Is Damon Scott a ventriloquist?

Cafe Society
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For the unknowing: on the British talent-search show Britain’s Got Talent, a guy named Damon Scott performed with a monkey puppet that sings Michael Jackson songs. What I can’t work out is if he is a ventriloquist or not. He is described as one by news outlets, but he has described himself as a “ventriloquist without the vent”. The singing sounds like a playback, and when Scott sang himself his voice wasn’t very good. He also managed to sing while the monkey was singing, an impossible feat for a ventriloquist as far as I know.

On the other hand, his act looks like a ventriloquist act, albeit the best I have ever seen, by a wide margin. One would think that if he does use playback he would take advantage of that more instead of displaying the stone face necessary for a ventriloquist act. Then again, that might be part of the act: making the audience wonder if he is or isn’t. If so, he succeeded with me.

Here are a few Youtube links of his performances on the show (the third link is the performance in which he sings himself):

Anyone in the know?

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That’s pretty clearly canned audio. It sounds like Jackson, and the little I know about ventriloquism suggests that it would be damned hard for Scott to sing like that while throwing his voice. It looks like he’s put all his attention into manipulating the puppet and not giving it a voice, and I’m honestly shocked that it works so well. Usually acts involving lipsynching are kind of mediocre, but, er, he really works that puppet. I’m impressed.