Ignoring the chill of the British winter, Alesha Dixon arrived for the first of the Britain's Got Talent auditions at Manchester's Lowry Theatre looking resplendent in a flowing yellow dress and towering cream heels, designed by Christian Louboutin. Her co-star Amanda Holden is around eight months pregnant and arrived in a slightly more understated outfit: a black dress and a fake-fur-lined black cape to keep her warm.
Joining them on the judging panel will be the Little Britain comedian David Walliams and Simon Cowell. For this year's show, which has a weighty prize of 500k - compared to last year's 100k, Cowell poached the former Mis-teeq singer from Bgt's rival show Strictly Come Dancing. Strictly. beat another of Cowell's other talent shows, X Factor in a ratings war last year and according to a story in the Daily Mail today (January 20th, 2012), Cowell said "The Alesha thing was kind of fun. My decision to poach her was 70-30 on the fact she was on Strictly and the fact I liked her."
The judges all took to Twitter to announce their excitement about the impending auditions, with Alesha Dixon message reading "Oh the glamour!!!! Getting ready for Bgt!!! Very excited to see what Manchester has in store for us!'" Amanda Holden told her followers that the judges had been out for dinner the previous evening and described it as a "Very funny eve!" The new series of Britain's Got Talent is due to air in April.