Britain's Got Talent / Mike Norman / 20 April 2009 / 1 Comments

There's only been one week of auditions but betting.betfair.com Britain's Got Talent correspondent "Mystical" Mike Norman may have already found a candidate to go all the way. And goodness knows Susan Boyle isn't the most obvious candidate to do just that...

Unless you've been trapped in a cave for the last seven days, the name of Susan Boyle will almost certainly be familiar to all of you, not least fans of ITV's new offering of Britain's Got Talent.

The show is now in its third series, with ITV airing a number of weekly programmes highlighting the best and worst of the nationwide auditions. My job is to keep you up-to-date with who's hot and who's not in preparation for the live semi-finals and final, for which Betfair will have a range of markets for us all to get stuck into.

One girl who boys don't appear to have been queuing up to get "stuck into" is the aforementioned Susan Boyle, a 47-year-old virgin who admits to have never been kissed.

What she has done though, thanks to ITV showing a seven minute clip of her audition last Saturday, is to become an overnight success and a Youtube sensation. Over 40 million hits have been made on her combined clips, with this one alone being viewed over 27 million times at the time of writing. Quite sensational if you ask me.

Her audition was like a rags-to-riches Hollywood life story being played out in a few minutes on a Glasgow stage.

On a judging show, where everyone and everything is judged, I'm thinking "who the hell is she?"... but then she sings... and I suddenly develop the biggest smile I've ever had across my face. It was a profoundly touching moment (God I've become soppy in my old age) not least because of her humble and unassuming nature, one that made her completely unaware that an audience of 4,000 people and three very sceptical judges were inwardly mocking her.

But Susan cared little for what everyone was thinking, and you get the impression that that's exactly how she has got through her whole life. Her smile, her attitude, and her huge talent will make her one of the best things to come out of Scotland for a very long time... even better than the M74! In fact she's so good that Betfair have already opened a market on whether she'll win the whole thing and money has already been matched on her at odds-on that she will!

Whilst it's the acts that continue to surprise us, it's the brilliant Ant & Dec and the sharp tongued Simon Cowell that often provide the best laugh-out-loud moments - like during Andy Demetriou's hilarious 'tree' dancing audition.

Not surprisingly, Andy failed to make it past the judges and into the next round, but two acts that did impress enough were Stavros Flatley and dance group Flawless.

Stavros Flatley are a father-son combination of Greek dancers doing their own impersonation of Riverdance star Michael Flatley. Their act is probably the most enjoyable one I've watched so far, but their routine has very little room for improvement and will only take them to the semi-finals at best.

Flawless on the other hand have the potential to go a very long way and may even go close to even winning the show. Whether the British public or the judges will allow another dance act (following on from last year's winner George Sampson) to triumph this year is doubtful, but the passion and talent these best friends have is commendable and they fully deserve any future success that comes their way.

I will go into what the judges and public are looking for in more detail in next week' piece, whilst also reviewing the latest wannabee stars to appear on the only show worth watching on a Saturday night - Britain really has got talent.