Change was certainly the name of the game as far as this year’s Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) was concerned. With former judge Piers Morgan having left the show to concentrate on his career stateside and Simon Cowell away working on other projects, British comedian Michael Mcintyre and TV legend David Hasselhoff were brought in to join Amanda Holden as the judging trio for the audition stages of the competition.
Cowell returned to the show as the fourth judge during the semi-final stages. A number of unexpected acts made it through to the live final on the Saturday including Steven Hall the dancing 53 year old Telecommunications Engineer from Kendal, Cumbria and the always cheerful Jean Martyn with her unique style of organ playing.
Highs and Lows of the Live Final
With finalists only having days (hours in some cases) between the semi final shows and the final, the pressure is always on to deliver a flawless performance. Steven Hall was the first finalist to take to the stage and warmed the crowd up nicely with his hip shaking and lip syncing performance. Other finalists included Les Gibson the impressionist who was criticised by the judges for his below par performance. A clearly disappointed Gibson told the show’s presenters, Ant and Dec that he had struggled to perfect his routine in the short time between his appearance at the semi final stage and the live final.
Michael Collings delivered a great vocal performance which was well received by the judges and was told by ‘The Hoff’ that the performance would be sure to give his singing career a great lift. Organ player Jean Martyn was likened by Cowell to that of an organist usually found at the end of a seaside pier but received praise from the other judges for her upbeat and charismatic performance.
Young dancer James Hobley delivered a flawless performance on stage with Jai McDowall, soloist singer from Scotland receiving praise from Cowell for his song choice. Razy Gogonea the freestyle dancer once again showed off his dance moves combining them with a fire trick that was poorly executed and resulted in a mediocre conclusion for his routine.
Teen singing group New Bounce were on hand with their energetic pop act as well as Ronan Parke who had been tipped by the national press to win the competition. His performance won the applause of the judges and also that of music mogul Louis Walsh who was in the audience. Pianist Paul Gbegbaje opted to perform a self composed piece of music, a gamble which paid off according to Holden and Cowell.
Shock Winner
In the days before the final, child singing sensation Ronan Parke had been hotly tipped to take the top prize of £100,000 and a spot at the Royal Variety performance to perform in front of Her Majesty the Queen. However, the show was thrown into controversy earlier in the week when it was alleged that Parke was already known to Cowell’s production company, a claim which was said to be untrue by Simon Cowell himself. It may have been this controversy that led to Parke being beaten to the top position by Jai McDowall. The support worker overcame his stage fright to win the competition with Ronan Parke taking second place and New Bounce taking third.
David Myerscough - David, a Business Studies graduate from the UK began his professional writing career in early 2010. Currently, David writes for online ...
