It must have come as a surprise to absolutely nobody when Susan Boyle breezed through to the final of Britain’s Got Talent on Sunday night. After all, the lady in question has achieved nigh legendary status since that original audition, the one which has been viewed millions of times on Youtube and propelled her to global stardom. The real question was whether she could pull off a similarly impressive feat in the semis? Or would the hype overtake and cause her to disappoint?

For all our BGT recaps, go here.

Fortunately for Susan, she managed to pull off her sophomore performance with aplomb, albeit with a lot more glitz and confidence than she did originally. Yes, I think I did detect a slight squeak as she broke into the opening line of Memory from Cats, but can you honestly blame her for being nervous? In any case, it was a terrific performance, greeted with the kind of audience hysteria you might normally associate with the lights going down at a Take That concert, or similar.

Whether or not she can win however is another matter entirely. There are some very strong acts in the semis this year and another one of them, Diversity, went through to the final last night after kicking off the show with a superb routine which paid homage to Mission Impossible and left the audience shrieking in delight.

They fought off competition from 10-year-old singer Natalie Okri – so good in auditions, so utterly wasted when required to sing Jamelia’s Superstar while shrouded in sequins and doing ‘cute’ dance moves – who very nearly burst into tears on national TV upon learning she had narrowly missed out on that coveted final spot. You half expected her to break into a spot of kiddie pleading (‘oh pleeeeeeeeeeese put me through, judges, pleeeeeeeeeeese……’) but ultimately she took her defeat with good grace. And besides, she is only young, she has plenty of time to hone her craft. What’s the betting we’ll see her on The X Factor in a few years time?

Of course not everybody was quite as impressive – this might be the semi-final but that doesn’t mean there is no room for dissent in the ranks. Simon Cowell, for example, threatened to resign if Michael Jackson/Star Wars tribute act Darth Jackson won the show (he didn’t, so I guess we’re stuck with Cowell for at least another season), while Piers Morgan told foxy Latvian bellydancer Julia Naidenko that she shouldn’t go through to the final as ‘I don’t think Simon’s heart would be able to take it’. Not a bad approximation given the amount of close-ups we saw during her routine of Cowell grinning in decidedly lascivious fashion. He also wasn’t keen on Faces Of Disco – who personally I loved – donning Cowell masks during their fast-paced, funny routine, and then appearing with a chorus of identically masked dancers for their finale.

The greatest venom of the evening however was reserved for Nick Hell, the street performer who Simon buzzed within seconds after he promptly walked onstage and stuck a drill through his nose. They did something similar during the semi-finals in the first series when extreme illusionist Dr Gore got voted through, got a bit chainsaw happy with his assistant and was promptly told that they didn’t really think the Queen would enjoy watching this at the Royal Variety Performance (and why not, I venture to ask?) Nick was switfly dispatched after hanging a pickaxe from his ears and using it to smash a plate, and his own activities with a chainsaw were curtailed just seconds after he had used it to snip a cucumber in half. Funnily enough, it was his biggest fan Piers who spoke out. “You’re disgusting,” he told him. And I have to say Mr Hell, with his goth clothing, multiple piercings and giant earlobes, looked utterly crushed. Bet he is a big softy in real life.

So…..eight acts down, two finalists chosen, and another eight take to the stage on Monday. And if all the semis are going to be as good as Sunday’s then I can’t wait…..