BGT’s most surprising act — a teenage boy NOT embarrassed to sing love songs with his mum!
FOR most teenage boys, a peck on the cheek from Mum at the school gates can be enough to ruin their day. So singing a love duet, holding their mother’s hand and gazing into her eyes — in front of an audience of ten million — would truly be the stuff of nightmares.
Yet that is precisely what 16-year-old Jamie Gilpin chose to do in his auditions for the live final of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent, which takes place tonight.
What’s more, his turns in the spotlight with his mother, Melanie Bell, 45, have been a rather unexpected hit. Their performances last Saturday and Sunday evenings left the judges raving and the public phoning in their thousands to vote them through to the finals.
But the rave reviews were marred by a few unkind jibes. While some social media commentators posted about the ‘special bond’ between mother and son, others described their first audition — in which they sang love song Say Something by American duo A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera — and their handholding in the semi-finals (to Miley Cyrus’s The Climb) as ‘ cringeworthy’ and ‘uncomfortable’.
‘My stomach churned when I read those comments online about us gazing into each other’s eyes,’ admits Melanie. ‘I grabbed Jamie’s hand on stage to give us both extra strength because it was pretty nerve- racking, and for people to try to make something of that is laughable.
‘No- one would insinuate anything about a mother and daughter showing one another affection, and a mother and son should be no different.’
It is perhaps little wonder Melanie thought her boy needed moral support. Jamie had planned to audition as a solo artist until he broke his collarbone during a school football match three days before the preliminary auditions near their home in Bridgend, Wales, last October.
His injury rendered him unable to play the guitar and, too shy to sing solo without his instrument as a crutch, Jamie begged his mother to accompany him.
‘ He gave me the lyrics to Say Something one morning and asked me to learn them by the time he got home from school,’ says Melanie.
‘That evening, after we’d run through it, we looked at each other and said: “Oh my God!” — we’d never sung together before and didn’t know we could sound so good.’
WHIle Melanie is no stranger to entertaining — she sings songs from the Forties and Fifties in old people’s homes several days a week — this is the first time she’s had the opportunity to do so on a national stage.
‘I’m having the time of my life,’ she says with all the enthusiasm of a woman being given an unexpected second shot at realising a long-held ambition.
‘I’m singing on Britain’s Got Talent with my son. What mother wouldn’t enjoy every single second of that? I used to perform in clubs and was once offered the chance to sing on a cruise ship, but my priority has always been my children — Jamie and his older brother, Adam — so I didn’t pursue it.
‘All my life I’ve dreamed of being a famous singer but I wanted my boys to have a normal, stable upbringing.’
Despite Melanie’s best efforts, Jamie has had more than his share of challenges to overcome in his 16 years.
He was born with very poor vision in his left eye and wore an eye patch to correct a squint from ages three to nine, leading to taunts from children at his primary school.
He was also two to three years ahead of most of his classmates academically and would be given extra work and seated separately, which resulted in further teasing.
eventually, Melanie moved Jamie to a different school, where she says he suffered similar difficulties.
When he was 11, Jamie’s parents separated and he has seen little of his father in the years since. Stepfather Rod, 56, a fire risk consultant, now lives with Melanie and Jamie while Adam, 25, lives nearby. last year, Jamie was diagnosed with tripartite patella, an abnormality in which the bones in his kneecaps didn’t fuse together properly when he was a baby.
The condition leads to bouts of pain and swelling in his knees and, on occasions, he has to wear leg braces for extra support.
‘ My nickname at school is Forrest Gump after the Tom Hanks character in the film who wore leg braces,’ says Jamie, laughing light-heartedly.
‘I don’t mind because it’s only a joke and my mates are actually really nice to me when I have to wear the braces, they even carry me up and down the stairs and to lessons.’ Demonstrating what seems to be customary grit and determination, Jamie has spent this week juggling rehearsals in london with sitting his GCSe exams at Archbishop McGrath Catholic comprehensive school in Bridgend.
He is sitting 13 in total and is predicted by his teachers to be on target for A* to B grades, despite the inevitable disruption to his schedule of becoming a national phenomenon.
But then, Jamie should be used to a certain measure of the limelight by now.
Melanie first noticed her son’s musical talent when he was just three years old, singing along to Will Young’s track evergreen. ‘I thought it was unusual for a toddler to have perfect pitch,’ she says. ‘I would get him up on stage to do little performances when I sang at holiday camps or clubs. He also taught himself to play the piano and guitar.’
Despite his youth, this is not Jamie’s first crack at fame as he auditioned for BGT eight years ago, aged eight — that time alone — and didn’t make it beyond the first round.
But for four years, from the age of 11, Jamie became too selfconscious to sing in public, only regaining his confidence in the months before he applied to audition once again for the talent show.
He intended to sing and play James Blunt’s Goodbye My lover but had to rethink his choice after his football accident.
Still 15 at the time and fearing he might feel too exposed without his guitar, he set about thinking of a song he knew had both male and female vocals for him and his mum. He eventually settled on Say Something.
However, while it’s very easy to imagine the joy of this excit-
ing new opportunity from Melanie’s perspective, wouldn’t Jamie now be happier cutting the apron strings and going it alone?
After all, dueting with his mother seems an unlikely way of building street credibility among his peers — though he insists there’s been no teasing from pals.
He sAys: ‘ everyone I know has been telling me that we were “amazing” and wishing us luck in the finals. ‘so strangers questioning why I held hands with my mum doesn’t bother me, and won’t affect how I act on stage.
‘I haven’t felt nervous, and don’t think I will in the finals, either — the stage feels like home when I’m singing up there with my mum.’
Though in the auditions Melanie appeared to deliberately hold back and allow Jamie to take centre stage — a tactic that judge Amanda Holden remarked upon — by the semi-finals, her folky vocals were more dominant.
And while Jamie chose their previous songs, it is Melanie who has picked the track they will sing tonight.
The title is being kept firmly under wraps but, she says: ‘It’s a song I used to sing a long time ago with an important message about love, peace and putting others first.’
However, they face stiff competition from contestants including novelty dog act Trip Hazard, impressionist Craig Ball, angelic singer Jasmine elcock, the 100 Voices Of Gospel choir, magician Richard Jones and 12-year-old singer Beau Dermott.
so do Melanie and Jamie believe they could win the top spot, and with it the opportunity to sing at the Royal Variety Performance and the £250,000 prize?
‘We’re so overwhelmed by the number of people who picked up their phones to vote for us in the semi-finals and we really, really hope they do it again in the finals,’ says Jamie.
‘Maybe one reason why we stand out is that there’s never been a mother and son act in the competition before, and that’s why people voted for us. singing has been my mum’s dream for a long time and, even though it wasn’t the original plan, I can’t help feeling that me singing with my mum in the finals was just meant to be.’
Melanie blinks back tears of love and pride, which are rarely far from the surface, as she listens to her son’s words, before reiterating how grateful she is to have this second chance at success.
‘We’re not bothered about the prize money, what we really want is a recording contract,’ she says. And a mother and son recording act would certainly be a novelty, but would it provide enough of a boost to the simon Cowell coffers for him to take a chance on Melanie and Jamie?
While the application to audition for BGT may have begun as Jamie’s journey to success, it’s hard to say who will be most disappointed — mother or son — if the public fail to get behind them tonight. The Britain’s Got Talent final is on ITV tonight at 7.30pm.