Britain's Got Talent 2012: Ashleigh and Pudsey
Always thought something a little bit different was going to win BGT this year and am not at all surprised it was the dog. I think people are a bit bored of karaoke acts and genuinely want to see original and interesting talent.
And while I would have loved the synchronised swimmers Aquabatique to have scooped first prize (original and truly difficult to perform) I’m not at all surprised it was Pudsey who proved to be the competition’s top dog. With a whopping half a million quid prize money that’s an awful lot of Pedigree Chum!
Obviously there is no getting away from the fact that dogs are cute and this one especially, but there was something about his owner Ashleigh and her genuine warmth and love for Pudsey that shone through. Tonight’s Mission Impossible, or should that be im-pawsible, routine, was inspired though Jonathan and Charlotte – the opera singers – proved to be worthy runners’ up. What a transformation from those two both in terms of looks and performance since the audition when she seemed to be little more than a prop for his talent.
As for the rest, I really liked The Lovable Rogues who also performed their own stuff, sounding a bit like Rizzle Kicks meets Plan B with a bit of Madness thrown in (though not quite as much as the judges kept going on about). Ryan O’Shaughnessy showed he had original talent with his own songs too – though his James Taylor inspired style wasn’t really to my liking.
All in all I thought this year’s BGT was pretty good viewing. David Walliams, in particular, gave the show a camp humour which made it seem less up its own arse than previous overblown Americanised Simon Cowell productions. Walliams’ performance with The Show Bears was typical and the way he pretended to fawn over ‘My Simon’ was reminiscent of the Little Britain Prime Minister sketches with Anthony Head.
Even Cowell seemed to get into the show this year (especially Ashleigh and Pudsey), though his comments at the end seemed to suggest that BGT had run its course. Surely not? Or maybe it has on ITV and he is planning to move it to the Beeb as reported.
My only criticism is that the early stages seemed pretty rushed with you only getting very quick bursts of the acts. Still there are only so many acts like the man doing Dalek impressions with a saucepan on his head you can put up with at any one time. And it was much better than last year which was won by the instantly forgettable Jai McDowall. Who?
Ahh, remember when you were a kid, sat at home with your family watching The Generation Game just because that’s all that was on? We just all seemed to accept the fact TV was rubbish and cheesy, didn’t we? Well now we have SO much choice, with thousands of channels, on-demand services, streaming sites and all the box sets we could ever ask for that we don’t really tend to watch that much live TV much anymore. Well, expect Take Me Out of course.
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