A Loser's Tribute to Wigtown's Got Talent

Author Robert Twigger has overcome the pain of losing (yet again) at Wigtown's Got Talent, and written a tribute to this year's event.

The first act was half history lesson half song,

A Wikipedia entry gone wrong,

The second, a yuke playing shouty man,

Had loud applause- from a single fan,

The third, well by then we despaired,

Would this be the worst talent show never aired?

So the third, a poetess who couldn’t adjust the mike,

We braced ourselves- what’s not to dislike?

Then she spoke from pure memory a wonderful rhyme,

Stumbled, regained balance, came back stronger this time,

A rousing finish, the audience explodes,

The judges for once lost for words.

This was the people’s choice,

And, more, the show had found it’s pace, it’s voice,

But inexplicably the comperes call a break,

So it’s back to square one after a drink,

Louis de Berniere on the mandolin,

Treated a tad harshly for his well plucked Haydn,

Then Colin Tennant, a snapper, did a single headstand,

His looks admired, arse critiqued, he gets a big hand,

Gavin Francis, doctor and author, juggles oranges and whistles a tune,

He is good and brief, competent, clearly a boon

To the National Health. Will he win?

Next comes some jars you’d rather bin,

That’s right, a woman, Sarah, unsticks stuck jars,

With a wooden spoon, the audience ‘ahs’,

Recognition, something useful at last,

Clearly a long lost skill from the past,

And then it’s us- Flintoff and Twig,

A couple of chancers dreaming big,

With their Beckettian drama, conceptual mummery,

That gets dismissed as just so much flummery,

But already I’ve had my best moment. A lad

Front row, repeating over and over,

‘What are they doing, what are they doing, Dad?’

So there you have it.

The audience voted and streamed out.

The comperes made their last sarcastic jibes:

The poetess won as she should- all round good vibes,

The players happy and contented, all that jazz,

Wigtown’s got talent? Yes it has!