Free Susan Boyle by Alice Montgomery Page A

for publicity - something no one can doubt - and when a promising contestant didn’t have a suitable back story, he managed to pull one out of a hat by creating an on-air feud.
    The latest contestant to get through to the semi-final was Sue Son, a violinist from London, but for Sue, things hadn’t quite gone according to plan. She’d come on the show as one half of a classical duo called Addicted, with her friend Janine Khalil. In a stroke of Mephistophelean brilliance, Simon suggested that Sue split from Janine and strike out on her own, which Sue, of course, did. Jealousy and accusations of betrayal followed - and all on national television. Initially Janine said that she would have done the same, but then she appeared to change her mind.
    ‘I thought everything was fine,’ said Sue somewhat naively. ‘Later she admitted she was devastated. She didn’t want me to do the show. I thought she would be a true friend and support me but she’s been ignoring my calls and has blocked me on Facebook. She even called my mum the other day in Korea at 3a.m., telling her I’d betrayed her. I can’t believe she would do that - contacting my mum at three in the morning talking about how I’d betrayed her. It’s awful.’ But it certainly made good TV.
    Meanwhile it was suggested that Susan should become the face of a cosmetics company - she’d certainly made a dramatic change in her appearance - or make an appearance on I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! , also presented by Ant and Dec. In truth, for a woman like Susan, there could hardly have been a less suitable show, but no one seemed to have realized that yet.
    The next contestant to get through was Jamie Pugh. He had a very sad story to tell as his wife had died of cancer ten years earlier. But to his great credit he didn’t make a song and dance about it, confining himself to talking about his nerves instead.
    Someone else who was taking a keen interest in the show was one of the very few people who might have understood how Susan was feeling - Paul Potts - although even he hadn’t come under such intensive scrutiny. As the very first winner of Britain’s Got Talent , Potts was a similarly unlikely artist, with an equally unconventional appearance, although because he was a man it seemed to matter less and cause less comment in the media. Nor did he have to put up with the male equivalent of the ‘virgin spinster’ tag that had been firmly attached to Susan. He had, however, been thrown from a life of quiet obscurity into the media limelight, and more to the point, he had built a lasting career on the back of it.
    Potts was quick to offer Susan his support: ‘I think she’s great, I think she’s in with a great chance,’ he said. ‘But there are a number of people who also stand a chance and I’m conscious of the fact that the set-up is slightly different this year. She did week one and has got a lot more pressure on her. I wish her well. I think she’s done really well and she’s coped with the media attention. I don’t know how I would have coped with suddenly finding photographers on my doorstep.’ He was also conscious of the commercial possibilities of working together: ‘I’d be looking at a duet in the future,’ he continued. ‘But it’s early days yet. I wouldn’t want to add any more pressure than she has already. She’s taking every new day as it comes. She has to enjoy it as much as possible and not think about the pressure of her next performance, because that will be different.’
    In truth, Susan was thinking of little else apart from her next performance. She had been spotted with a list of songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber in her hand, leading to intense speculation about what she would perform next, a crucial decision if she were to prove she wasn’t a one-trick pony. All this time the stage of Britain’s Got Talent was filling up with children, and one night in mid-May there were no fewer than six acts on stage featuring