My Day - Part Two

So anyway, after playing football in the scorching heat all afternoon, my legs were dead, and I could really not be bothered with the long walk home straight away. So I stopped off in the Birks Grange TV Room, and settled down to watch whatever was on, which turned out to be the final of Britain’s Got Talent. Having seen none of this before, all the acts were new to me. First up was a street dance group called Flawless, who jumped about a bit in time of a Michael Jackson mix-tape. Their performance was fine, it felt very short, but it was not really a display of any talent, and not really a good performance, so in the end it was kinda “meh”.

See it was here that I got the point of Britain’s Got Talent. It is about celebrating people who are amateurs. It is about finding people from nowhere who are actually decent performers with a skill. That is why I judged every finalists based on that – if they were a good performance, and if they had any skill.

Next up was a Welsh twelve-year old singing. He was incredibly forgettable. He was followed by the bookies second favourite, a body-popping dancer named Aidan. He was crap! He did nothing exceptionally talented in his dancing, and his choice of song was poor. He danced to “low” by Flo Rida, and made no attempt to get low, even when the lyrics specifically say “get low, low, low, low, low, low, low.” Poor Effort.

After them, we had an advert break, which told us of the new album by Pol Pot. Turns out that the mass murdering African dictator is now disguised as an operatic singer! Ha ha, yes, I know, I am ‘bout three years late with a joke on previous winner Paul Potts name. Still made me laugh.

So now we had the act which I thought was best, Two Grand, a singing duet featuring a grandfather and granddaughter. The granddaughter actually was a very good singer. The grandfather was not much good, but he didn’t have a very ambitious part in the act, so it did not make much difference. Problem was they where rather twee, so I guess that hurt their popularity.

Then there was a 10 year old girl who was fine, but not exceptional. Then a 17 year-old singer who I wanted to punch. Then there was by far the best performance, a father and son comedy dancing act, which featured two large Cypriots doing some comedy Irish dancing, which was hilarious. There was also the most boring saxophonist ever, who just looked like an average street busker. Turns out he is an average street busker! Shock! And the judges proclaimed them all as incredible performances.

This was what I really did not like about Britain’s got talent. It is full of this smarmy jingoism, this cry of “let us do this for Great Britain! We are the best! Look, these nobodies from some suburban dump are as talented as the professionals that people pay huge amounts of money to go and see! These singers deserve world acclaim and huge record deals, and these dancers have choreography that should be on Broadway, and they are all average British people! Britain! Great Britain! They get to dance for the Queen! Queen of Britiain! Britain! Great Britain!”

The honest truth is that this show should be celebrating something entirely different. It should be celebrating the personalised twists of these performers. How they are talented enough to both have a skill and to construct an incredible performance upon that; to be original. Judges coming out and proclaiming that each of the finalists has an ability so special that they deserve world acclaim, just left me feeling empty. No, sadly an amateur act thrown together in the 48 hours since the semi-final, will not be as good as a professional standard performance that has been in rehearsal for months. Pretending the two are on par just causes people who are put off by this sort of staged over excitement, ie, most normal people, to ignore the show, when some off the people were actually quite good.

Anyway, after having that complex thought during an advert break, the show continued. Susan Boyle came on, and sang the same song she sang the first time, and looked very spaced out. She was not that great. There is not much to say really.

Then there was Diversity, a street dancing group, who both managed a good performance and to show their talent. They were both humorous and talented. Best of an average bunch, turns out they won.

Then there was an advert for America’s Got Talent, starting next week. And I walked home.