'The wrong act won Britain's Got Talent'

Now that the stardust has settled, I think we can all agree that the wrong act won the final of Britain’s Got Talent this year.

That’s nothing against bubbly West End performer Sydnie Christmas, who had been the hot favourite ever since the first weekend of auditions — and who was not hampered in any way on the night by being gifted both the plum slot at the very end of the show and the crowd-pleasing bring-it-home number Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

We must wish her all the best for the future, and I for one am happy to publicly refer to her by the full name Simon Cowell almost certainly uses in private: Sydnie Cover Versions Album Out In Time For Christmas.

Little Miss Christmas was not the most amazing turn on the night, however.

That title belonged to a magic act. No, not Jack Rhodes, although he was clearly the standout variety performer on the night. And not Trixy either, although we must praise him for pulling off a daring stunt many thought impossible in this day and age — securing Peter Andre a guest slot on a primetime entertainment show.

No, the night’s true magicians were the four amateur illusionists who were sitting behind that well-worn judges’ desk giving us a running commentary on proceedings. If we could have voted for their well-oiled act, the result would have been even more of a landslide.

The main focus of their jiggery-pokery was a group attempt at beguiling the viewing public into believing that the result was not a foregone conclusion. (Narrator’s voice: “It was in fact a foregone conclusion. Sydnie pulled in almost a third of all votes cast.”)

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This was often accompanied by a concerted effort to convince us we were watching the greatest spectacle in the 17 year history of this once mighty TV show. To be fair to Simon Cowell, he did say that it was “the best final I can honestly remember”, which at least gave him the potential get-out that he simply couldn’t remember any of the other ones.

That’s the only slack I am prepared to cut him though. Not least because towards the end of the night he tried his most audacious trick yet. With the most serious face a man wearing novelty spectacles could ever hope to pull off, Simon announced “I don’t think a single act tonight were professionals.”

In his defence, he did appear to realise he’d gone too far, and mumbled a hasty caveat: “They’ve all got day jobs as well.”

Sadly, the damage had already been done and, I suspect, tea had already been spat across living rooms across the nation.

Come on, Simon. Continuing to suggest that the likes of Sydnie, opera singer Innocent Masuku, Double Dutch group Haribow and acrobatic Taekwondo group Ssaulabi had just wandered in off the street for a warm was plainly ridiculous and showed utter contempt for both the show and its audience.

It was a bit like someone saying Amanda Holden cannot be called a professional judge on a talent show because she also has a day job playing CDs on Heart FM. It comes to something when the only truly honest assessment of the performances on the night was delivered by one of the acts themselves.

If you didn’t already respect neurodiverse comedian Alex Mitchell for having the balls to get up on that stage in the first place you would have surely applauded the way he cut through all the OTT, pre-arranged claptrap to give us a fair verdict that actually tallied with what we had just witnessed with our own eyes. “I wasn’t very happy with tonight,” he told a contractually stunned Ant & Dec. “It wasn’t great.”

If only the judges could take a leaf out of Alex’s book then maybe this show would be less of a chore to sit through in future.

There’s little chance of that happening though. Simon and ITV appear to have adopted the “what we have we hold” policy. The ratings will never be as huge as they were back in the good old days when the show was genuinely breathtaking and unmissable, but numbers-wise it’s doing okay by modern standards so why rock the boat?

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I get that. I don’t agree with it, but I get it. What I do not understand is this growing rumour that ITV is seriously considering EXTENDING the show’s run next year to fill the hole left by the recently — and rightly — mothballed Saturday Night Takeaway.

Eh? Even the most brainwashed viewer will accept that there’s barely enough talent available to sustain its current paper thin format. How the hell are they going to suddenly find enough to fill an extra seven weeks or so of airtime?

It displays a woeful lack of imagination on ITV’s part, and is worryingly reminiscent of the network’s response to losing The Jeremy Kyle Show from its daytime block. It simply extended Lorraine and This Morning to fill the hole — and look how that’s worked out.

Of course, we can all guess how Simon will pad out the extra hours on Britain’s Got Talent. With more talent that’s not from Britain.

That’s his decision. I just hope that while he’s busy counting all those sweet YouTube views from the likes of Ghana, South Korea, America and Japan he will at least acknowledge that he’s moving the show further and further away from what made it such a huge hit in the first place.

Plucky British no-hopers like Susan Boyle and Paul Potts strolling in from the wilderness and blowing everyone away.

That’s the sort of magic we really want to see on BGT, Simon.