Posted by Ian on 2010-02-20
in News
I spoke to my friend Tom this week who had gone along to see a recording of Britain’s Got Talent: the preliminary stages are presently being filmed. He knew a couple of people who had reached the stages of appearing in front of the three infamous judges. One of them was a Member of The Magic Circle, who I also knew – although on this occasion he was doing a comedy act with a partner rather than any magic.
The audition was a long affair, starting at around 4ish and finishing at 11. The first act on who Tom knew was a Russian girl: her skill was to walk on glass. Amanda Holden apparently had good fun asking her how she had learnt this skill: did she just drop a glass one day in the kitchen and go from there? She never really recovered from that.
Tom said that unfortunately he couldn’t comment on whether the comedy duo were any good: they lasted about 15 seconds before they were buzzed off by all three judges. As they were one of the last acts on, there might have been an element of “we’ve had enough for the day”.
Their fifteen seconds contrasted memorably with the previous act which comprised a dog attempting to pick up a bottle. “Isn’t that something most dogs can do?” the owner was asked. The dog singularly failed to achieve even this elementary task – perhaps put off, as the would-be dog trainer pointed out, by having to do it in front of 3,000 people instead of to one person in the kitchen.
Sportingly the dog was given about four minutes of stage time as it haplessly trailed around sniffing and prodding at the bottle.
The comedy act was asked before they went on by one of the BGT personnel how well they thought they might do. Their response was: “hopefully okay, but it’s up to the judges.” They were told that it would sound better if they made out they were really confident about “going all the way.”
Tom said that the warm-up man got the audience to practise shouting “off, off, off” really loudly and prodding their fingers towards any unfortunate contestants they didn’t like. He wasn’t happy with their first attempts – “give it some welly” he instructed.
The audition was a long affair, starting at around 4ish and finishing at 11. The first act on who Tom knew was a Russian girl: her skill was to walk on glass. Amanda Holden apparently had good fun asking her how she had learnt this skill: did she just drop a glass one day in the kitchen and go from there? She never really recovered from that.
Tom said that unfortunately he couldn’t comment on whether the comedy duo were any good: they lasted about 15 seconds before they were buzzed off by all three judges. As they were one of the last acts on, there might have been an element of “we’ve had enough for the day”.
Their fifteen seconds contrasted memorably with the previous act which comprised a dog attempting to pick up a bottle. “Isn’t that something most dogs can do?” the owner was asked. The dog singularly failed to achieve even this elementary task – perhaps put off, as the would-be dog trainer pointed out, by having to do it in front of 3,000 people instead of to one person in the kitchen.
Sportingly the dog was given about four minutes of stage time as it haplessly trailed around sniffing and prodding at the bottle.
The comedy act was asked before they went on by one of the BGT personnel how well they thought they might do. Their response was: “hopefully okay, but it’s up to the judges.” They were told that it would sound better if they made out they were really confident about “going all the way.”
Tom said that the warm-up man got the audience to practise shouting “off, off, off” really loudly and prodding their fingers towards any unfortunate contestants they didn’t like. He wasn’t happy with their first attempts – “give it some welly” he instructed.
