Amanda Holden has lent her support to Stephen Mulhern as the host of the Britain’s Got Talent Christmas special this year, standing in for Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly.
The Geordie duo will be absent from the upcoming Christmas special on ITV, which will see the talent show pit the world’s best magicians against one another.
The long-running ITV show hopes to find The Ultimate Magician among the mesmerising acts set to take the stage in a one-off spectacular.
While Stephen admitted he was nervous to swap in the spin-off for the main event, he also said he was excited at the prospect of a special dedicated to his first love of magic.
Meanwhile, judge Amanda Holden said that while Ant and Dec are the ‘linchpin’ of the show, Stephen as a replacement ‘made sense’.
She said: “I love him, he came and did his stuff and was brilliant. Ant and Dec are really close with him so they won't mind me saying this, but he was the perfect host.
“He was the right host for this job and I think everyone will agree it's better having someone with the knowledge of what the acts are doing rather than just commentary.
“Stephen was up for everything and because of his background in magic, it worked really, really well. He'll always be part of the BGT family.”
Amanda noted he was thrilled with the job and good-humoured about the mischievous judging panel taking the mickey, saying: “He had to put up with all the banter from us and nothing got in his way. He just absolutely loved every minute of it.”
The special will not only look different in the wings without Ant and Dec, but on the judging panel Simon Cowell will similarly miss the special due to filming commitments in the US.
Yet keeping his seat on the judging panel warm is magician Penn Jillette, who will be joining Amanda, Alesha Dixon and David Walliams.
Amanda admitted she initially questioned whether the show would be ‘any good’ without Simon at the helm, but went on to say that Penn proved to be ‘in a lot of ways a better choice’ for the special.
She said: “You had somebody that knew what they were talking about. Every time an act came on, he then told me the history of the act, where it came from, who invented it, how it has evolved, who was the first person to do it.
“He's just a fascinating man and he's the king of what he does. The acts were so nervous to perform in front of him. Penn knows his stuff so actually it worked out really, really well.”
Britain’s Got Talent: The Ultimate Magician will air on Sunday 18th December at 8pm on ITV1.
