abigail and Afronitaaa, who had the audience in such a frenzy that Amanda was left gasping: “100 per cent, I absolutely love it when I cannot hear what I’m saying.”
And so say all of us.
COMPARE and contrast. Good Morning Britain’s Kevin Maguire speaking on Monday about Jeremy Corbyn’s performances in the 2019 election leadership debates: “It was embarrassing.
“The Labour position in 2019 was we’re going to have another referendum, renegotiate, then have another referendum.
“No wonder Johnson got a big majority.”
Kevin Maguire, in December 2019, on Corbyn’s performances in the 2019 leadership debates: “Had anyone come out of a campaign coma and watched the election on TV for the first time, they would’ve witnessed a leader with authority and passion.
“And he wasn’t Boris Johnson. We’ll know next Friday morning what the nation decides, but if there’s any justice we’d wake up to Corbyn in Number 10.”
Kitchen feeling the heat
THE more the BBC tries to be “diverse and inclusive”, the more narrow-minded, sinister and Stalinist it looks.
Take, for instance, Saturday Kitchen Live’s Pride special, “in honour of the LGBTQI+ community”, this week, where it swiftly became clear a BBC One cookery show had been turned into a show trial, with guests like Gurdeep Loyal denouncing: “Kitchens and industries like brewing, which can be very heterosexual and intimidating.”
The place was filled with rainbow flags as well, of course, and a terrified-looking host, Matt Tebbutt, who was at pains to let everyone know he’s “an ally” and that any other position or viewpoint was “abnormal”.
The production wasn’t taking any chances either and had cancelled the usual “Heaven or hell” recipe feature in case anyone got the impression there was any negative side to Pride month or the viewers forced some oven chips on them.
If anyone had managed to work up an appetite, in this unbearably tense and coercive atmosphere, though, then Matt probably ruined it when he turned to “non-binary” comedian Sarah Keyworth, just as he was serving up some spicy (but untickled) ribs and said: “Let’s talk about your tour.”
“Yes, it’s about me having top surgery. I chose to have my breasts removed, so I had an elective double mastectomy.”
Eat up.
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week. Love Island, bang-average Patsy: “Bang-average? I’m really not a bang-average kind of girl.”
Buying London, Juliana to Daniel Daggers: “You’re amazing, inspiring and one of the best human beings I know.”
BGT, Dec: “Amanda, you’re here for your expertise tonight.”
In what?
TV QUIZ. What was Michaela Strachan describing here: “Sometimes they get their penises stuck together and they do something called apophallation and basically bite off each other’s penises and that’s not so much of a problem because they’re hermaphrodites and next time they can use their female organs to mate.”
A) Slugs having sex on Springwatch.
B) Sunak V Starmer: The ITV Debate.
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TV gold
BBC1’s beautiful and emotionally overwhelming coverage of D-Day 80: Tribute To The Fallen, which should be compulsory viewing in every British school. Channel 4’s reliably gripping 24 Hours In Police Custody.
Bill Maher’s majestic “Gender apartheid” speech, on Real Time (Sky Comedy). BBC2’s The Wrong Man: 17 Years Behind Bars deserving all the award nominations that’ll surely come its way for telling Andy Malkinson’s story so brilliantly.
And The Finish Line putting in a strong contender for my favourite quiz show answer of the year: “Which former Labour MP was a double Oscar winner?” Michelle: “Tony Blair.”
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
THE Finish Line, Roman Kemp: “In the saying, what calls the kettle black?”
Emily: “Smoke.”
The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “What is the destination of the rabbits in the famous Richard Adams novel?”
Alvin: “Paris.”
Roman Kemp: “Which late football manager was known as Cloughie?”
Emily: “Sir Alex Ferguson.”
And Roman Kemp, right: “At the 2022 World Cup, who captained the England football team?”
Kelsey: “Harry Redknapp.”
Lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is the little Japanese fella who jumped out of Bikoon’s bag on Britain’s Got Talent, and Jerry Lewis as The Nutty Professor. Sent in by Sonnie and Sienna, from Sittingbourne, Kent.
Great sporting insights
ALLY McCOIST: “The players take an extra split second to get back up. It gives them an extra couple of minutes to recover.”
Martin Brundle: “Remember, single-seater cars have one driver in them.”
And Katie Smith: “The Swiss crowd absolutely loving this – you can hear the cowbells whistling them on.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
Random TV irritations
NEWSREADERS cheerfully saying “Let’s return now to the election”, as if we can’t get enough of this political yawn.
Quiz show contestants who clearly think football questions are beneath them. Oli, from Buying London, greeting good news with the word: “Excellent-ay.” And the supposedly edgy and risk-taking Channel 4 seriously warning viewers Team America: World Police featured “scenes of a sexual nature”.
Because, to paraphrase Brian Conley, it’s a f***ing puppet.
