Britain's Got Talent

I meant to blog about this when the first episode was on, but I forgot and so I want to make up for that omission now.
Britain's Got Talent isn't a show that I would normally make plans to watch, in fact I would normally avoidit like the plague, but I was working nights and there wasn't much on on the first night so we watched it. It was cringe-worthy in some places, and I was surprised by some of the acts that were being allowed through (some through the sheer lack of a backbone of Amanda Holden! Can you tell I am not a fan of hers?).
But the first program got my eyes filling up when I heard the story of 17 year old baton-twirler Craig Womersley.
Craig has been twirling since the age of three, mainly due to the fact that his wonderful gran ran a majorettes troop. But was stopped early on by his parents who thought he would get bullied if he continued. He continued to twirl in secret, with only his gran knowing and the first time anyone else knew of his talent was when he attended the auditions for Britain's Got Talent.
He was amazing. He came out onto the stage looking like a bag of nerves and started his act the same. The audience in the theatre began clapping, and when he realised that they were backing him and enjoying the show you could just see him blossoming. Craig's confidence grew with each passing second and he performed brilliantly. You could see his sheer enjoyment in his face. The audience loved him, the judges loved him, and I was really impressed and pleased for him. With his performance and his background story and the fact that he was emotional, I found myself filling up and almost crying along with some in the audience.
The way his story was portrayed in this show was that his parents would be ashamed if they knew, as they didn't think it was manly enough for a boy to be doing this "girl's activity." But After seeing tonights show, I'm not so sure this was the case.
Craig obviously made it through the first stage and was selected to go into tonight's section.
When he came onto the stage tonight, his nerves appeared to have gone, but I (and, as it turned out, the judges too, were really worried that he would make a mistake and ruin all the confidence he had built up, as he had apparently made quite a few mistakes during rehersals). This trepedation ruined my enjoyment of the performance initially as I was cringing, waiting for the baton to drop. But it didn't and he performed a wonderful show again, even better than his first. He had truly blossomed.
His costume in the first show was quite feminine, almost a leotard, but tonight's costume was better (though still a bit feminine), and he'd had a red (pink?) star design put into his hair. In the first show also, I thought he was a cute kid, but could do with losing a little weight (judgmental I know). In tonight's show, he seemed to have lost this weight (at least a bit), and in the interview clips before the performance he even appeared to be a good looking young man. His confidence also makes him much more attractive. In my opinion Craig should stick to his "normal" attire and perform as himself. He has brought this discipline to a new audience and so he does not have to conform to the disciplines' "old" styles, he deserves to be allowed to bring his own style to this skill as he is promoting it far beyond its usual audience.
Tonight's show also had Craig's parents in the audience, with his mother looking as proud as a mother could, and his father being, at least, verbally supportive.
Unfortunately, Craig didn't come first in the public vote, but was in the second or third place and so it was down to the judges to decide if he or a group of breakdancers called Kombat Breakers would go through to the semi-finals. I was actually quite proud of the way he stood on stage on one side of Ant and Dec with these "masculine" tough-looking street dancers the other side. He held his ground well. Two opposite sides of the "dance" spectrum, if you like.
The Kombat Breakers were put through and Craig wasn't. And he was professional enough to thank the judges for making a tough decision and held his dignity through his disappointment. My biggest surprise was that one of the Kombat Breakers was comfortable enough with himself to go across and hug Craig before he left the stage, which I thought was one of THE most touching scenes of the series so far. And that's saying something!
As Craig had admitted himself, before the decision had been made: If he didn't go through to the next stage he had had the best night of his life tonight. And I think that the whole country should be proud of this brave, young, talented man and wish him a fantastic and prosperous future, because he deserves it.
Good luck to you Craig in whater direction your life takes now and whatever decisions you make about your life. You have many avenues available to you now, take a good look at your options and make an informed decision about what you want and how you want to achieve it.