Suffolk magician Matt Edwards has won through to the final of Britain’s Got Talent after wowing the judges and viewers with his performance in the semi-final tonight.
The comedy magician from Stowmarket was runner-up to eight-year-old fellow-magician Izzy Simpson in the ITV talent show.
But Harry Gardner, from Writtle, near Chelmsford, missed out despite delighting the judges with another powerful performance. He had previously left the judges in tears, with a song he had written for his grandmother, Maureen McGuinness, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years ago.
Matt watched the results come through holding the hand of Izzy who was clearly very emotional during as the tension built up – more than 1.5m people voted by phone and text.
Matt enlisted Ant and Dec to be his “stooges” for his comedy magic act – and got rave reviews from all four judges.
Simon Cowell suggested he could be the kind of talent snatched to host a game show – and all agreed they would like to have seen him get more time because he had had to cram so much into his act.
As the results were announced Cowell said the TV audience had made the right decision.
Judge Amanda Holden told Harry his first performance had moved her to tears – and Simon Cowell said he had a rare talent.
Britain’s Got Talent Live semi-finals started yesterday evening and will air every night at 7.30pm until to Friday on ITV, followed by Britain’s Got More Talent, also live, on ITV2 at 10pm.
The grand final takes place on Sunday June 4 on ITV, with the winner bagging £250,000 and a slot at The Royal Variety Performance.
Also representing Suffolk and sailing through was the Missing People’s Choir, which has among its membership Nicki Durbin, the mother of Luke Durbin, who has been missing since May 2006, when he was last seen in Ipswich. She will appear later this week.
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