For our overseas fans of 'Britain's Got Talent' - Susan Boyle is through to the semi-final!

And so have Stavros Flatley!

I think all of the acts I really liked went through. I have to go to work tomorrow night, waah!

Thanks for posting that! I'll have to scour YouTube for the performances and watch them, if they've been posted there. I'm dying to know who wins this one.

Yay ! In addition to the grand Miss Boyle, I see that Flawless and Jamie Pugh made it through, too! This is very exciting, for sure.
Thank heavens for YouTube and you folks giving updates! We're kinda lost as to the show's developments over here in America, otherwise ...

Susan is through to the Final! (And I only voted five times, ok?)

I voted once and am glad that Diversity also got through to the final.

Felt very sorry for poor little Natalie and am not sure that it is fair to subject young children to this pressure, she is only ten and cried when she didn't get selected for the final. It would have been better if she hadn't been in the top three then rejected.

Susan did do well and yes, she deserved to be in the final tomorrow. But I think, (only my opinion), that the media attention is affecting her. She isn't as natural as she was when she first came out, and showing off to the cameras. Young Natalie, who was rejected, I agree with Sue, they definately shouldn't let such young kiddies into the show - or, at least do a younger Britain's got Talent.
The same thing happened tonight, with young Hannah (who sang "Danced all night" in the auditions). She attempted "Eidweiss" and broke down. Luckily they allowed her another attempt and she went through to the final too. But again, she's 10. So much pressure on her.

That was awful, I just hope she doesn't do it again tonight. Ten is far too young for this type of competition.

The media hype on poor Susan isn't fair and can affect her chances. Although even if she doesn't win I guess she has a singing career ahead of her.

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or, at least do a younger Britain's got Talent.

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Good idea, Jane. That's a lot of pressure and emotional twisting around even for adults to endure.

I'm not sure poor Susan Boyle will ever be the same. For good or ill, there will always be 'Before BGT and after' for her.

Another possible casualty is the 73 year old break dancer. He is alleged to be receiving disability payments from the UK benefits system. If this is true then he could be asked to repay the amounts paid, which include a car, and could end up in prison for fraud.

Daily Telegraph news item

It's the final tonight. Susan chose "I dreamed a dream" again, totally the right choice, and she definately was more subdued, not played to the cameras as much. Young Holly was excellent. It is going to be a hard decision because they'll all getting rave reviews tonight
Susan came second, Diversity the dancers won. They were very good ... but, for me, Susan was better than them. I am sure she'll be signed up in a heartbeat though - and I hope little Holly too

I think most of the finalists will have a good future, perhaps a couple less than most though. I am not sure how long the 2 Grand can continue, nor Stravros Flatley, the latter are very funny and entertaining but will they want to continue much longer, also I am not sure that it is good for them to do all the dancing with the excess weight they carry.

At least they're getting some exercise.:D I really don't think they had a career in mind when they first entered the competition, they always seem to be genuinely overwhelmed to have got through. I found them hugely entertaining as well.

Unfortunately, the emotional stress of it all seems to have really taken a toll on Susan Boyle. The British tabloids are reporting that she was acting strangely at her hotel today and that she was subsequently admitted to Priory Clinic, a mental health facility in London. The official word was that she was suffering from "exhaustion".

Although she didn't win the BGT competition, she will certainly realize her dream of becoming a professional singer. She's already far better known than her musical idol, Elaine Paige. Simon Cowell has offered her a recording contract, there are deals in the works for a tour of the United States, and book and movie rights to her life story. It is being estimated that she could earn $8 million in the next year alone. I doubt that Diversity, the dance group that won the BGT top prize, will come anywhere near that degree of success.

The big question is whether Ms Boyle will have the emotional stamina and fortitude to handle her new found fame and the pressures of a high powered career as a singer. There is no question she has the talent--she has a remarkable and beautiful voice. But is she up to living out her dream? Can she really handle all that goes with it?

I can't imagine what it must be like for her to have one's life so completely changed in the course of a few short weeks. And to suddenly lose one's privacy and to be subjected to rather constant media scrutiny and criticism along with all the hoopla and attention. At first, such overnight fame must be heady and dizzying, and probably great fun. But it also has a dark and ugly side--you become an instant media commodity--and the same media, that shot you like a rocket to instant fame and celebrity, will turn and chew you up and spit you out. And that kind of negative publicity was starting to happen to Susan Boyle even before the final competition. It must have been hard for her to absorb it all, let alone deal with it.

