Bridgetown’s Got Talent gets callback after successful showing last year

The Bridgetown Repertory Theatre is bringing back Bridgetown’s Got Talent this weekend, after a successful showing last year when the two-week competition debuted. The heats will take place on Friday and Saturday night, where 14 acts will compete for a place in the grand final set to be hosted on December 7 with a $500 prize. Organising committee member and repertory club life member Chris Shedley said the individual performances were expected to show different artistic talents, including music, dance and spoken word. “The acts vary from vocals with piano accompaniment, musical theatre acts, a mother-and-daughter vocal act, an acoustic guitar performance and a anti-war poetry piece as well,” he said. “There’s also several dance performances, including a ballet act.” The show initially debuted to replace the theatre’s pantomime performance, and Mr Shedley said its return was thanks to the debut’s success. “It exceeded everyone’s expectations in quality and popularity (and) the general feedback we got was that they loved the performances,” he said. “We’re changing from three votes for audience members to four this year, and the votes are all of equal value. “We’ll have the audience vote in the heats, but in the final, we’ll have a professional adjudicator — Geoffrey Lowe — who’s going to give feedback and scores to the acts. “He’s pretty prominent in the WA music scene and ran the music program at ECU (Edith Cowan University) for a long time, and he adjudicated the Bunbury Eisteddfod.” The judging panel who will give feedback to acts will also include Jeff Sheehan, who was a music teacher in Perth and runs the Bridgetown Valley Lodge, and Megan Cullen, who runs a youth theatre group. “The committee will also hold the right to put someone through, if they think the audience voting hadn’t gotten it quite right,” Mr Shedley said.