History Series / BritainsGotTalent

* {{Determinator}}: David J. Watson, who has auditioned for the show more times than anyone else. He [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9E0m3Q0SR8 first appeared]] in 2008, where he did political impersonation act that was hilarious for all the wrong reasons, then [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctZCyXbl9iA showed up again]] in 2010 where he performed a bizarre mix of ''ComicBook/IncredibleHulk'' and ''Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy''. His [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAL4Gyknf-o appearance]] in 2011 saw him try to pull off a "magic trick" that didn't really amount to anything more than a high school science experiment. In the 2013 series, he brought back up in the form of two colleagues, one of whom seemed not very enthusiastic in being there. His act involved a small comedy sketch where David pretends to drill through a wall and into a person, who then 'comically' spins around. This was achieved by having one guy arc the top half of his body over the wall, and then the other guy waves a pair of fake legs. It was as bad as it sounds. Only David Walliams seemed amused. He then returned dressed as a DragQueen magician's assistant named "Miss Direction"; while the magician did a basic "cut the rope and make it whole again", his sole contribution was to eat an extremely spicy chili, resulting in him wretching and sounding like he was about to vomit for the whole act. A terrible ''Series/MrBean'' impression followed the year after. His 2018 attempt consisted of him standing behind a screen and doing "impressions" of pop culture icons so poor it more closely resembled a bizarre Avant-Garde art project than any of the characters he was trying to resemble. 2020 ''finally'' saw him progress past the first round with a magician act, albeit it seemed that the other judges put him through mostly to {{troll}} Simon, and he didn't get past the second round.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: One series three contestant was named Adrian Pirate. Unfortunately he didn't live up to his name; his act consisted of him randomly riding in on a motorbike, before getting a chainsaw and slicing up fruits impaled on sticks. He didn't even model them into shapes or anything, he was literally just cutting randomly. After swiftly being dealt three "no"s from the judges, he ran off waving his arms in the air like a madman. Nothing involving talent was even attempted.

* InstantWebHit: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk Susan Boyle]] found fame when the [=YouTube=] video of her performance racked up 100 million views in just nine days.

** Played for laughs in a ''Britain’s Got More Talent'' episode from May 2019, where Stephen Malhern randomly asks questions to Ant and Dec and then suggests that Confetti could make the answers better, which indeed happens.

* EpicFail: James Boyd's act was to try to beat the world record for the number of Ferrero Rocher chocolates eaten in one minute. The record was seven, and he managed... four. To make it an even more spectacular failure, Ant tried the same act backstage and beat him by eating five in the same amount of time.
** Boyd returned one year later to attempt the world record for most After Eight mints eaten without using his hands. The record was eight, and after seven months of practice, he managed... five. Mostly because he ''didn't prepare all of his mints beforehand''. Ant tried his hand again, and actually tied the record of eight!
*** As his time was running out, Boyd began using his hands. That's right, Boyd cheated and '''still''' failed.
* TheFaceless: 2016 gave us Boogie Storm, a group of six dancers wearing [[Franchise/StarWars Stormtrooper helmets and armor]] that completely obscured their faces. They also never spoke during their audition, so the judges couldn't even confirm genders.

* TooQualifiedToApply: 12-year-old musical singer Beau Dermott was accused of "cheating" in newspapers when it was revealed that she had been professionally coached in singing and won multiple TalentShows before. BGT has no rules banning either of these.
** This is often invoked when international acts or performers with substantial professional experience compete on the show. 2022 competitor Loren Allred (who provided the singing voice for Jenny Lind in TheGreatestShowman) received particular online hostility for her previous experience and success.

