She's back! Susan Boyle takes Birmingham by storm.

Susan Boyle (SuBo) is back and what a roller coaster she's been on. Heavily tipped to win the TV reality show Britain's Got Talent (BGT) after her performance in the shows auditions wowed millions of TV viewers across the United Kingdom and the world. Her explosion into the spotlight saw her gathering many celebrity fans including Oprah Winfrey, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher and US President Barack Obama.

As we all know (or should know) there is an ugly side to fame, the lack of privacy, the pressure, the media intrusion, the self-questioning, the critics. All these seemed to come together in an assault on Susan and she reacted badly, allegedly enduring a series of mini-breakdowns in the run up to the finals of the show.

Her mental state, a growing public backlash all seemed to come to a head in BGT final which saw a surprise victory by dance group Diversity with Boyle as runner up. The drama didn't end there as the next day the news came out that Doctors were assessing her under the "mental health act" and she was later admitted to the famed (or should that be infamous) Priory Hospital in North London.

Cue a media frenzy over a whole range of issues, exploitation of reality TV contestants, is Susan Boyle's career over, did the British public build her up just to knock her down, etc.

Last week Susan Boyle was released from the Priory and there were lingering concerns as to whether she'll ever get back onn track and in particular will she make the BGT Winners tour but the woman it seems is more resilient that we have been led to believe as she not only made a appearance at the first date of the 29-venue tour, but put in a show stopping performance.

Reviews of her performance were overwhelmingly positive.

“She came out and did great — she really was fantastic. She performed brilliantly and it was such a good night. After I heard she had come out of rehab, I had no doubts that she wouldn’t turn up.”

“I’m a massive fan, I think she is fantastic and I think she should have won. After the concerns that she might not turn up, everybody was so pleased to see her. She looked more confident than usual, but compared with others out there she didn’t look that comfortable — she still looks very aware of the stardom.

“She was first on after the interval and she got a standing ovation. All in all, it was a really good night.”

Even more importantly after cynical TV bosses had forced her to maintain her dowdy Scottish spinster look through out the competition this was the first opportunity for fans to see what a rejuvenated Susan Boyle could look like and it was an incredible transformation, she si almost unrecognisable.

Diversity fans can't get enough of Perri Luc Kiely,

For many fans of Diversity, the winners of Britain's Got Talent (BGT) 2009, the faces of the group are Ashley Banjo the lead dancer and choreographer and the little guy with the frizzy afro Perri Luc Kiely.

Perri in particular has captured the public's imagination with his confident style off and on the dance floor and his frizzy mop,and this interview gives an insight into why he is attracting a growing fan base, as his local newspaper caught up with him outside his school, the Gable Hall School, Stanford-le-Hope, Essex.


Perri and Terry Smith (Left) at a press conference

He talks about how he joined Diversity and his experiences on BGT.

Diversity wins Britain's Got Talent .

What a shocker eh....The whole world was watching, waiting for the coronation of Susan Boyle as the queen of the British hit TV show - Britain's Got Talent (BGT). She had wowed the judges, Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden, she had attracted a celebrity following from the likes of Oprah, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher and she was set to conquer the world.

Except someone forgot to send the script to the British public, who seemingly had fallen slightly out of love with 'SuBo' as the British tabloids had nicknamed Susan Boyle. The public had instead transferred their affection to the incredibly talented street dance group Diversity and in one of the biggest shocks of British Reality TV an estimated 19 million viewers saw Diversity crowned as the winners of the Britain's Got Talent.

So who are individuals behind Diversity ?



The Group is

Ashley Banjo, 20 (He's the spokesman and choreographer)
Jordan Banjo, 16
Ian McNaughton, 25
Jamie McNaughton, 23
Matthew McNaughton, 16
Mitchell Craske, 12
Sam Craske, 19
Warren Russell 18
Terry Smith, 24
Perri Luc Kiely, 13 (He's the cute kid with the afro!)

For more info you can go to Diversity's website.
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Flawless versus Diversity: Street war on Britian's Got Talent.

With all the hype Susan Boyle and Shaheen Jafargholi have generated you could easily be forgiven for thinking Britain's Got Talent (BGT) is all about singing. You could be forgiven but only if you had not seen the auditions of either Flawless or Diversity.

We have have had dance acts on BGT before and even a winner (George Sampson) but to be honest none of the dance groups or dancers that have gone before are a patch on either of these two groups. They have raised the bar and more. Granted they both been around and in competitions over the years, and it shows as their routines are tight!

Folks, we have dilemma, it is unlikely both groups will make the finals (although it would be great if they did) but I will bet that one of them does. So at some stage we are going to have a dance-off in a sense; Flawless versus Diversity.

Flawless for my money are the better dancers, but Diversity's routine is more entertaining and a polished entertaining routine counts for more than pure talent at these things. They both obviously need to bring a new routine for the next round and that will play a major part in the decider.

Ultimately I think Diversity will trump Flawless, for the reasons above and also they thrown in the cute kid factor with the two kids they have in their group.

What do you think?


Flawless

Diversity