Britain's got cruelty: Exploitation is what this talent show is about

By Laura Topham

Britain's Got Talent judges (left to right) Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell


To say something strange is happening at the West London Novotel this wintry Wednesday morning is something of an understatement.

Four middle-aged men in dressing gowns are shimmying across the bar, and a film crew is fawning over a blond transvestite.

Yet no one stares, even when a whip-wielding man emerges, in black shoes and a khaki skirt, followed by a scantily-clad woman in leotard and high heels, who, it transpires, is his best friend's wife.

These oddities are gathered here today for one reason: they are contestants on Britain's Got Talent, Simon Cowell's TV phenomenon.

They are here to register and wait in the hotel's 'Champagne Suite' before being bussed over to the Hammersmith Apollo to give the performance of a lifetime before judges Cowell, Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden.

The results will be watched by up to 19 million viewers when the show airs on ITV1 in April.

Since its launch three years ago, the talent show has firmly lodged itself in the nation's psyche - but little is known about what happens behind the scenes.

This week, though, I went undercover at the filming of the London auditions. What I found will disturb fans of the show, and left me wondering whether a more suitable title would be Britain's Got Exploitation.

The controversy over this year's show has started early. This week, questions were raised about whether young children should appear after four-year-old Kayim-Ali Jaffer performed his Michael Jackson routine. But what I witnessed raised many wider questions . . .

The first excited contestants arrive at the Novotel before 8am. Having passed the initial audition stage in December, these are the acts selected to perform in front of the judges - and the TV cameras.


Controversy: Four-year-old contestant Kayim-Ali Jaffer


Sue Smith, 41, from Wolverhampton, got up at 4am this morning to catch the earliest train. Goodness only knows what fellow passengers made of her spiky hair, multiple earrings, huge floor-length pink gown and pink fishnet gloves.

She has sung only once in public before - in the canteen at Sainsbury's, where she works as a cleaner. 'My boss was dancing when I did that,' says Sue in her thick Midlands accent. 'But everyone else just stared down at their tables.'

Far from being deterred, Sue has spent her hard-earned cash to come here and claim her shot at fame. Like all contestants, her travel expenses will not be reimbursed.

By 10am, the room is packed; through the crowd, I make out two chubby women in long, pink, frilly dresses, who will be playing tambourines, a girl dance group in purple waistcoats and stripy socks, and ten skinhead boys in bright orange togas.

At a desk, an Italian man in a red military coat is cutting someone's hair. Surreal doesn't begin to describe it.

Before going on stage, each act is repeatedly interviewed on camera to provide enough material for the show and its ITV2 spin-offs.

One hopeful, Kirsty Simmons, 27, is upset that a producer burst out laughing during her last interview.

'Does my outfit look funny?' she demands of me. 'It's supposed to be serious.' She is wearing a blonde curly wig, a T-shirt with huge bejewelled cone breasts sewn in and a flashing bicycle light at her crotch.

Kirsty's stage partner John Tompkins, 33, is in a Terminator suit. Their act is a strange rhyme about Madonna which makes no sense to me, however many times Kirsty repeats it.

By midday, everyone is hungry and thirsty, but a trolley full of water bottles is off limits: a girl reaching for one is told sternly that it's for crew only.

The contestants - including groups of school children - are not supplied with any food or water. One teenager comes in complaining that a sandwich at the hotel bar cost £9


Little Hollie Steel's distress on stage was clear to see as she tried to impress a judging panel of adults on last year's Brtian's Got Talent
Meanwhile, Mohammed Khan, 29, from Enfield, here to sing Annie's Song, is busy stewing over news that even those receiving three 'yes' votes from the judges may not make it into the next round, let alone onto TV. 'How can that be fair?' he says angrily.
It emerges that the producers reserve the right to choose which acts make it onto the television. This clause is buried in a very stringent consent form which contestants must sign if they want to perform.
Put simply, contestants give up any say in just about anything. Under the terms and conditions, their contribution may 'be exhibited or otherwise exploited...in perpetuity by all means and in all media whether now known or hereafter invented'.
The performer gives up 'any so-called moral rights - the company shall have the unfettered right to modify the contribution or any part of it in any way it thinks fit'. In other words, if a performer isn't peculiar enough, producers can alter footage for greater comedic value. But how many performers actually read this stuff?


Susan Boyle had a stint in The Priory after appearing on Britain's Got Talent

Mohammed is even more put out after his interviews. 'They told me to say I'd give up my job if I won,' he claims.

'But I refused - I own an estate agency and if my business partner saw me on TV saying that, he'd be horrified. So we compromised and I said I'd go around the world performing.'

TV producers also told him to look tense. 'I had to sit on a chair shaking and looking scared while they filmed,' he tells me. 'But I feel fine.'

Mohammed believes - as does everyone I meet - that he is highly talented. This is not helped by production staff insisting he has 'raw talent', when quite clearly he has none.

The transvestite in leopard-print dress and black beret is also encouraged that he may go far: this is his second year here. 'We are filming,' he hisses severely at me when I wander past, already relishing his 'fame'.

