Admit it, you either shed a tear over Jamie Pugh, or nearly shed a tear?
I’ve never had so many texts about one contestant on Britain’s Got Talent, not even after Susan Boyle.
And the reason is that we could all tell just what it meant to him to be fulfilling his dream on a huge stage.
‘It completed me,’ the pizza delivery man wept afterwards. And I believed him. He may or may not progress to the final stages of the competition (as I’ve said before, prepare to be shocked by the Top 40 selections..). But he got a standing ovation from 2000 people, and nobody can ever take that away from him.
The phrase ‘you’re what this show is all about’ has been massively over-used on every talent show in history. But it is the perfect phrase for Jamie, a man who I only learned from the papers today lost his wife to a brain tumour a few years ago.
He’s a humble, sensitive, thoroughly decent man going about his life in a completely unremarkable way; yet who possesses a quite remarkable talent.
My other favourite moment of last night’s show came with father-and-daughter act Gemma and Michael.
Their act was, to put it mildly, awkward to watch – her prancing around like a chicken, him wailing like a banshee.
But right at the end, when we judges had delivered our withering verdicts, Michael suddenly burst into fits of giggles, and so did everyone else.
It was a wonderful reminder to all the mean-spirited critics of this show that at its heart, it’s just a bit of fun. A warm, joyous, celebration of great British eccentricity. Michael and Gemma had a go, did their best, saw the funny side, and went home chuckling.
Unlike Janine and Sue, the keyboard and violin duo. It was quite a moment when Sue decided to ditch her best mate and go for glory herself, wasn’t it? And you’ll be unsurprised to hear that they are no longer friends.
It raised an interesting dilemma that I suspect got played out in millions of homes last night: would you dump a pal for fame, money and the chance to play at the Royal Variety Show?
I fear that the answer for many, in this celebrity-obsessed era, would be an unequivocal ‘yes’.
Find out what's going on in Piers' world at his official website: www.officialpiersmorgan.com