Foreign Perspectives

Despite various TV talent shows having been on the go for years they can still throw up some major surprises of one sort or another although this years crop from Britains Got Talent seems to have broken all records in terms of surprises this time around.

For one thing there’s the heavy bias towards the cute and vulnerable acts this year. Sure there’s probably a feeling that the youngest hopefuls should be encouraged that little bit more but as many have shown this year, they simply don’t need any legup on the older hopefuls. Well, except for Hollie Steele, of course, and for reasons which escape me the judges seemed to be puppets under the control of her mother. That wouldn’t have been so bad but her act just wasn’t up to the professional standards of the other young contenders and they didn’t get anything like the assistance that she did.

On the other side of the coin we saw Susan Boyle who came out of left field and surprised everyone. Although it’s usually taken as wrong to judge on appearance, for a high level talent show like this one, appearances do count. Not that it mattered because she simply overturned that initial judgement completely and will probably become someone we’ll hear quite a lot of in the years to come. Her other surprise was the collapse after the show. This was someone who seems to have been aiming for an opportunity like this for her whole life and yet she doesn’t seem to have thought through what might happen if she were to do really well.

Two very different surprises for sure.

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