Am I missing something here ? Im not bothered about his sob story (as every act has one), Im talking about the person and the peformance. All I saw last night was a kid flapping his arms around for half the song then spinning round under some water. There was no variety, just the same spin and flap over and over and over again.

The praise and love here for him is strange to say the least. Also, I dont find as "likeable" in interviews as some other acts, he appears to stand there with a glazed look on his face. I know it's all irrelivent anyway as Faryl is the obvious winner (and anyone who thinks she wont win will be sadly mistaken), but to see a kid flapping his arms and reducing people to tears is, well, just plain wierd.

Agree with you. Don't think he's that good at all but wouldn't be surprised to see him win. Something's still telling me a singer will win again though. I hope Fariah.

Anyone who thinks Faryl wont win is sadly mistaken!!! Yeh right, George is going to win.

I'm not either.

Flapping your arms around while getting drenched by water doesn't really impress me that much.

There's thousands of people around who can body pop way better than him. Way, way better.
Then there's the replicating the VW Golf advert.

It's all gimmick to me.

Oh yes, and then there's the 'Billy Elliot' sob story. 'I'm from a tough background,...but I just want to dance'.

Then,...there's the acting after his performance. The disingenuous fake shock at his own performance as though he's shocked at himself for performing a miracle or something.
He certainly knows how to play a crowd. The way he was behaving as he was drying himself with a towel looked like pure theatre.
He knew what he was doing I'll give him that.

Don't get me wrong he's probably a good kid. But he definitely came across as though he was milking his own performance and doing the fake humility thing, and pretending to be amazed at what he'd just done.
You could see where they were going through the contestants he was trying so hard to stop himself smirking because he was so pleased with himself. Nothing wrong with that, but it's just that he appeared to be slyly putting across an innocent self deprecating image of himself to the audience which was slightly disingenuous.

He was trying to come across as humble and unaware of the reaction, trying so hard not to appear triumphant..but he knew what he was doing there. He was playing it for all it's worth.

Not saying he's a bad person by any means, he's probably a good kid. But I found him to be giving more of a performance in his sob story VT and actually after the act, rather than when he was actually performing his act.

I think the real power came from the presentation, music, theme, and general idea coupled with the atmosphere and buzz constructed by Simon and the production, as opposed to the performer's actual abilities.
They could probably have stuck anybody in that set and moved them around a bit and they would get a standing ovation.

'Smoke and mirrors' springs to mind.

Could'nt agree more, everyone is being conned into thinking he is this innocent kid, where as in reality, he is pure stageschool and is playing you all like a fiddle.

My god you sound like you know him personally! Or are you some sort of psychic?

It's easy to see if your not conned by the sob story and fake emotion. I look at the contrast of Kate who has true humility.

Who is Kate? Is she an act who is still yet to come in the semi-finals?

It also seems easy to dedicate an entire post to a character assassination of somebody you dont actually know.

I agree dont know what the fuss is
personally i thought the guys with the hula hoops were better

But it's okay to dedicate numerous "love" threads to somebody that you dont actually know ?

It's personal opinion, and mine (and many others) is that his act was'nt very good. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion or else we would have an empty forum.

He really isn't that good and his topping the vote last night was a massive act of contrivance on the part of ITV coupling his emotive back story with being on last. Hoop La La should have gone through.

I didnt say it wasnt okay, you will see i said "seems easy".

Yeah agree, I was expecting them to buzz him to be honest, he had no real ability apart from the usual childish abandon with his dancing, my 6 year old dances like that!! I think the water bit won people over, if he hadn't included that he wouldn't have won, wonder how he can top it at the weekend?

I much prefer the unique acts. Yes, he can dance. It's nothing special though.

I think somebody had better let Amanda know how badly she has been 'conned'. If George wasnt that good and she cried.

I don't think anybody has really character assassinated him.
I think that's being a bit melodramatic.

I'd guess that my own post probably reads as more harsh than the poster you are speaking to. I did say that I found some of his behaviour a bit false and as though he was playing up to the crowd in a disingenuous way.
That's just opinion based on what I see.

I don't want to assassinate his character because he's only young, and as I said above he's probably a good kid. He could even be reading this so I wouldn't want to upset him. But sometimes we observe things which are presented to us on TV that simply don't ring true. Or at least not quite how they are presented to us.

As kratz22 said above, I too found it all to be a contrivance and all just a theatre performance based on the artifice of television.

I didn't in truth think that George's dancing on the night was that good. Nowhere near as good as it was made out to be on TV. I truly believe it was the stage production that provided the real power and dramatic effect.

Due to the poor camera work I couldn't see that much of George dancing. What I did see was okay, but not special. A bit of okay body popping, and then flapping arms under a shower which I think wasn't good.

I can only go by what I saw, and most of what I saw was long camera angles which were focusing more on the set and the production values rather than focusing on George himself.

I think there's better dancers in the show, but I don't resent him and don't even mind if he wins the competition overall.
But....I didn't think he was that good last night, and I thought that he was 'acting' to the crowd in some respects with some quite disingenuous but subtle behaviour. He was playing it all the time by making out that he was overawed and humble, then the next minute making a comment about how amazing his own performance was.
There were just bits like when Ant and Dec were speaking to him and he was dabbing himself with a towel where he seemed to be 'posing' in some way in order to milk a reaction from the audience.

Oh you mean Amanda the actress? That Amanda?

Okay then.

I can't see them buzzing any act of which they'd spent that much production on.

It was a big showcase production with a set to almost rival a small movie.
One thing you could put money on is that they want it to be seen by the viewer at home
They wouldn't have an act come on for them to buzz them off really early.

Can you imagine if they did though? They'd gone to all that expense, had artists and production designers working on the set for weeks,...then after ten seconds the act gets buzzed off and we hardly get to see it.

The buzzing is all pre-planned anyway so that not all 3 of them buzz. One or two judges do it for dramatic effect, but they would'nt all buzz after shelling out so much money.

I wasn't really feeling him before but after last night I think he is amazing.

Do you mind me asking what was you found amazing ?

I must admit I really didn't get last night's at all, and fail to see why they thought it was so good. I've quite liked George in the past, and he does seem like a nice kid, but last nights dance just seemed to consist of him flinging his arms around and spinning My OH was slightly worried there might have been a loose wire and we were actually watching him get electrocuted.

I've not minded him in the past and think he is talented, but last night it was all gimmick and no performance IMHO.

seeing as it was a rip-off of the VW advert I couldn't see what all the fuss was about myself