Susan – Boyled alive

After just one episode, season three of BGT can justifiably claim to have found its first star, if online chatter is any measurement of success. Just a couple of days after her performance was aired, typing the phrase “Susan Boyle” into Google resulted in over 60,000 results.

The mainstream media inevitably hog the first few pages, and many of them carry more or less the same story. They say that Susan Boyle…

“Blew away the initially sneer-mongering judges” (Entertainment Weekly)
“Stuns Simon Cowell into silence” (Times Online)
“Wipes the smile off Britain’s Got Talent judges’ faces” (Daily Mail)
“Astonished the judges” (Telegraph)

All fair comments, which could equally apply to us cynical viewers, but her performance came as no surprise to readers of The Scotsman’s website. On the Saturday morning before the show was broadcast, it carried an interview with Miss Boyle in which she revealed that it was the success of Fauldhouse’s singing plumber, Andrew Muir, on the show last year which was the driving force behind her audition.

Susan was quoted as saying: “Andrew Muir was fantastic last year and somebody local going on a show like that definitely inspired me to go on.”

The story went on to describe the judges’ reaction to her, and Susan said: “It’s quite an accolade what Simon Cowell said, and I didn’t really know what to expect. I just went and sang. It would be a dream to have a career in singing and to be on the Royal Variety Performance. I’m looking forward to watching the show, although I’ll probably be critical of any mistakes I see, but I’ll take it all in good fun. It’s only entertainment after all.”

And singing plumber Andrew Muir chipped in with: “I’ve known Susan for quite a while and sang with her a few times at charity gigs and local talent shows in West Lothian. She’s quite a character and is a really nice woman.”

We also learned from the site that Susan is the youngest of nine children and that she studied at Edinburgh Acting School in the early 1990s before she was forced to leave and care for her sick mother.

Post-broadcast of the show, when no doubt everyone was trying to contact her, it was The Mirror which had the exclusive interview.

In it, Susan revealed that watching the show back (‘in her council house in West Lothian’ The Mirror added, for dramatic contrast), she was unable to focus on her performance as she was too shocked at her appearance.

She explained: “They say that television makes you look fat and it certainly did. I looked like a garage. It was mortifying to see and a bit of a shock. I didn’t realise I could reduce people to tears and I hope it wasn’t because of that.”

If she keeps coming out with lines like that, I can see a secondary career in stand-up beckoning.

Susan added that she was given a standing ovation when she walked into her local church for Sunday’s Easter service: “Everyone is very nice and it’s lovely when all the kids stop me in the street to congratulate me.”

Oh those fickle kids.

On an online forum devoted to Heart of Midlothian Football Club, also before the show was broadcast, a poster suggested it was worth tuning in to watch the first episode of Britain’s Got Talent for her performance.

This prompted another poster, who obviously knew her, to state – and yes, in these very words: “She doesny play with the full 52 cards like. Remember her well from ma Blackburn days. She was always good to hurl cheek at then get a chase.”

Another poster added: “I seen her chase folk with a half brick in her hands wanting to club them to death! I’m keeping the full story till she gets famous and I an make a wad out of it!”

Well, now would appear to be a good time…

But Susan’s singing prowess was no secret locally. “If you stuck a sign on your door saying ‘karaoke’ she’d be there!” said another poster.

After the show was broadcast, the site continued to be a good source of material for those interested in The Susan Boyle Phenomenon (as her first album, in which she sings a selection of tunes from West End shows, will no doubt be called). The town of Blackburn was being besieged with press, it was reported, and “you can hardly walk by her house without tripping over reporters and photographers”.

But for the show itself, filming a follow-up segment, Blackburn just didn’t cut it according to Piers Morgan. The Scotsman reported that the BGT camera crew were told to shoot in nearby Bathgate instead after the area “appalled” Morgan.

An obviously unhappy Jackie Russell (Are you sure about that name? – Ed), manager of Susan’s local pub the Happy Valley Hotel, said: “They were supposed to come here and film for the show, but Piers said the place was a ‘dump’ so they went and filmed in Bathgate. I hope they don’t say on the show she’s from Bathgate, because she’s not. She’s ours – Blackburn born and bred. It might not be the bonniest, but it is where she’s from.”

This snub from the show brought local councillor Jim Swan out in an outrage. “That’s outrageous,” he blasted. “That’s just not on at all. Blackburn is not as bad as that would suggest.”

Way to go Jim, you’ve certainly sold me on the place.

When most news these days is bad news, the return of Britain’s Got Talent has given the country something fun and frothy to talk about instead of bankruptcies, job losses, MPs fiddling their expenses and wars. Yes it’s shallow, superficial and ephemeral – for example, I can’t recollect who Andew Muir is, despite having watched every episode of the last series – but that’s surely a large part of its appeal for the almost 12m of us who tuned in to watch the first episode.

And there’s already been one winner – Ferrero Roche. Sales must have reached an all time high over the last few days as tens of thousands of us bought boxes of the nutty chewy things in an attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records by doing eight.