Boyle's expectations of herself, not to mention the expectations of the public, must have been enormous when she went into the semi-finals and the finals for BGT. I don't think there was any way she could have topped her first performance of "I Dreamed a Dream"--it was just too unexpectedly beautiful and emotionally powerful. The sound of that exquisite voice, suddenly coming from this unknown, extremely frumpy, middle-aged woman, carried a wallop that just couldn't be duplicated in her next two appearances on BGT. That wasn't her fault, it's just that the element of surprise and awe was gone. And she was clearly more nervous and less confident during her next two BGT appearances. I would have liked to hear her do a different song for her final appearance, because there was no way she could have recaptured the magic of that first "I Dreamed a Dream", and I selfishly wanted to be thrilled by hearing something else new and stirring.

Whatever her emotional dificulties are at the moment, I hope Boyle recovers her bearings soon. If she wants it, she does have a very bright and lucrative career ahead of her. I look forward to hearing much more from her. I hope her dream does bring her whatever happiness she seeks. But, given the toll that instant fame seems to be taking on her, it does make me think, "Be careful what you wish for..."

Poor soul too! The Paparazzi would drive anyone crazy , I reckon. Why can't they leave people alone?

I cannot begin to appreciate what stresses she has been under, all the fame then being told she was certain to win, then not to win. I do hope she makes a full recovery.

I can understand paparazzi can be nerve-wracking and sometimes make one lose one's cool. However, that was the second incident of her swearing, not the first. My high estimation of Susan Boyle fell somewhat after her swearing episode while watching a 12 year old contestant on TV, in the semi's, when the judge commented "it was the best singing performance so far". News item

Yes, Susan has an amazing singing voice, but she has some way to go about learning about good sportsmanship, and being a gracious winner or loser.

I am so glad you said that Mags, I thought it was just me. Yes I thought that was not nice at all.

Prior to all this I had read that she suffers from learning difficulties and can erupt when provoked, then it is all over and done with. Boys used to throw eggs at her to try to make her 'lose it'. I am not so sure that it is bad sportsmanship rather than an unfortunate release of tension.

I think Susan was very gracious toward Diversity when she lost the final competition. I don't think she was a bad sport at all. Obviously, that moment must have been an extreme let-down for her, but she seemed to handle it well, at least onstage.

I wasn't particularly shocked by the reports of her swearing in public. Even nice people, when provoked, or disappointed, or hurt, or feeling betrayed, might impulsively react with some swear words. And this woman probably isn't used to being so publicly observed. Had her emotional controls been better, she might have said such things to herself, but kept them inside her head rather than impulsively blurting them out. The fact that she couldn't control her outbursts reflects more on her emotional instability, due to stress, than it reflects on her character. I think the poor woman was just beginning to unravel.

From what I've read, Boyle grew up being taunted and bullied by other children because of her appearance and her learning disabilities. That has to leave a lot of emotional scars and heightened sensitivities. I'm glad she developed some anger and assertiveness to fight back when she feels picked on. I think her swearing rants this past week were her way of trying to fight back, however socially incorrect the rants might have been. She was being besieged this past week, she was being picked on rather mercilessly. Her physical appearance has been mocked and scrutinized, and, after her somewhat shakey rendition of "Memory" in the semi-finals, her voice and talent were being criticized. And, at the same time, she was still the focus of extraordinary media attention, so this was all occuring on a global scale.

Even professional performers have occasional outbursts and emotional meltdowns, and they are accustomed to dealing with this sort of pressure. She's not a professional entertainer, and she's certainly not used to being a celebrity. This is a woman who does not even hold a job and who lived a rather sheltered sort of life until about 7 weeks ago. She just became overwhelmed by all that she had to deal with this past week. That doesn't mean she isn't a nice person, or a good sport. It does mean she's only human and very vulnerable.

That she wound up in a psychiatric hospital tells you just how vulnerable she is.

Hopefully her current problems are just due to acute stress, and, after a short period of relative peace and quiet in the hospital, she will regain her bearings. At least the extreme stress of a very public competition is now over for her. The media will likely pay less attention to her now because she will simply be less newsworthy, and that should stop some of the mayhem in her life. Then, if she wishes, and is up to it, she can begin to work on her new career as a professional singer. Although she will likely achieve great success in the next chapter of her life, she is not likely to again be subjected to the kind of extreme pressures and emotional roller coaster she has been on for the past 7 weeks. Just singing on a stage, or making recordings, is probably something she'll be able to manage very well.

In my opinion, unless she has Tourette's Syndrome, there is no excuse for her saying what she did. I appreciate the fact that she has been thrust into the limelight after she chose to go on the show, and that it could all be a bit too much for her to cope with. Still, using that kind of language against a 12 year old is unacceptable to me.

