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Wales Online
Wales Online
Lifestyle
Neil Shaw

First ever Britain's Got Talent winner has a bone to pick with Bruno Tonioli

The first-ever winner of Britain's Got Talent, Paul Potts, has said new judge Bruno Tonioli is making one mistake hge needs to stop. Singer Paul sat down with Sky Bingo in an exclusive interview to discuss thelive semi-final as well as his thoughts on the competition.

Paul said: “He needs to ring it in [Bruno with the swearing] because some of the show is before the watershed. Bruno always seems like he’s got ants in his pants, but it’s good to see the energy on the panel, otherwise it would be staged.

“Bruno calmed the jumping up and down a bit, but he needs to watch his language because it is a family show.”

He added: “Bruno [Tonioli] has been a bit naughty. He’s the one who started the too many Golden Buzzer’s – he got a bit carried away. I see the energy he brings - we’ve got two daunting judges on there and it’s certainly thrown the cat amongst the pigeons, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

Paul also said he has seen a change in head judge Simon Cowell. He said: “The audience was a lot smaller when I was on Britain’s Got Talent, it was only 300-400 people. The Hammersmith Apollo [where the live shows are hosted now] is a better venue for this than Wembley Arena - there is great energy in the theatre.

“This year, Simon has been looking around a lot to see what the audience thinks, like he did with Markus. I’ve noticed that he’s looked behind a lot, assessing the audiences’ reactions, so the audience has been more important this year than other years.”

And he misses David Walliams, adding: "David Walliams is missed, but he’s got plenty of irons in the fire. It is a pity for there not to be a comedian on the panel because it’s hard for comedians - you can go completely cold on them. So it was good to have a comedian who understood that process."

Turning to the acts, Paul said: “Travis had a reasonably good performance but it’s a hard one – do you play it safe to try and get through or take a risk? I was sad to see the cut in the first verse, it’s not a particularly long song, but he did well.

“He sang such an iconic song, and it is quite a safe choice, but I don’t see the issue with going safe. With a song like that you’ve really got to grab the emotions and I’m not sure that Travis quite did that – he didn’t milk enough emotion out of the song.

“I’m not sure what Simon was looking for – I don’t think the song choice was bad, but you needed to nail the emotional side of it – you had to make Amanda cry with it.

“I thought that Notorious did really well. Dylan could have done better if he had a better choice of song, but he is young and his voice will break at some point, so this may be his only chance. Two of the favourites went through.”

Paul has also revealed what happened to him after BGT, he said: "After I’d won Britain’s Got Talent, I’d had an hours sleep that night before I went onto TV. Then, I was on my way to New York, so it [winning] did change things quite a bit.

“I didn’t actually resign from my job until another six months. I resigned from the stage in Atlantic City, on my first American tour.”

He added: "I saw Amanda Holden six months ago and it was good to chat to her in Cardiff when she was doing her breakfast show. I haven’t seen Simon Cowell for a while, but he’s always flying here, there, and everywhere. I’ve had the old exchange with Piers Morgan on Twitter. I speak to them occasionally.”

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