Britain's Got Talent Tour, Edinburgh Playhouse

Published on Wednesday 17 June 2009 10:13

Britain's Got Talent Tour *****, Edinburgh Playhouse DMITIRI Hvorostovsky must be the only person on the planet right now who knows what it's like to be Diversity.

Back in 1989 Hvorostovsky won BBC Cardiff's Singer of the World competition, to this day however, he's still introduced as the man who came first the year that local boy and world-renowned bass-baritone Bryn Terfel came second.

While he possesses not inconsiderable international success and acclaim in his own right, the spectre of Terfel, it seems, will always hang over his career like a funeral shroud.

So it is for Diversity. With buckets of talent, personality and the dedication to put in years of hard work honing their act, they did their mothers proud last night at the Playhouse with a stunning combination of inspired choreography and crowd-pleasing movie references.

Yet the audience wasn't waiting for the acrobatic lads from Essex, they were waiting pensively for the belle from Bathgate, Susan Boyle.

It's been like this all over the country. While Diversity won a fat cheque and top billing on the Britain's Got Talent tour, Boyle's face is the one that's been splashed across the front pages.. There are regular updates on whether or not she'll perform, on her mental state, on what Piers Morgan thinks she thinks of him.

Meanwhile, acts like Diversity, Flawless, Stavros Flatley and George Sampson have been providing sterling performances night after night of this year's tour with very little of the fanfare they genuinely deserve.

Yes, Susan Boyle has a clarity, strength and purity to her voice that it's impossible to convey on television, but equally, there's an emotion and depth to third placed Julian Smith's saxophone that doesn't come across easily on screen either.

Then there are Shaheen Jafargholi's powerful live vocals, which are truly astonishing in one so young.

It's the second half of the Britain's Got Talent show that really affords these acts the ability to prove that they're far more versatile than the turns that got them to the final.

After skimming quickly through their best known pieces in the first half, many of the players are left free to wow the punters with an array of intermixed material.

Flawless and Diversity both contributed troupe members for exciting blends of talent. Shaheen and dancer Aidan Davis joining Diversity's Perry and Mitchell for a rendition of the Jackson Five hit I Want You Back. While Flawless worked with last year's winner George Sampson on some dazzling dance moves.

The obvious absences of the tearful singing ballerina Hollie Steel and 2 Grand were more than made up for by George Sampson's contribution in the form of a new piece of dance to Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall.