December 14, 2009
UPDATE: Maybelle – found videos of the show (here)
Susan Boyle posts/videos/interviews/CD
Hi again Maybelle.
Nice to hear from you again. I’m sorry you didn’t get to see it. I don’t know if the TV Guide channel is cable or not – but they are re-running it this week and probably for a while. It’s their #1 rated show ever.
Did your great-grandson ever set your computer up for You Tube? I’ll see if I can track down some video if it’s available. I think these were her best performances since her audition. She was really singing for herself and her audience and appeared completely comfortable doing so. Singing with Elaine Paige and the cast of Les Miserables and then Donny Osmond stopping by must have been amazing.
Here’s a quick rundown of the show with pertinent quotes.
In her Q & A with PEOPLE:
Q: What’s it like having your own television special?
A: It’s a very humbling experience. I loved every second of it. I finally feel like the dream is a reality. When the show was made, I can honestly say that it was the best two days of my life. The producer, Nigel Hall, made me a beautiful show.
Transcript follows
“I Dreamed a Dream: The Susan Boyle Story” hosted by Piers Morgan, originally aired December 13th on the TV GUIDE Network.
[Hand transcribed]
SUSAN BOYLE:
When I was a baby – told my peers not to expect too much of me because I had a slight disability. I didn’t make friends very easily. I couldn’t trust anybody. And when I did try to speak to people – they made fun of me. The only escape for all that, really, was music.
SIMON COWELL:
I could actually feel the audience behind me beginning to get restless. They smelled blood - seriously.
PIERS MORGAN:
Ohmigod, you can imagine, this one thinks she’s going to be Elaine Paige. The level of delusion appeared to know no bounds...and then she began to sing.
SIMON:
WIthin about five seconds of her singing, I felt this unbelievable change.
AMANDA HOLDEN:
How arrogant were we to assume she was going to be rubbish. And she proved everybody wrong in that one song. It was brilliant. And she absolutely knew she was going to knock our socks off.
PIERS:
It was spell-binding. It was one of those moments when your spine starts to tingle. It was amazing.
SIMON:
That was the moment where I thought: ‘if she can hit the chorus, this song is going to change her life forever‘. I could feel it.
SIR CAMERON MACKINTOSH, producer Les Mirables:
From the first moment she began to sing “I Dream a Dream”, I was just on the edge of my seat going, ‘How can she sustain it‘? And for some reason, the lyrics of that song seemed to epitomize what she wanted – her own dream of life – indeed, her own life experience.
SUSAN BOYLE:
I sang to the nation – even the judges stood up. It was exhilarating and it was amazing. [I saw the tape?] It was good – bloody fantastic.
SIMON:
What I felt during and after the song, I don’t think I’ve ever felt in any audtiion in my life. There was something magical about that audition.
(6:00) Ms Boyle sings “Who I was Born to Be” – the only original song on the album written for her by AUDRA MAE.
Ms Boyle actually sang like she did in the first audition. First time I’ve seen her perform like that.
PIERS: Album sold 4.5M copies in two weeks.
SUSAN (to audience): Thank you all for your support.
PIERS:
You sang about dreaming a dream. Are you still living a dream or is it reality. How does this crazy journey you’re on feel now?
SUSAN: Feels very real, and it’s bloody fantastic!
(11:00) Commercial
Talk about the video hitting YouTube.
LORRAINE CAMPBELL (childhood friend):
She couldn’t handle the paparazzi.
They show clips of her semifinal performance of “Memory” (video) where she had trouble at the beginning but got it together at the climax and finished strong.
(17:00) SUSAN:
All this pressure on top of me I found it a bit suffocating. As anyone would….I was feeling very anxious at the final. It got so bad I was sort of staring at the walls.
[Showing clips of her on the final show.]
Simon talked to her alone before she went out to sing in the final. He told her she didn’t have to do it. She said she had have lived on her own all her life and that it was her one shot and she wanted to do it. He also asked her how she was going to do if she lost. She said she still wanted to win.
PIERS:
What has started out as a bit of fun for her had now become quite scary and the weight of expectation, I think, was almost unbearable.
Videotape PIERS: If Susan Boyle doesn’t win Britain’s Got talent, then I’m a donut.
Donut? Brits, what does that mean?
Video clip of the winner being announced.
SIMON:
Normally I’d look at the winners. This time I was looking over to my right – I saw a glimmer of fear then. ‘No one’s going to want me anymore.’
SUSAN: I don’t remember much after the final.
Clips of news reports about her coming in second and having a “breakdown”.
SIMON:
This is the lowest point we had ever reached, where suddenly you go ‘we have a responsibility here’. And that’s the point where you question yourself, the show, and have we ruined this person’s life.
PIERS:
I saw the picture of her in the car under the headline ‘The saddest person in the country’ and all this kind of stuff. I really felt for her. I thought it was an awful, awful situation that you couldn’t make her feel better. Everyone kept saying: ‘Don’t worry’. Simon was saying: ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be great.’ She wasn’t having it. She knew that other contestants who had not won these shows had disappeared just as fast as they came.
SUSAN: [Part 3 video]
Hadn’t eaten properly for about a week. Hadn’t slept for a week. It was like looking out through glass. The feeling was one of extreme sheer exhaustion.
SIMON:
I go over to Susan and whisper in her ear, ‘We’re still here. If you still want to make the record, I’m going to do this and I give you my word. Just remember that.’
[20: 00 Commercial]
They talk with “The First Lady of the Theater” Elaine Page – Susan’s idol.
ELAINE PAIGE:
She came along at a time when the world was a bit dispirited with the recession, and she sort of just lifted us all out of it for this moment in time.
(26:00) Ms Paige and Ms Boyle sing a duet.
I have to say Ms Boyle sounded better when they sang together.
Video clips of Ms Boyle back home, smiling. Simon says he talked with her and told her there was no time period for the record and she could talk however long she needed.
SUSAN:
[All those?] years I had waited and told you’d be making a record with someone as big as Simon Cowell sort of breathtaking – takes your breath away.
SIMON:
I wanted to make a record which represented her.
YVIE BURNETT (vocal coach):
Now that the whole pressure of Britain’s Got Talent is over and Susan now is a singer in her own right, she’s beginning to really enjoy it.
LORRAINE CAMPBELL:
She loves being at the studio and that was one of the happiest times when she was in the studio recording her album.
Everyone who talks about Ms Boyle smile as they do. The guy in the studio looked like he totally enjoyed working with her.
SIMON (honest insight into his behavior):
Was Susan Boyle right to dream a dream? Yes. Susan Boyle was good for all of us. I mean, she was certainly good for me. Because I look at me in that first audition and I saw something that I didn’t particularly like, which was incredibly judgmental. So I think Susan is going to help an awful lot of people who didn’t have the confidence to do this.
Ms Boyle tamed the beast in Simon and got him to apologize on BGT’s final.
Ms Boyle talks about her appearance – “hairdo and bushy eyebrows” – is all I could catch. I think the point was she cleans up well.
[32:00] Commercial
[PART 4 video] Footage of Ms Boyle taking America by storm. Piers refers to the Beatles. Susan talks about her fan mail. Footage of the women giving Susan a quilt from all over the world – it’s what preceded her ”breakdown” (thumbsucking) after she had performed at Rockefeller Plaza.
FEMALE AMERICAN FAN:
Susan Boyle makes me feel wonderful. She is to me what life is all about, or what life should be all about.
FEMALE AMERICAN FAN:
She’s brought happiness into my life.
MALE AMERICAN FAN:
I think Susan means there is no time limit on your dreams. As long as you can dream ‘em, you can do ‘em. So don’t give up – keep trying.
(38:00) DONNY OSMOND brings Ms Boyle purple roses and they have a good laugh together. He kisses her on the cheek and she kisses his cheek.
Footage of her singing ‘Wild Horses” on the America’s Got Talent final.
SIMON:
I think she could become – will become – the biggest selling recording artist this year. And I’m talking about around the world. That is the significance of Susan Boyle right now – and its all about her.
(40:00) Susan sings “Cry Me A River”
PIERS:
Did you ever think it would come to this?
SUSAN:
Well absolutely no. It was totally unexpected. I’d like to thank everyone here for their support.
[PART 5 video] Piers present her with a framed 1,000,000 triple platinum record (after two weeks). She makes a bunch of faces and tears up and the crowd loves it.
(45:00) Commercial
Footage of her in a seaplane landing back home.
PILOT: Welcome home.
ANNOUNCER (on videotape):
Fastest selling debut album since records began. She out sold the rest of the top five albums combined.
SUSAN:
I’ve dreamed about this for 23 years. You realize that it’s all worthwhile – that striving so many years has been worthwhile.
Footage of her Harper’s Bazaar photo shoot.
SUSAN: …continuing to make people happy.
SIMON:
It’s a great human story without any hype or without any tricks. It’s all about her.
AMANDA:
It’s because of her story and because of everything she represents that she made it as far as she did, as well as obviously being able to back up that great voice. It’s a typical Cinderella story.
BGT hosts:
She just displays there’s hope for us all – no matter what stage of life you’re at. No matter where you live, or you look like, where you’re from – it can still happen for you if you believe in it and you’ve got the talent, and she’s the best example.
PIERS:
Susan Boyle is here to stay, and she’s here to stay with a smile on her face. We now have the happy ending that nobody thought she’d have. Now isn’t that a story.
SIR CAMERON MACKINTOSH (producer, Les Mirables):
No one’s actually owned “I Dreamed a Dream” until Susan Boyle captured our hearts.
SUSAN: [hard to understand]
I used to be a spectator, looking outward at the world and now I’m part of it…and although frightened, I embrace it, because I feel a bit more confident with myself now….gotta take part in the game.
(54:00) Susan sings “I Dreamed a Dream” with the London cast of Les Miserables.
The best was when she finished, she called the cast around her and they couldn’t stop grinning because they couldn’t believe the ovation she was getting,
Piers asks her how she’s feeling.
SUSAN says to the audience:
I couldn’t have done this without your support. Thank you very much.
