YMMV / Britain's Got Talent

• Bile Fascination: The terrible acts are the only reason some people watch the show to begin with.
• Base-Breaking Character: Musical acts with professional experience can often be targeted for criticism by those who feel their presence is unfair to amateur performers or variety acts. A particularly controversial auditionee was Loren Allred, a former The Voice US contestant who provided the singing voice for Jenny Lind in The Greatest Showman. Many BGT viewers were furious that Amanda gave her the golden buzzer due to her substantial claim to fame, but others defended her by pointing out that she was unsigned and less well-known than others involved in the musical...
  • The series was won by Comedian Axel Blake, who also came under fire for his history of professional experience (including having a special released on Amazon Prime). Blake pointed out that the deal had expired years before he appeared on BGT, and argued that he should have the same ability to pursue the exposure he would gain from BGT as an amateur competitor...
  • Due to his highly eccentric style of comedy, Season 16 winner Viggo Venn also proved polarizing, with some members of the live audience apparently booing when he was announced as the winner.
• Crazy Is Cool: Vladimir Georgievsky in 2015. A bumbling Williamsesque man performing Slapstick tricks on a trampoline like it's straight out of a cartoon.
  • Season 16 winner Viggo Venn completely embodied this, particularly with a signature routine involving removing a seemingly endless number of high-vis Jackets...
• Creator's Pet: Season two of the Australian version had ballet dancer Arron Smyth, who was pushed to the moon and if the judges and creators had their way he would have won it by a mile. The finale winner was chosen by viewers and he came second to this guy, Smokin Joe Robinson.
• Crosses the Line Twice: A lot of the acts aim for this, but miss.
• Glurge: A pre-teen male soprano told everyone, after prompting from the judges, about being bullied at school, not having many friends and singing for his mum. The worst part was that he was talented and didn't need to say all this.
• Ho Yay:
  • David Walliams' attitude towards Simon Cowell. "My Simon" indeed.
  • The time David offered a backup singer his glass of water, then went up on stage & had a group hug with the 5 shirtless, trouserless singers.
• Hype Backlash:
  • The main reason Susan Boyle didn't win Series 3.
  • Also a big reason why Ronan Parke didn't win Series 5, along with a blog entry by a supposed Syco employee who claimed that the show was rigged for him to win. The blogger later admitted that he made the whole thing up, but enough newspapers reported it as fact to cripple any chance Ronan had of winning.
• Narm: The over-the-top presentation during the semi-finals/finals can get a bit silly at times, generally during the video packages for each act, complete with Ominous Latin Chanting and fast editing for some very mundane acts (including flower-arranging in series 3).
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Piers dressed up as Marilyn Monroe, singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President", for a skit on the spin-off. What has been seen cannot be unseen.
  • Mike Hederson's audition. He was balancing on two knives with a third in the middle with the blade facing upward. Piers hit the buzzer as he was reaching for the knife. It looked like he just stabbed himself! All the judges was rightly terrified.
  • Starting in Season 13, BGT begaan featuring horror-themed magic acts, leading to the addition of a "Scary Magic" disclaimer before some episode. One notable scary magic group were The Witches in Season 15, who came out for their audition in hideous makeup and had three judges choose an apple from a bag and take a bite. The final apple was crushed in Amanda's hand and contained maggots, cockroaches, and other bugs. The semi-final performance had a different troup member have Amanda reach into a box twice and the second time a rat was in the box.
• Questionable Casting: The decision to poach Alesha Dixon in order to hurt Strictly Come Dancing has garnered this response given that Dixon is probably the least popular judge on that show. She got better over time though.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Alesha was seen as a bad choice for a judge by some, but after a few years she has come into her own and is generally viewed as being a decent to good judge, especially when it comes to musical acts.
• Retroactive Recognition: Strictly Come Dancing's AJ Pritchard and Chloe Hewitt had their first taste of TV stardom as contestants on Series 7. Ditto with Neil and Katya Jones, who competed as part of the dance troupe Kings and Queens on Series 8.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The buzzer can be inappropriately loud and harsh for acts that incorporate animals or require concentration from the performers.
• Shocking Elimination: The brutal semifinals format (with 3/4 of the acts being eliminated in one go) can lead to these:
  • Immi Davis, a 9-year-old singer, was eliminated in the semi finals of Series 15. Many fans believed she deserved to go to the finals.
  • Keiichi Iwasaki, a Japanese magician, was eliminated by the judges in favour of disabled comedian Eva Abley. Many fans hated this and accused the judges of putting people through just because of their disability.
  • Amputee dancer Musa Motha was the bookmakers favourite to win Season 16, but ended up finishing in 5th place.
• So Bad, It's Good:
  • Piers' opinion on singer Donald Bell-Gam. He describes him as "so bad, he's brilliant" and that he could listen to him for hours. And surprisingly, the audience liked him too.
  • Michael Machell, whose rendition of the Star Wars theme on the keyboard is so bad and ridiculous that Piers and Amanda enjoyed it for some strange reason.
  • Gatis Kandis also falls into this, with Simon calling him his favourite comedian simply because he's so bad at it.
• Springtime for Hitler: Viggo Venn had originally entered the show with the intent to get buzzed off the stage on his first audition. His plan failed as only Simon buzzed him off, and wound up WINNING series 16.
• Squick: The occasional act that involves self-mutilation (see: Nick Hell.)
• Tear Jerker:
  • The Shadow Theatre group Attraction, who went on to win Season 7, brought all the judges, even Simon to tears during their semi-final performance. Their audition drew tears from several judges and plenty of audience members as well.
  • Harry Gardner auditions with a beautiful and heartbreaking song about his grandmother, who has Alzheimer's Disease. By the end, Amanda and Ant are openly tearing up, Alesha and David are close to it, and Harry himself is close to breaking in his voice.
  • The Missing People Choir, which is a collective of people who have missing loved ones, sing a heartbreaking song dedicated to them.

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