OK. So after all the hullaballoo earlier this year about Susan Boyle, the pros and cons of Britain's Got Talent, the ambiguous roles of three millionaire judges, and the impact of instantaneous celebrity status on a modest Scottish woman who seemed to be unravelling before ruthlessly voyeuristic cameras; the album is out, is selling in millions, and the woman herself much more self possessed and a pleasure to watch and hear.
I watched the repeated documentary the other morning, in which she did indeed sing with Elaine Paige – who was encouraging, supportive without a hint of patronising. We bought the CD for Christmas. And yes it's good. She has a voice that is versatile though I don't like the arrangement of several of the songs – Daydream Believer was never a slow croon.
But the overwhelming sense I had as I listened to the Cd, and watching the Documentary, was of a woman who had shown immense courage in ever going to those auditions at all. And then seeing it through, right through to a final in which she came second and ran out of places to hide. But there she is. Doing what she dreamed of doing. I don't buy into the "dream it and it will happen" approach to life. I've known too many people whose dreams just didn't happen for them. But unfulfilled dreams have never been a reason to stop dreaming; nor to depsise what we have, who we are and what is still possible. Still less to knock someone else whose dream has come true
I salute this brave woman. She should be made Scot of the Year. Her talent, her personality, her vulnerability and her sheer guts, her self effacing sense of who she is, make her the best kind of ambassador for Scotland, a country that too often blaws its own bagpipes while simultaneously letting the air out of the air bladder. Nobody can predict what will now happen for her and to her – but I wish her well, and have nothing but admiration for the way she has taken hold of her life, and walked into a different future.
We all know reality TV cans its audience responses and plays on viewers' mixture of gullibility and cynicism. The wide road that leads to exploitation is too easily taken. But now and again someone transcends the polyfoam programming. I for one will never foget that first night when she sang "I dreamed a dream" – that kind of moment transforms viewer voyeurism into a much more wholesome human solidarity, rooted in recognition of significance, beauty and the sheer triumph of immediate human gift over mediating technology.
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