** This is often invoked when international acts or variety acts with substantial experience compete on the show.

The judges here are/were:
* Creator/SimonCowell (2007-present); [[TheMeanBrit THE Mean Brit]], even in his own country; sat out the auditions in the 2011 series but returned for the 2011 live shows and onwards
* Amanda Holden (2007-present); comedy actress and model ([[MsFanservice Google Image Search will generate underwear and, er, more]])

* Alesha Dixon (2012-present); singer, recently defected from ''Series/StrictlyComeDancing''
* David Walliams (2012-present); comedian and actor

* Ashley Banjo (2020); The lead member of former BGT Champions Diversity and a judge on ''Series/DancingOnIce'', Ashley stepped in as a guest judge for the Live Shows when Simon suffered a severe back injury.

** Simon also lets one out when Alesha gives 100 Voices of Gospel the Golden Buzzer in 2016. Mainly because he wanted to give them the Golden Buzzer.

* TookALevelInBadass: Bello and Annalise on their original season in USA Got Talent struggled Bello barely makes it to the judge cuts and even then he doesn't make it farther than the quarter-finals and Annalise doesn't even make it to the live shows. Here they manage to win the audience vote over fan favorites as Ashleigh and Sully and survive on live television on a giant pendulum even winning Simon's approval.
* TookALevelInKindness: Simon, Season 13 Simon is a lot calmer than the * MeanBrit we all know while he is still prone to snarking he will only do it if he didn't really like a joke act, even then he is more open to joke acts than before to the point that last season he gave his golden buzzer to a comedian.

** And then there's David Walliams, who will (often blatantly) check out ''anybody'' attractive, with gender being irrelevant.

** And then there's David Walliams, who will check out both.

* ManipulativeEditing: A specific example: Part of the reason the Susan Boyle story was such a runaway success was the brilliant editing of the clip that introduced her. For the first two minutes, she is set up as a classic [[HopelessAuditionees Hopeless Auditionee]]: they seem to find the most unflattering shots of her (the very first one we see is her biting into a sandwich); the background music is a slow, lumbering oom-pah-pah melody; she herself seems rather... quirky ("And that's just one side of me!", followed by a shimmy), if not ''quite'' as deluded as most HopelessAuditionees. If anything, the viewer would feel pity for this poor old woman who is about to embarrass herself on national television. [[SubvertedTrope And then, of course, she sings.]] Re-watching the audition (as many, ''many'' people did) gives the opening an entirely different tone: Boyle's unusual self-confidence is now perfectly understandable, and her quirks therefore seem more endearing. But it's clear that the editing is ''actually'' setting her up as the underdog: note the very large number of cynical reaction shots (one of these, the "[[FanNickname girl at 1:24]]", actually [[MemeticMutation gained notoriety]] because of this), and the way the goofy music suddenly disappears when Susan delivers her most heartfelt line: "I've always wanted to perform in front of a large audience". Needless to say, it all worked like a charm, and it became one of the biggest pop culture stories of 2009.

* {{Determinator}}: David J. Watson, who has auditioned for the show more times than anyone else. He [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9E0m3Q0SR8 first appeared]] in 2008, where he did political impersonation act that was hilarious for all the wrong reasons, then [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctZCyXbl9iA showed up again]] in 2010 where he performed a bizarre mix of ''ComicBook/IncredibleHulk'' and ''Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy''. His [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAL4Gyknf-o appearance]] in 2011 saw him try to pull off "magic trick" that didn't really amount to anything more than a high school science experiment. In the 2013 series, he brought back up in the form of two colleagues, one of whom seemed not very enthusiastic in being there. His act involved a small comedy sketch where David pretends to drill through a wall and into a person, who then 'comically' spins around. This was achieved by having one guy arc the top half of his body over the wall, and then the other guy waves a pair of fake legs. It was as bad as it sounds. Only David Walliams seemed amused. He then returned dressed as a DragQueen magician's assistant named "Miss Direction"; while the magician did a basic "cut the rope and make it whole again", his sole contribution was to eat an extremely spicy chili, resulting in him wretching and sounding like he was about to vomit for the whole act. A terrible ''Series/MrBean'' impression followed the year after. His 2018 attempt consisted of him standing behind a screen and doing "impressions" of pop culture icons so poor it more closely resembled a bizarre Avant-Garde art project than any of the characters he was trying to resemble. 2020 ''finally'' saw him progress past the first round with a magician act, albeit it seemed that the other judges put him through mostly to {{troll}} Simon, and he didn't get past the second round.

** One male act in the 2010 series actually striped off completely naked, and Amanda's reaction was precisely as enthusiastic as you'd expect. Despite the act in question having probably his best ever chance of getting through to the semi-finals, with [[StraightGay Louis Walsh]] standing in for Simon, he wasn't voted through.

* LamePunReaction: One pun earned an impressionist the rare honour of being buzzed off before even being allowed to perform his act. He nonchalantly walked out on to the stage wearing a custard doughnut on his head, and when Piers questioned what it was doing there, the contestant replied "I've just been to the hairdressers, and I've got my hair in a bun." The judges showed their appreciation of this joke by all hitting their buzzers at once, and the hapless contestant left without having done a single impression.
* TheLoad: The cats in Catalyst's performance, which didn't make any meaningful contributions to the performance, and were seemgly incorporated just to [[RuleOfCute give the audience something to gush over]]. Even if strictly intended as "props" - as Catalyst referred them as - they still hindered the performance with their erratic behavior: one of them delayed the performance by running backstage, and afterward nearly got crushed by Catalyst when it moved over into her seat. [[JustifiedTrope Given that these were ordinary pets with no special training]], it was clear that the onus was on the owner's poor judgment for bringing her pets in a situation where they didn't belong.

* TookALevelInBadass: Bello and Annalise on their original season in USA Got Talent struggled Bello barely makes it to the judge cuts and even then he doesn't make it farther than the quarter-finals and Annalise doesn't even make it to the live shows.Here they manage to win the audience vote over fan favorites as Ashleigh and Sully and survive on live television on a giant pendulum even winning Simon's approval.

** Having said that, Diversity, the ''actual'' winners of that series have still had one of the best careers out of any BGT finalist to date. It probably safe to say that had the runner-up of that series been anyone except Boyle, this trope wouldn't have applied.

** Mary Sumah barely made it past the {{punchline}} of her first joke before being decisively buzzed off the stage by all three judges. The actual joke wasn't funny: she asks the ladies "Are you all all right?", and when the reply, she goes, "[[spoiler:No, you are all all ''left''.]]") However, the ''entire act'' was structured like a joke: her introduction - where she revealed that she spent $200 on comedy school - provided a setup for the horrible punchline, which was then followed by by a {{beat}} from the auditorium before the StunnedSilence was broken by the [[OneTwoPunchline actual "punchline"]] delivered by the judges' reactions. The act turned out to be hilarious, [[TheFool just not in the way Mary likely intended]].

* SoundtrackDissonance: The 2013 finale had an impressive performance by singers Richard & Adam [[spoiler: be interrupted by violinist Natalie Holt throwing eggs at Simon Cowell while they were still singing.]]

* BlatantLies: Once Susan Boyle finishes her performance, Simon jokingly says "I knew, from the moment you walked on that stage, that we were gonna hear something extraordinary, and I was right". This was despite him minutes earlier having been clearly dismissive of Susan and looking extremely bored in the seconds before Susan started singing. Obviously, nobody believes him, and [[Creator/AntAndDec Dec]] remarks "what a lot of tosh!"

* BlatantLies: Once Susan Boyle finishes her performance, Simon jokingly says "I knew, from the moment you walked on that stage, that we were gonna hear something extraordinary, and I was right". This was despite him minutes earlier having been clearly dismissive of Susan and was visibly extremely bored in the seconds before Susan started singing. Obviously, nobody believes him, and [[Creator/AntAndDec Dec]] remarks "what a lot of tosh!"

* CampStraight: David Walliams, the happily married judge who likes to refer to "my Simon" and championing CampGay acts such as the Show Bears and the Sugar Dandies.

