This show is the start of a happy life after being an outcast for so long
So cool, poised and funny was teenager Eva Abley when she performed her stand-up routine at the Britain’s Got Talent initial auditions, we all wanted to be in her gang.
Judge Alesha Dixon said as much before giving the comedian a big fat “yes”, sending a dazed Eva on her way to tonight’s semi-final.
Her mates must love hanging out with her, the singer remarked.
But Alesha’s words held a painful poignancy for the 14-year-old who has cerebral palsy and breezily mocked her own tremors and speech difficulties in the routine.
Last autumn, she resorted to being homeschooled after years of being ostracised in school.
Given the silent treatment day after day, forced to sit alone and eat alone, Eva, from Cannock, Staffs, shut her large personality away, and her humour with it.
It’s so sad to hear this vivacious teenager’s descriptions of the girl she became. Explaining how tremors and speech difficulties made her peers avoid her, she recalls: “I would hide when I was eating.
“They would see me slowly trying to eat my lunch and didn’t want anything to do with me. They would hear my speech and think, that’s it.
“They would socially exclude me, no one would want to sit with me, no one would want to talk to me. It got to the point where I wouldn’t put my hand up to speak in class.”
Then, sounding wise beyond her years, she says firmly: “BGT has never been a competition for me, it never will be. It’s been the starting point of a happy life.
I wanted to go on there and show everyone the real me.
“I don’t care what anyone thinks, they can think what they like and say what they like, this is me, this is my life, and I’m taking back control.”
Listening to her passionate speech, we all fall silent. Her mum Kelly, 44, is tearful. “It’s been horrible to see Eva so upset,” she says. “To see her on that stage smiling, that’s the real Eva, it’s how she should be.”
It very nearly didn’t happen though, Eva chips in drily.
She and her family initially ignored five invitations for her to audition, assuming they were a hoax.
BGT contacted her out of the blue after seeing a video on social media of her telling a joke at a talent show at a holiday camp – her first tentative attempt at stand-up – where she and her family were staying.
That she even took part in the holiday camp show – which she won, naturally – could easily not have happened. That she found the confidence to do it was down to one man, whom she met by chance.
Eva had been struggling so much with her condition she and her family, including her three younger brothers, had sought support in a residential centre run by The Fire Fighter’s Charity, as her father, Matthew, is part of the West Midlands’ force.
At Harcombe House in Devon she got chatting to another firefighter, who had been at London’s Grenfell Tower blaze in 2017, which killed 72.
Struggling with his own trauma, the fireman revealed he used humour as a way to help manage his mental health. “He was first on the scene and having a hard time,” she says.
“He started to tell me all these amazing jokes. I really looked up to him, I thought I would start telling people a couple of jokes too.
“I found telling a joke would help break the ice.” Her BGT success, plus the new friends she has made through homeschooling groups and visits to primary schools she now makes to educate children about disability, have set her on the path to becoming the real Eva again. She’s buzzing so much now, she’s not even very nervous about tonight’s performance.
You would never guess Eva was in pain, but she is, especially in her hips.
Her body is placed under tension by her constant tremors. She has regular hospital treatment with physios, speech therapists and occupational therapists.
But comedy and performing takes her mind off the pain, she explains. “She is practising all the time,” says Kelly. “When I went to the opticians she was practising in the seat next to me. We have stopped laughing, we have heard it so many times.”
Dry as toast, Eva retorts: “Now they try and watch telly through me.”
Also performing tonight are Les Sancho dance group, acrobats The Freaks, magician Keiichi Iwasaki, nine-year-old singer Immi Davis, Dane Bates Collective dance group, comic harmony trio The Dots and singing teacher Tom Ball.
■ The BGT live semi-finals are at 8pm each night this week on ITV.