Britain’s Got Talent have e-mailed The Union of UK unicyclists. text of their message is below. If you are interested in entering their competition, please contact them direct.
Hey Sarah
I hope you are well, my name is Frankie Mensah and I work for Britain’s Got Talent. I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of the UK,s best unicyclists as I want to get in touch with them and see if they would be interested in applying for the show.
I would appreciate your help
Kind Regards
Frankie
Frankie Mensah | Researcher | Britain’s Got Talent Series 4| talkbackTHAMES*
w: +44 207 691 6792 | 1 Stephen Street, London W1T 1AL
From what I’ve seen, the UK version of the show is more unicycle-friendly than the American one. That is to say, the American version is geared toward the artist being able to fill a 90-minute show in Las Vegas. Not every act, or type of performance, is built for that, aka most variety acts. I think the UK show is free of that requirement, so acts that can’t fill long shows, such as sword swallowing, are more acceptable.
I’d love to see more unicycling on either show. Remember, as with any other type of unicycling in front of an audience, it’s more about the show than it is about the tricks. Frankie Mensah asks for “the UK’s best unicyclists” but what he really wants is the best unicycle performers.
This doesn’t mean don’t audition, of course. the more unicycles, the merrier!
Jason wasn’t ready. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t be ready this time, or that anyone else can’t. But you’ll need an act, and you’ll need to be at least solid at that act, to get past Piers…
i think it would work better and be more interesting if a few people did a routine with a trials rider(would hodges do it?), a street rider(jason again?) and a freestyler. i think that would work better than just a street routine.
nope, I disagree with you, they aren’t interested in trials or street. A big move to us is a hick-triple. A normal (i.e. non unicyclist) person thinks a big trick is something they can see, such as wheel walking, coasting, idling, one footed etc.
Like when I ride around my village, if someone stops and asks me to do a trick, they barely even take a second look at my 360 unispin, yet they are wowed by me going backwards.
Therefore, we need only freestylists, with some kind of dance routine.
yeah, group freestyle would be cool. I see what you mean about street but basic "impressive skills like 360s and riding down stairs still look pretty good.
I seem to recall a short-lived TV show called “Master of Champions” which pitted Dan Heaton against Zach Baldwin. There was a rather elaborate trials course set up on stage, and both riders did a great job. If something like that was on AGT, it would probably work well. I could not find any video of the segement, but here were the results:
<Next, two unicyclists go at it to determine who is the most extreme. Dan Heaton of Seattle, who started as a child and went on to become a world champion street unicyclist… then broke both of his feet, will take on 18-year-old Zach Baldwin, who went to Japan and placed first in their tournament.
ROUND 3: UNIRACERS: Dan Heaton vs. Zach Baldwin
On a specially designed street course, each unicyclist will show off their skills.
Dan is first. Remember, he’s more of a street rider, which means you’ll see more tricks. And also remember that Dan is still recovering from two broken feet. Dan gives it a good run, but he couldn’t nail his big finish. He got the ramp no problem, but stepped off of his unicycle.
Zach is more of a trial style, which means expect more drops and more ramps. Zach struggles getting up on top of a 5 foot level hop onto a phone booth, but he manages to get himself up. His big finish is also mangled as he attempts an 8 foot drop. But he holds it together.
The Panel of Champions, in a 2-1 split, give it to Dan. But what will the audience say? It’s a close one, but by a vote of 51% to 49%, the best extreme unicyclist… by FOUR votes… is… ZACH!>
I think some freestyle would be good, not a freestyle dance though, I think it needs to look more like new and modern. I think a mixture of street and freestyle. Some grinds, stair jumps, stand up ww and 1ft riding and stuff some 360s, maybe a trey down a set or something. These are what I think most people see as impressive. Maybe ask people when your next riding, show them some tricks and let them tell you what they want to see.
Haha No. Clearly you havnt seen me ride at all recently. I ride almost purely trials and Muni nowadays, wouldnt know what to do if someone asked me to do a trick
You need something that looks clean. Even the best riders often mess up grinds and fall. With the pressure you can be sure they would fall at least once.
Trials could work but probabyl wouldnt be as interesting to the audience.
People want a show at these kind of TV shows. Hence tv shows. They don’t want to watch a skate video if you know what I mean.
ive done a few demos in my day and most of you are right. Crowds get stoked on seat drops, compared to a trey-flip or something super techy. At a big demo in whistler we had this 6 foot wire set up and we would ride across it and people would go insane! but id bust a crank flip off this set up pallets and they didnt seem as stoked…
i think having an actual “show” would be the best way.
drop, gaps, and skinnies, then somehow turning it into almost a performance. The idea of the show is to entertain people, if its to complicated or if they have to think about it too much then it becomes boring! it has to be instant satisfaction AND get better through the act. beginning/ middle/ and CLIMAX!
Exactly. If anyone was to ask me who the best unicyclist is in the UK, I would probably say Sam Wakeling. He has even got two (or three?) Guinness records to prove it. The size of the stage and length of the show, however, doesn’t really allow him to show off how far he can ride in 24 hours though!
Pretty much everything jkohse said. It doesn’t matter whether the type of riding is what we would call Freestyle, Street, Trials or something else, it’s all about how it’s performed. Yes, fire would add to a good performance (they add it to acts on the American show a lot). I suppose the end result in most cases would fall into the Freestyle category by definition (it’s a performance for an audience) but it could still be an awesome Trials, Street or something-else performance. But it really has to be a great performance.
