Britain's Got Talent viewers have called for bosses to make a major change to the show ahead of this weekend's new episode.
After close to two years away, due to severe disruptions brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, the much loved ITV show made a triumphant return to screens over Easter weekend, which saw the first Golden Buzzers awarded for 2022. The auditions continued last Saturday, with another act sent straight through to the live semi finals, this time after David Walliams hit his Golden Buzzer for inspiring dance act Born to Perform.
Britain's Got Talent fans have loved having the programme back on TV after such a long absence, but there is one part of the show which has proved to be bone of contention for those who've tuned in so far - the OTT reactions of people in the audience. Over its last few series, the audition episodes have featured close ups of people in the crowd at the London Palladium as acts perform for the judges.
READ MORE: Ant McPartlin left bleeding backstage at Britain's Got Talent
But, it's an element of the show many people would like to see scrapped. Taking to Twitter after the episode at the weekend, one disgruntled fan posted: "They should do away with the gogglebox audience. No natural reactions when you know you're being filmed. In firm agreement, another tweeted: "Since when has BGT become an episode of Gogglebox. Stop with the cringe comments from the audience."
The 'Gogglebox' element to BGT has already caused controversy this year after Nick Edward s became the first target of the how's Golden Moments which saw him plucked from the audience to audition. While Nick looked shell shocked as his daughters and mum arrived on stage to reveal what was happening, eagle eyed viewers clocked he was already wearing a microphone.
Responding to fix accusations, a ITV spokesperson said: "Quite simply, when Nick entered the Palladium auditorium during BGT auditions, he was approached to be part of our ‘gogglebox’ audience and told he would be mic'd up so we could capture his reactions throughout the day as he sat in the audience. He was totally unsuspecting. We did this so we could mic him up without him suspecting a thing".
