Britain’s Got Desperate Freaks

It’s got to where point where they’re standing in lederhosen, singing ‘Bright Eyes’, beating themselves over the head with a tray and thinking, “this will get me out of negative equity.’

A very brief snippet of Sean Lock’s 2010 ‘Lockipedia Live’ DVD show, but hugely correct. ‘Britain’s Get Desperate Freaks Who Look Like They’ve Just Come Out of the Sea’, to give it its full title. Possibly the most ITV show to have ever happened, Britain’s Got Talent is polarising in many ways. Effectively, you sit in one of two camps. The first one thinks that it’s a succesion of heartwarming ‘rags to riches’ tales that gives children an opportunity in the limelight while their mums are on dialysis and hope to get a new kidney before Christmas. The second camp thinks it’s a load of barely literate, toothless scumbags slapping each other on the back for doing karaoke moderately successfully.

I’ll leave it to you to work out which camp I sit in. Nah, I’m fine, really. The performers I can’t fault. Have at it. Kids singing, dogs doing backflips, urban dancers…whatever you need to do. The thing that bothers me about the show is one of the (now ex) judges and one of the Geordies. Who have got off extremely lightly for their sins, in my eyes. I don’t think you or I would have much of a career having done that type of thing.

But anyway…imagine having your potential talent being assessed by Amanda Holden. Christ.