Despite being unable to hear clearly (he's deaf with an inefficient hearing aid) or see very well (he's shortsighted and doesn't wear glasses) and definitely unable to dance, he genuinely believes he's got what it takes. (Sadly, that delusion is encouraged when, in an uncharacteristically amenable mood, Simon puts him through to the next round.)


Contestants arrive at the Hammersmith Apollo in London for the first round of the TV competition


If the humans are strange, the animals are disturbing. At the edge of the melÈe is a black Labrador sitting in a guitar case wearing a pink hairband. He looks terrified. He's billed as being able to play the guitar but his owner, Melissa, admits he can't.

Things get worse on the bus over to the theatre when Melissa screams that she has left her guitar at the hotel. Two bemused production crew radio for it to be brought over, while Melissa starts insisting that Mohammed the wannabe singer looks like John Lennon. He's incredulous, not least because he's Asian.

'Ah - must be your birth sign,' she says, before shouting: 'Does anyone know John Lennon's birth sign?'

Thankfully we are soon at the Apollo, where hundreds of people have been waiting for four hours to make it into the audience.

Inside, Simon's make-up artist, Julia, is applying powder to his face and a boy has just finished polishing his water glass.

This is the last day of filming this stage, and the judges' moods are steadily declining. By the evening performance - the final show of the first round - the judges are tired, and it shows.

Knowing the contestants have waited all day, have practised for months and spent their own money getting here, it makes for grisly viewing. Cowell, especially, is brutal


Unequipped: Children pushed into the limelight too soon can be vulnerable


I lose count of the number of acts who are buzzed off stage when their performances have barely begun, their faces a mask of anguish.

There seems to be no end to the type of acts Simon hates - circus acts, classical recitals and magicians, to name but a few.

Yet they have all been allowed through the first audition to be here, allowed to believe they have a chance so they'll spend time, money and effort on coming here, just to be buzzed offstage within seconds.

A group of teenagers from Dover come on in red sequinned dresses and feathered headbands. Aged 14 to 18, their excitement is palpable. Which makes it all the worse when they are crushed 20 seconds later, having been stopped prematurely and given harsh criticism.

By 10pm, the show is over-running. It is, of course, the organisers' fault. But it's the contestants - some of whom have been waiting for 16 hours - who bear the brunt.

Suleman, 23, a talented male bellydancer, is quickly stopped despite the crowd cheering him. 'I liked the snake, I didn't like you,' says Simon, to loud boos.

As the atmosphere darkens, it no longer feels like a light-hearted talent show.

Instead, it is a bear pit, the performers increasingly distressed at their rapid rejection.

The crowd, encouraged to boo and scream 'off off off', are doing so indiscriminately as they grow weary. Sometimes the booing starts even before an act has begun.

Katherine, a harpist, comes on and plays beautifully. Yet within seconds, Simon and Amanda buzz her off. Only Piers listens, condemning his fellow judges for having 'the cultural knowledge of a bat'.

Katherine has 20 friends in the audience, and when she's thrown off and the crowd starts booing, it's clear she feels utterly humiliated. It's horrible to watch.

Next, a magician comes on stage and proudly declares that his children are in the audience. But before he's begun his act, Cowell buzzes - setting off jeers from the crowd and buzzes from the two other judges. The deflated magician doesn't even complete a trick and after harsh comments, looks close to tears.

Next up is Joe Swing, who four hours earlier was sitting on his own at the hotel; his family was nearby, but he said he needed solitude to collect his nerves.

Joe makes a living from singing, and sounds good - but it's after 10pm now and the judges have got their tails up.

'You were too happy to be Frank Sinatra,' says Cowell.

'I wasn't trying to be Frank Sinatra,' Joe replies honestly.

Piers swipes in with a final blow: 'You were trying to be a Frank Sinatra, and it's a No.' Joe is crestfallen.

Now, it's the turn of a troup of Indian dancers. But Simon buzzes seconds in, just as they begin to dance; the youngest members actually jump in fright.

Next is Poles Apart Stilts, four musicians who perform on stilts. They have been together for ten years, and perform at rock festivals.

Unfortunately, they are on at 10.30pm - after waiting for 12 hours to perform - and the judges just want to go home.

They are stopped within seconds (not even ten words into their song) and given Simon's acid verdict: 'Never in a million, billion, trillion years'.

The band is inevitably upset. 'By the time we went on, it was obvious the judges weren't interested and the odds were stacked against us,' says one of them, Ian Harris.

'Simon only glanced up during the act. We put a lot of effort in, were kept waiting for ten hours and given no food, water or expenses - then we didn't even really get to perform. If I could turn back the clock I would never have bothered.'

At the end of the night, the judges are whisked away in a fleet of Mercedes. They speed past the remaining contestants, who are making their way through the night to get the last Tube or train home: hungry, thirsty, tired and deflated.

It's easy to criticise these people and their desire to be famous, however limited their talents. You may argue that they knew exactly what they were signing up for.

But even so, the sheer cruelty of the process - the father mocked before his children, the musician lambasted in front of her friends - has convinced me this programme is the modern equivalent of a howling Roman amphitheatre mob.

But, hey, at least Simon Cowell will make £20 million for his trouble.



source: dailymail