The best moments - such as Jack Vidgen's victory - of Australia's Got Talent are being revisited, along with the worst.
Article by Melinda Houston, The Sydney Morning Herald
Hats off to the weirdly wonderful in Australia's Got Talent.
SOME love the heart-warming sight of a kid nailing Nessun Dorma. Some thrill to the potential of a singer-songwriter with a guitar. For lots of us, though, the fun of watching Australia's Got Talent is the combination of ''car crash'' and ''WT …?'' that's become a hallmark of the popular show.
''Variety is a cornerstone of the series,'' executive producer Stevie K. Murray says.
And after five seasons and a recent refresher compiling the clip show Australia's Got Amazing Talent, he's seen it all. In the audition shows the judges would see about 400 acts every year.
Before that, though, a team of producers pre-cull the talent, putting thousands of hopefuls through their paces. And - as viewers might suspect - Murray says there's no act too odd to make it on screen. A very few are not fit for broadcast on national television. Mostly, though, the cull is about making sure all-important variety is preserved.
Says Murray: ''People do need a semblance of talent.''
The producers will also assess whether an act is a one-trick pony.
No matter how amazing the feat, it needs to be something that can be developed through the auditions, into the show proper and then potentially on to the semi- and grand finals.
''After that, though, it's mostly about making sure there's an even balance of acts,'' Murray says.
''Acts are often influenced by what's happened the previous year. So after Susan Boyle, for instance, we had thousands of mothers turning up singing opera. We had to filter that.''
Beyond those basic requirements it's a free-for-all, and as regular viewers know, the potential for injury doesn't seem to be a concern.
''For me, personally? I like an act where there's an ever-present danger of something going horribly wrong,'' Murray says.
His list of favourites is suitably eclectic.
''I did love Herb Patten,'' he says. ''A guy playing John Lennon's Imagine on a gum leaf, who picked his instrument from a tree outside before he went on. That just blew me away.''
Also on his top-10 list are indigenous pole dancer Matty Shields (''I still haven't figured out if he was serious or not''); the 11-year-old who simply rumbled his stomach for two minutes; and the guy who came on with electric model aeroplanes attached to a helmet by strings and then proceeded to roller skate around the stage (''It was good but when the strings started to get tangled, it got better'').
''Then there are the acts like Jack Vidgen, or Chooka,'' Murray says. ''Generally speaking, I love it when someone does something you just weren't expecting. It's not that you're doing something I haven't seen before - it's that I never expected you to do it.''
All this and more will be re-presented for our entertainment and edification in three compilation shows featuring the best and worst of the past five seasons. Some weight is given to the serious talent and there'll be a bit of ''where are they now?''.
But we'll also get plenty of the bizarre and the bonkers that make AGT what it is, including unseen footage from auditions. ''It's a bit of a potpourri,'' Murray says. ''And it's been a lot of fun for me just revisiting a lot of these acts, being reminded of some of the stuff that's been on the show over the years.''
A sixth season of AGT proper is, of course, in the works and Murray is looking forward to seeing what the auditions deliver.
He's certainly spent the past five years astonished by just what people can do and are prepared to do.
''What I haven't seen yet, and I would like to see, though, is someone eat a lot of food in a very short amount of time,'' he says. ''But that's just my own personal thing.''
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