She wasn't swearing at the 12 year old in a face-to-face situation, she was swearing at the TV screen in the lounge of her hotel. And the object of her anger wasn't her 12 year old competitor, it was Piers Morgan, one of the BGT judges. She felt betrayed by him because he praised the boy so highly and seemed to prefer his performance. For her, apparently, this was a rather personal rejection.

Her outburst was rather immature, but everything about this woman, including her social awkwardness, suggests that she is somewhat immature. So, she may be immature--is that such a big deal? Isn't it also part of her charm and appeal to many people?

While she does not have Tourette's Syndrome, she apparently does suffer from some mild neurological problems as a result of anoxia at time of her birth--her brain was deprived of oxygen. Such neurological problems often do affect a person's impulse control. Particularly under stress, she may have problems controlling her impulses, particularly her anger. This is a disability and not a character flaw.

I also feel that if it were a man who had let loose with some swear words, this would not have been seen as such a big deal. This incident was magnified because, horror of horrors, her behavior wasn't "ladylike"--and it certainly didn't fit the popular image of a shy spinster. Are shy spinsters obligated to always conform to our stereotypes about them? Do we really know that much about Susan Boyle, or about how well she actually functioned in her daily life before she went on BGT? Did we simply create a myth about her and then become angered when the reality of her behavior clashed with the myth?

The woman was a contestant in a talent contest. And, like everyone else in a contest, she wanted to win and beat her competition. She wasn't purporting to be a saint and she wasn't asking to have her every move scrutinized. She just wanted to get on a stage and sing and have people judge her talent and decide whether they liked her performance.

Her personality, her maturity, her social skills, and everything else about her offstage persona, is really irrelevant to whether she should have won BGT. She should have been judged only on her singing, and not on any behavioral incidents of the past week. And she was the only contestant placed under such a harsh microscope. Were any of the others so relentlessly hounded and observed?

I think that her current psychiatric hospitalization will probably heighten her appeal to many of her fans who already see her as an inspirational underdog. They will now see her as an emotional victim of the media and will feel even more protective of her. They will rally behind her and offer her even more support. And they will turn her into a very successful professional singer.

If she's up to it, Boyle will have to go on a two week tour, with the other BGT contestants, relatively soon. That was part of her original agreement with the BGT producers, so she is committed to doing it, if she pulls herself together emotionally. That will give her some idea of what a tour is like.

And, according to what I've read, she is then slated to cut her first CD with the Czech Symphony Orchestra in July, per a deal with Simon Cowell. Then I'm sure they would like her to go on a tour in the U.S. to capitalize on her new-found fame and ensure brisk sales for the CD.

So, just in the next few months, she stands to earn several million dollars. But her life will no longer be her own.

Since Boyle is now a "commodity", they (the producers and backers) have a vested, and compelling, interest in protecting her from the more intrusive media. I'm sure they will now surround her with enough handlers to keep everyone at bay. I'm also sure they will cater to her and hold her hand whenever necessary. They want her to be able to function--she's not going to earn money for them unless she can function. And, at the moment, she's potentially worth a great deal of money, particularly if she can deliver while she's still so "hot" and in the public consciousness.

At least in the short run, she may well be able to handle all of this. They will supply her with all the support she needs, just to protect their investment in her. And she won't have the highly focused, intense pressure riding on only one or two live performances, as was the case with the semi-finals and finals for BGT. She can just concentrate on her singing and performing in a hopefully much less stressful atmosphere than she just went through on BGT.

Whether she will actually like all the travel and living out of hotel rooms, and the grind of appearances and interviews, is an entirely different matter. She might decide this is not the sort of life she would like to continue. Maybe she will forgo shooting for continuing mega-stardom and settle instead for relatively modest CD sales over the long run, without a lot of personal appearances or live performances.

She's not really going to know what her new life will be like until she actually gets immersed in it. At that time she can better consider her options and what sort of future she would like for herself. But she will be able to make so much money, in such a relatively short period of time, that she could then walk away from it all and just live very comfortably home alone with her cat. She will have achieved fame and found an appreciative audience, and that might be enough for her. She might not want to devote her every waking moment to being a singing star. She might not have the stamina to do that. So, her career as a professional might be bright but relatively short-lived.

If I were a producer, I wouldn't want to sign Susan Boyle to any really long term contracts. Too much about her is uncertain. It remains to be seen whether she can cope with the demands of the next few months. It remains to be seen whether her dream of a singing career will turn into a nightmare for her. Fame is a rather mixed blessing, as Boyle is already beginning to find out, and she does appear to be a somewhat fragile and vulnerable individual.

I hope she surrounds herself with family and friends she can trust, who will protect her interests and help to keep others from exploiting her. It would be nice to see this story have a happy ending.