A holy show! Crooner cleric Fr Ray to sing on Britain’s Got Talent
IRELAND’S favourite singing priest has made his return to the big stage – on Britain’s Got Talent.
Fr Ray Kelly shot to fame four years ago after a video of him singing at a wedding went viral on the web.
The priest, at St Brigid’s & St Mary’s parish in Oldcastle, Co. Meath, is one of the contestants who will feature on the Britain’s Got Talent auditions tonight. The 64-year-old Co. Westmeath man hopes to become the first singing priest to win the UK talent competition.
Fr Kelly is appearing in the second auditions episode, airing tonight at 8pm on TV3 and UTV.
There are seven audition episodes – which have all been prerecorded – before the show transitions to five live rounds of semi-finals, followed by the final.
Fr Kelly captured hearts across the world in 2014 when footage of him singing a version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, while officiating a wedding, became an online sensation. The lyrics had been specially modified to fit the occasion by ten-year-old bridesmaid Lucy Pitts O’Connor.
The video has since been viewed more than 60million times on YouTube. In December 2014, Universal Music released a tentrack album, titled Where I Belong, of Fr Kelly singing Celticinspired arrangements.
The album was recorded in a studio built in Fr Kelly’s house so as to minimise disruption to his duties as a priest. In 2015, he released An Irish Christmas Blessing – a 13-track holiday album – and was also a guest on the BBC Radio 4 show Midweek in December of that year.
Now in its 12th series, Britain’s Got Talent is judged by Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and David Walliams.
Contestants of any age can audition for the show, with their performance judged by the panel. Those who make it through auditions then compete against each other in the semi-finals. The winning two acts of each semi-final then proceed to the final.
Became online sensation