AS the only original female judge on the Britain’s Got Talent panel, Amanda Holden could be forgiven for feeling like the show is her baby – and after 18 years it has finally come of age.
In a sign of the talent contest’s enduring success, she returns to the series as BGT prepares to expand from its usual seven weeks on ITV to a whopping three-month run.
And just to cement itself at the heart of our entertainment world, they’ve shifted the whole BGT circus lock, stock and barrel to Blackpool.
But one thing that hasn’t changed is Amanda’s fondness for a revealing dress, including the look she wore for this year’s red-carpet audition launch.
It meant she had to brave the seaside town’s freezing temperatures as she bravely flashed some flesh.
Tongue placed firmly in cheek, Amanda said: “Do I want to wear a polo neck and a pair of gloves?
“No I don’t. Not on a red carpet.
“But at least I didn’t wear sunglasses, and everyone else did.
“It’s called fashion, darling. It was a miserable day but it’s definitely worth getting a little bit nippy for.
“Fortunately the audiences were super-warm and brilliantly up for it.
“The show felt really appreciated and wanted up there.
“I honestly think we won’t go back to London for the auditions, I think we’ll be going back to Blackpool all the time.
“Even if it is freezing.
“Unfortunately my outfits don’t allow for Blackpool fish and chips either.”
The changes are all part of BGT’s evolution, which has coincided with the growth of mum-of-two Amanda’s own family and heightened the show’s importance as part of her life.
Recalling when it all started, she said: “I was stirring soup on my daughter Lexi’s first birthday when I got a call saying, ‘Do you want to come in to do this gig?’
“I was like, ‘Oh yeah, five years, that’ll be lovely’ — and now my daughter’s at university and that is the embodiment of those years.
“I do feel lucky to have hung in there for all this time.”
BGT started in 2007, which was a different era — when hardly anyone had heard of a “Gen Z audience” or the likes of TikTok and YouTube.
Now social media has ensured the show’s acts have been viewed online a staggering 24billion times, and the judges each have millions of followers.
Amanda is keen to point out that when it comes to fans following them on social media, she is neck and neck with fellow panellist Simon Cowell.
She has 2.5million Instagram followers, while he has 2.7million.
But at one stage it was the other way around.
She said: “He recently realised I had more followers than he did.
“So of course he wanted to overtake me, which I think he’s done again now. That’s slightly annoying.
“But I think that’s the main reason he’s upped his game — but can he keep it up?
“I’m up there with his numbers and he can’t quite believe it.
“That’s the competitiveness in him.
“He had a person following him around filming him on their phone. I was like, ‘What is this!?’ ”
Amanda reckons Simon has also been spurred on to boost his social media standing by the arrival of new judge KSI, who stood in for Bruno Tonioli when he had to drop out of auditions for a few days to film Dancing With The Stars in the US.
Amanda said: “He was there for four days, and then when Simon left when Liam Payne passed away, KSI came back to do a couple more days that he wasn’t expecting to do.
“Obviously I should have been the one in the chair because I’m the oldest.”
KSI does bring with him lots of benefits.
For starters, his social media following dwarfs both Amanda’s and Simon’s followers put together.
‘VIRAL MOMENTS’
With a staggering 12.9million fans, it certainly made him an appealing new choice for BGT bosses who value their online presence as much as the TV show.
Then, when auditions began, Amanda noticed he had another amazing plus point.
She laughed: “KSI was like a rabbit out of a trap.
“He was brilliant and just ran up on stage to take part in some of the acts and it took the pressure off us.
“There are a couple of moments with him that I think will go viral, and Simon seems to volunteer quite often now too.
“The knife-throwing on the wheel five years ago was the start of it, and I don’t know what prompted him to do it.”
Simon was centre stage in one of the most terrifying acts to audition on this year’s show — a bloke who lies the judge down on the floor and smashes melons down around his head in rapid succession.
Amanda said: “I was genuinely worried. This guy was obviously practised and knew what he was doing.
“But there was no leeway for mistakes.
“Simon was told to keep still, and wasn’t keeping still, and then there’s these melons being crushed all over the stage with this lump hammer.
“And I’m thinking, ‘There’s no safeguard against this guy slipping on a bit of melon juice that you don’t expect to be there, because you don’t know which of the melons he was going to split.’ ”
As well as a resurgence of dance acts and one or two sensational choirs, this year’s crop of auditionees provides some of the most extreme acts in the history of BGT.
But to someone like Amanda, who has been with the show from the start, they aren’t entirely unprecedented.
She said: “In series one there was someone with a dart board on his back and someone threw darts at him, and I will never forget that.
“Then there was this old lady who smashed concrete slabs on her neighbour’s back, which was also really bizarre.
“We never saw anything like that again for two or three years.
“Maybe we suddenly realised we had to have health and safety on the show.”
As well as terror, Simon also provided some of the funnier moments during auditions too, with the Blackpool audience yelling abuse at him when they didn’t approve of his comments on acts.
At points the production team had to stop filming as the crowds got wilder and louder, but thankfully Amanda, KSI, Bruno and Alesha Dixon didn’t get it in the neck.
She said: “Because Simon’s in charge they took it all out on him — they called him an old fart, they flicked the Vs at him, and then all the way through two or three acts there are these women in the camera shot giving him the finger.
‘FADED GLORY’
“Then, at the end of the session, they’re like, ‘Simon, can we have a selfie?’ and he’s like, ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ ”
Though it shocked one or two crew members who are used to more sedate London audiences, it wasn’t a huge surprise to Amanda.
In the Nineties she used to visit the town with her then-husband, comedian Les Dennis, and knew it when it was the centre of the raucous world of variety.
She said: “I feel bad for Blackpool because it’s faded glory up there, isn’t it?
“But in its day when I was married to Les he’d be doing shows at the end of the pier.
“I’ve been around for a long time in this industry and they all honed their acts in the working men’s clubs in the north with big, tough audiences to please.
“I mean, forget New York — if you can make it there you can literally make it anywhere.
“We’re filming the live shows in London, but I think Blackpool is the future for our auditions.”
As much as Amanda reflects on her 18 years with nostalgia, looking ahead she can’t picture herself still doing the job in the year 2043.
She said: “I cannot imagine doing this another 18 years from now. It would be perfect if we passed the baton down to our children.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we made it a family business for real?
“I think our children would jump at the chance. And there’ll be an A.I. Bruno.”
- Britain’s Got Talent returns to ITV tonight at 7pm.
HOW WE WENT BGT POTTSY
WHEN BGT launched in 2007, it had just three judges – Simon, Amanda and Piers Morgan.
Hosted by Ant & Dec, most viewers assumed it would be similar to The X Factor.
But it was only when some of the crazier acts started appearing that audiences realised this was something quite different.
Many have now been forgotten in the mists of time, but out came baton twirlers, acrobats and tap dancers along with The Bar Wizards, who were a group of jugglers and cocktail-makers.
There was also a line dancing dog act called Mel’s Klever K9s.
There were cute moments too, including the debut of Connie Talbot, who was just six when she melted hearts with renditions of Somewhere Over The Rainbow – and bagged herself a record deal.
But the breakout star of the show was unquestionably opera singer Paul Potts, who won the first series and now appears on TV shows and in stage productions around the globe.
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