Matt Wilkinson's Blog

America's Got Talent

As the Mint Royale remix of  "Singin’ In The Rain" drops from the top of the UK charts; the stage tour draws to a close this weekend; the performances of George Sampson, Signature and that 12-year-old-girl-singer become distant memories… Britain’s Got Talent 2008 has all but gone for another year. I loved the show and was sad to see it pass, until that was I discovered the second series of America's Got Talent!

If, like me, you were a fan of our version then flick on ITV2 on Saturday night and you wont be disappointed. At 2 hours it’s twice as long as BGT – which means even more entertainment. Piers Morgan plays judge again alongside Sharon Osbourne and David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff (I can’t help thinking it’s slightly bizarre that for an American Talent contest two out of three of the judges are British!?).

I might be biased, but I think our version is slightly better – not that they differ hugely. Jerry Springer is a good host but you get the feeling executive producer Simon Cowell has tried to get him to be a bit like Ant and Dec with his comic asides at the side of the stage.

One of the most striking differences between our two cultures is the reaction to failure. In both versions there are two types of performer the talented and the no-hoper. In BGT the no-hoper gets rejected but sees the whole thing as a bit of a laugh and at least they had a go. On AGT both types are convinced they are amazing at their talent be it singing, juggling or jigging! When the no-hopers in America get turned down they take it to heart and are devastated – I don’t want to sound cruel but it makes hilarious viewing.

When America’s Got Talent finishes in a couple of month’s it’ll hopefully tie us over nicely in time for X-Factor, if not I may have to scour the foreign cable channels I’ve never heard of to try and find another country’s version’s of the show - Bolivia’s Got Talent perhaps?

On the subject, I found a video last week of a British guy cooking up something special that I had to show you. We need to find this guy and get him to enter Britain’s Got Talent 2009, I think he would easily win it. Click here to watch a chef do something even Gordon Ramsey couldn’t!

See you at 7 tonight.

M x

Posted by Matt Wilkinson on June 23, 2008 at 16:47PM

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