Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Paul Potts doesn't think he's anybody

I'm not an opera fan, nor am I a fan of talent shows, but I was very interested when I was told recently about the story of Paul Potts, a man from South Wales who sang opera on the talent show Britain's Got Talent.

The story that was told me involved a hard luck tale which ended in the tossing of a coin to decide whether to enter the competition or not.

I was very interested, but haven't yet found the coin-tossing detail online.

Anyway, before I re-tell the tale, here's the clip I later found showing it in full technicolour (well, telecolour):



Okay. Actually, that pretty much tells the story, as it was told to me, of a Welshman in a cheap suit, with a tooth missing, coming to a talent show near the end of its tour of the country, when the judges are tired and pissed-off with all the shit that they've sat through, and who are now looking at the same Welshman with weary disdain until he opens his mouth and sings.

Apparently there was some kind of documentary about him on last week.

Faces tell us a lot, I think. For instance, Paul Potts's face before and after he sings, and also when he's gathering strength in his singing. Also, look at Simon Cowell's face after a few notes of Potts's singing. I actually don't like Simon Cowell at all (I know, it's predictable), but I remember Quentin Tarantino talking about Cowell to Jonathan Ross. Tarantino said something like, "But you know, the thing is, Cowell's always right. If you actually take notice, he's always right." Well, I don't know about that, but credit where it's due, he put aside his pantomime-villain smarminess on this occasion.

Okay, I've watched enough of Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe - and despite initial reservations I now love Brooker as only someone who's never met him can - to realise that television is illusion, but I don't think there was an entire audience of paid actors there.

Having looked up information on Paul Potts online, I see that he has had a real decent amount of voice training and apparently amateur experience. It seems that some people have called hoax at this. Hmmm. Well, who knows what is a hoax, but one thing I can say to idiots who think think that genius is not hard fucking work - you're wrong. Paul Potts probably did not just start singing Nessun Dorma in the shower one day, out of the blue.

I haven't seen the documentary, but as it was told to me (not verbatim):

"They brought this expert on the programme - this opera critic - and he was saying, 'Who does Paul Potts think he is? Who does he think he is? If he'd went for an interview in the opera world in the proper way, he'd have been laughed out of the room.' And this guy can't understand what it is about Paul Potts that just tears people up. Paul Potts doesn't think he's anybody."

As far as I can gather, no one knew who Paul Potts was as he was standing before them on that day. Within a few moments, there was an auditorium of people crying and cheering as if they had recognised something they knew deep down. This was not manufactured hysteria over Madonna in a pointy bra (that dates me). You can't fake that kind of reaction.

So, I don't care, first of all, if Paul Potts has had extensive opera experience, I don't care if the story is very sentimental, and I don't care if it all happened on a tacky talent show. I also don't care if he is now famous and about to become less of a gap-toothed, cheap-suit kind of guy. If I might be allowed to say it, good luck to you, mate.

Also, just to burn my bridges and address the critic who I have never met and didn't even see on the documentary, and who only exists to me as a kind of grey, generic 'critic':

"Paul Potts doesn't think he's anybody. You're the one who thinks you're someone, you elitist wanker!"