Being Boyled

I assume before I even start this post that everyone in the Western World knows who Susan Boyle is, right? (What? You don't? OK, here goes - Susan Magdalane Boyle (born 1 April 1961) is a Scottish Grammy Award-nominated mezzo-soprano who came to international public attention when she appeared as a contestant on reality TV programme Britain's Got Talent on 11 April 2009, singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables. Her first album was released in November 2009 and debuted as the number one best-selling CD on charts around the globe.
Global interest in Boyle was triggered by the contrast between her powerful voice and her plain appearance on stage. The juxtaposition of the audience's first impression of her, with the standing ovation she received during and after her performance, led to an international media and internet response. Within nine days of the audition, videos of Boyle—from the show, various interviews and her 1999 rendition of "Cry Me a River" – had been watched over 100 million times. Her audition video has been viewed on the internet several hundred million times. Despite the sustained media interest she later finished in second place in the final of the show behind dance troupe Diversity.
Boyle's first album, I Dreamed a Dream, was released on 23 November 2009 and became Amazon's best-selling album in pre-sales. According to Billboard, "The arrival of I Dreamed a Dream ... marks the best opening week for a female artist's debut album since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991." In only six weeks of sales, it became the biggest selling album in the world for 2009, selling 9 million copies.In September 2010, Boyle was officially recognised by Guinness World Records as having had the fastest selling debut album by a female artist in the UK, the most successful first week sales of a debut album in the UK, and was also awarded the record for being the oldest person to reach number one with a debut album in the UK. Phew! Thanks, Wikipedia. Couldn't have done it without you!)

I'll start again. Everyone knows who Susan Boyle is, right? OK, good.

Y'know how you can read something or hear about something, ingest it, understand it, then totally forget it until something else acts as a trigger? That happened to me today.

I was at work, waiting for customers to arrive at my little shop, looking out the door across the street where lies our local branch of W.H. Smith (Or is it WHSmith? the sign on the front doesn't seem to contain any spaces or punctuation), anyway the point is, I was looking at their window display. It has a large ad for Susan Boyle's book The Woman I Was Born To Be  and I suddenly remembered that I read a day or two ago that a movie is currently being cast that will depict the singer's life story, from her poverty-stricken days when she was just living along with her cat to her phenomenal global success. OK, fine. Make a movie about her, but just don't expect me to watch it.

Little side note here... Hollywood, just once will you come up with a different name for this type of film than "biopic"? And surely someone like Boyle hasn't yet attained the status that I, for one, would deem sufficient to entail making a 'biopic' about? Surely you have to have been famous for a long time, and usually dead, to achieve this? Ray Charles and Johnny Cash spring to mind, as does Paganini. (Come on, keep up, people. The Magic Bow? Stewart Granger?) Anyway every time I read the word 'biopic' I keep thinking it's an eye complaint. "Sir, I hate to be the one to have to tell you, but you're biopic."

But the fact that they are making a movie about SuBo is not the weirdest tit bit in this little tale. Apparently the person who has signed on to play the frumpy Scottish warbler is esteemed actress Glenn Close.  Yes! She of the bunny-boiling and the Cruella De Vil and the Vice President in Air Force One!  And the SNL Orgasm Guy skit with Rob Schneider and Kev-on Neal-on! (Look it up.) That Glenn Close!

Not a Scottish actress. Not someone even remotely from the UK. I love Glenn Close, but SuBo? Really?

The next question to pop into my warped little head was this....? Who are they gonna cast as Simon Cowell? Who can convey that arrogant smarmy obsequious bastard-ness that we have all grown to know and love on Idol and such? I started thinking about all the other possibilities. So here, then, is my list of possible actors to complete the cast of The SuBo Story or whatever it will be called (I'll lay you even odds it'll be called I Dreamed A Dream).

Bear in mind that the judges on Series 3 of BGT were Simon, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan.

SIMON COWELL..... 

either Frankie Boyle

or Ricky Gervais

or Jon Culshaw.

AMANDA HOLDEN.....

Hmmm, Botox much?

either Dawn French

or Catherine Tate

or Miranda Hart.

 Any of those ought to be a vast improvement.


PIERS MORGAN.....

 I'd go with Stephen Fry

or Hugh Laurie

or Mark Williams.

and the hosts, ANT & DEC....

 I'd have to pick Noel Fielding

Bill Bailey

Omid Djalili

and Eddie Izzard

to play them all at once.

I think that would be a brilliant film. And my pick to play SuBo, should Ms. Close bow out of the whole debacle?

Why, Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda "They don't call me Krakatoa for nothing" Dickson Wright, of course!