Smallscreen Features

Britain's Got Talent recap, McIntyre, Hasselhoff and Holden with a side of cheese

By Ian Cullen Apr 16, 2011, 22:45 GMT

04/13/2011 - David Hasselhoff, Amanda Holden and Michael MacIntyre - "Britain\'s Got Talent" Press Launch at the Mayfair Hotel in London on April 13, 2011 - Mayfair Hotel - London, UK © Solarpix / PR Photos

Just when you thought it was safe to come out of hibernation.

The one show on television, a show so bad it could destroy coalition governments with the capability to remove Colonel Gaddafi from power is back. 

Yes folks, Britain's Got Talent has a two new additions to the judging panel to boot.

Stepping in for Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan are British Comedian Michael McIntyre and David Hasselhoff. Rest easy, as the cheese factor is turned up to 10, but an additional digit has been added to the cheese-o-metre to accommodate the massive ego of David Hasselhoff, who these days talks to cameras instead of cars. And keeping these new guys in check is Amanda Holden, with her usual brand of botox scaffolding (Hasselhoff is guilty of this too).

Also returning to oversea the madness is comedy duo Ant and Dec, who interviewed most the acts before they went on.

The bad acts came thick and fast and started with a lady named Mary who seemed to be of the opinion that playing the harmonica really badly is suitable entertainment for the Queen. Anything that can burst the Queen's eardrums is definitely a winner, but unfortunately the judges didn’t agree with me.

Another low point was a lady called Christine who attempted to do a stand-up comedy act, but didn’t impress any of the judges with her poorly delivered old jokes.

One thing about the new set up that I found distracting was Amanda Holden’s hair. What in hell has she done to it?  It looked like she was wearing a helmet with it brushed off of her face held  in place with a gazillion litres of hair spray. I was having nightmarish visions of her coming at me with a butcher's meat cleaver.

You could also tell that Michael McIntyre wasn’t very uncomfortable sitting with his back to the audience because he kept turning in his chair to address them at the same time as he was addressing the acts.

As the show progressed, we did eventually get to some of the good acts and a stand out for me was a 9 year-old kid named David Knight who did a fairly confident stand up act. Hasselhoff was impressed and said, “You’re my son. I’ve been looking for you.” Knight didn’t look much like a cheeseburger to me.

During the interview stage the kid was getting right into his act before he’d even performed and seemed to really impress comedian Michael McIntyre. The kids timing and delivery was so good it would put a lot of adult comedians to shame. I definitely think the cute kid factor helped him out a little, but he definitely did have a funny bone and seemed very at ease with the audience. He also won three votes from the judges panel, and well deserved they were too.

Another act that stood out as more of a novelty was Antonio Francis from Essex who seemed to do some really strange choreography by popping is left eye out of its socket to the beat of music. He got a unanimous decision from the judges. Not sure why.

Like in previous years we saw a fair few dance acts but none really stood out for me in this first episode.

Another act to surprise was IT Engineer Michael Collins, who played guitar and sang a rendition of the Tracy Chapman song You’ve Got A Fast Car.

My first impressions of this guy was that he was going to be crap, but he turned out to be good enough to earn a rapturous applause from the audience and won the judges over as well. It was the closest to a Susan Boyle moment the show has come. But not quite as magical. That said though I was genuinely surprised by this guy's singing, and think he could potentially go quite far in the competition if encouraged.

Rounding off the evening's acts were a married couple who did a rendition of Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ using hand bells. They certainly won the audience vote and that of the judges, but for me this was a little too alternative.

The new team of judges seemed to work out fairly well and offers up a completely different appeal to the likes of Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell, who tended to be more critical of the acts.

For me the opening week was fairly mediocre. Hopefully we’ll see more bad auditions in next weeks show. I mean lets face it. We don’t really watch for the good acts. Not in these early stages anyway.