* TalkingAnimal: In 2015, Marc Métral brought along his singing dog, Miss Wendy. Though it was actually a Ventriloquist act where Miss Wendy was wearing a mask used to make it look like she was talking.

* BringMyBrownPants: Amanda invoked this after a daredevil unicyclist did a stunt where he rode a 30-foot tall unicycle whilst blindfolded.

* {{Determinator}}: David J. Watson, the only person to date who has auditioned for the show on four separate occasions. He [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9E0m3Q0SR8 first appeared]] in 2008, where he did political impersonation act that was hilarious for all the wrong reasons, then [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctZCyXbl9iA showed up again]] in 2010 where he performed a bizarre mix of ''ComicBook/IncredibleHulk'' and ''Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy''. His [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAL4Gyknf-o appearance]] in 2011 saw him try to pull off "magic trick" that didn't really amount to anything more than a high school science experiment. In his most recent attempt in the 2013 series, he brought back up in the form of two colleagues, one of whom seemed not very enthusiastic in being there. His act involved a small comedy sketch where David pretends to drill through a wall and into a person, who then 'comically' spins around. This was achieved by having one guy arc the top half of his body over the wall, and then the other guy waves a pair of fake legs. It was as bad as it sounds. Only David Walliams seemed amused. He then returned dressed as a DragQueen magician's assistant named "Miss Direction"; while the magician did a basic "cut the rope and make it whole again", his sole contribution was to eat an extremely spicy chili, resulting in him wretching and sounding like he was about to vomit for the whole act. A terrible ''Series/MrBean'' impression followed the year after. His most recent attempt consisted of him standing behind a screen and doing "impressions" of pop culture icons so poor it more closely resembled a bizarre Avant-Garde art project than any of the characters he was trying to resemble.

*** Ultimately though, the most successful act from Series 9 were the family orchestra the Kennah-Masons, who have become Britain's most prominent classical performers in recent years.

* BadassGrandpa: Colin Thackery a war veteran becomes the oldest winner on Britain's got talent and any franchise.

** Mary Sumah barely made it past the {{punchline}} of her first joke before being decisively buzzed off the stage by all three judges. The actual joke itself wasn't funny: she asks the ladies "Are you all all right?", and when the reply, she goes, "[[spoiler:No, you are all all ''left''.]]") However, the ''entire act'' was structured like a joke: her introduction - where she revealed that she spent $200 on comedy school - provided a setup for the horrible punchline, which was then followed by by a {{beat}} from the auditorium before the StunnedSilence was broken by the [[OneTwoPunchline actual "punchline"]] delivered by the judges' reactions. The act turned out to be hilarious, [[TheFool just not in the way Mary likely intended]].

** Mary Sumah barely made it past the {{punchline}} of her first joke before being decisively buzzed off the stage by all three judges. The actual itself wasn't funny: she asks the ladies "Are you all all right?", and when the reply, she goes, "[[spoiler:No, you are all all ''left''.]]") However, the ''entire act'' was structured like a joke: her introduction - where she revealed that she spent $200 on comedy school - provided a setup for the horrible punchline, which was then followed by by a {{beat}} from the auditorium before the StunnedSilence was broken by the [[OneTwoPunchline actual "punchline"]] delivered by the judges' reactions. The act turned out to be hilarious, [[TheFool just not in the way Mary likely intended]].

* SoUnfunnyItsFunny: Donald Camber's act consisted of him half-mumbling and {{Corpsing}} his way through an overly-long and agonizingly atrocious joke: ''Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' (or, according to him, Amsterdam) goes out for a walk and returns to his flat to find a man waiting there, who asks the Hunchback to teach him to ring the bells of Notre Dame. Quasimodo does a demonstration and pushes the bell over to the trainee, but it hits him in the face and knocks him out the window. A passerby finds him and says to Quasi, "There's a man down here, do you recognize him?" Quasimodo responds with, "No, but that face certainly rings a bell." Cue three X's from the judges. Donald's upbeat attitude and constant barely-concealed laughter kept everybody smiling regardless.