I caught this via Brit Hume on Fox News who got it from YouTube…my God!
Watch the video…you will be blown away.
There’s a lengthy discussion about him over in the Your favorite Youtube video (new thread) thread, along with a link to his semi-final performance.
Dammit…I searched for Paul Potts and everything.
Was about to make a joke about Pol Pot, but then watched the vid. That was epic, gotta say.
More than his singing ability (which is jaw-dropping), it’s his bravery that’s inspiring. He knows that he’s just a working class schlub with bad teeth, and that Simon whatsisface picks his teeth with contestants, and he got up there and sang his heart out.
Damn, but I’d buy that man a drink any day.
He’s talented, but he’s not “just” a working class “schlub.” He’s been training for years, and touring in Italy with a top Italian company. His teachers include Luciano Pavorotti, as well as several other singers who I’ve never heard of but who I gather are right up there.
This is what Wikipedia says, anyway.
I don’t mean to detract from the guy’s talent or his performance, but the presentation was edited to make it appear as though he just came out of nowhere singing like that on his own, and as though he’d never had an opportunity to perform seriously before. (“It’s always been my dream to sing!” edited to make it seem as though he means he’s never sung before.) In fact he’s sung on TV before.
-FrL-
Well shatt, you should detract from it then, 'cause it was apparently total bullshit. Feh.
Ayup, he was a ringer, per his Wiki bio. What a travesty, contrived bullshit of a show. Sorta like putting Christy Aguilerra on AI as an amateur.
Bit of an own goal for the producers. It might not matter quite so much if there was just a mild clash between how the producers choose to slant the show in the edit ('These are all amateurs from nowhere!) and the fact that Paul has in fact had a lot of pro or semi-pro experience.
But it goes a little bit further than that. I think it was the semi-final where Simon Cowell gave a big heartwarming speech - more or less a ‘statement of policy’ - about how the show was all about discovering someone who is just an ordinary Joe, doing a humdrum job somewhere, who turns out to have a hidden talent. Cowell is of course not just a judge but also the executive producer, so his statement should carry some weight. Doesn’t look too good if the ordinary Joe turns out to be someone with Paul’s level of prior experience.
It’s been quite a strange show. Having the auditions in front of a live audience made a big difference. As usual, the choices and selections seem utterly imponderable. Zeus knows what the judges saw in the middle-aged, overweight Madonna wannabe who didn’t even sing, and who at the semi final stage was more or less stoned off the stage by the audience. Or those women with the ‘dancing dogs’ who didn’t have a routine for the semi-final. It’s a shame to think these people took semi-final places that were denied to other acts.
Meh, upon further review it seems he wasn’t really a pro, but paid for all that stuff, the tour and everything, so I guess he still rocks, great YouTube stuff still I gotta say. I’d vote for him.
Nahh, it was that other guy on the panel, whoever he is, never seen him before. Who is that broad anyway, she’s kinda hot, cuter than Pauler gotta say.
Are you referring to Amanda Holden?
She certainly is a hottie. 
The other judge is Piers Morgan, a former newspaper editor.
He has been involved in various scandals faking pictures andlots of others
I say, he’s a bit of wanker then isn’t he?
The general opinion of the nation re Morgan was best summed up by Stephen Fry, who once defined ‘countryside’ as ‘a legal term meaning to murder Piers Morgan’.
I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in a Wiki article thrown up a few days ago. And I certainly wouldn’t refer to anything in it as “fact”. For one thing, it doesn’t jibe with an interview Paul gave to NPR (linked in the other thread), in which he said he’d had a few lessons, the last of which was some six years ago. No, he didn’t just roll out of bed the morning of the auditions deciding that he’d sing opera that day. But he certainly hasn’t had anything like a career with it.
I dunno. A lot of the information in the Wiki article comes from the Bath Opera website. There’s a bio of the bloke here.
And, yes, I accept that the Bath Opera gigs were amateur and don’t really think that the bloke himself has been dishonest about his background. The producers of the show do appear to have been a wee bit manipulative about things though.
Oh, well, lordy. That goes without saying.