Britain’s Got Talent 2017: start date, judges, auditions, and everything you need to know

The ITV talent competition is returning with more unpredictable acts
They're back: Simon Cowell and his fellow judges return for Britain's Got Talent Series 11
Thames / Syco Entertainment
Ben Travis15 April 2017

Britain’s Got Talent still manages to be full of surprises, even after 10 series.

Simon Cowell’s competition show is one of the highlights of the Easter TV schedule, coming back with another crop of entirely unpredictable acts.

Here’s everything you need to know about the 2017 series.

1) Start date

Britain’s Got Talent is back on ITV this Easter weekend, with the first auditions show airing on Saturday 15 April at 8pm.

Britain's Got Talent Auditions 2017

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2) Judging line-up

Simon Cowell seems to have hit a sweet spot when it comes to the BGT judge line-up – he’s kept it the same since 2012.

That means Amanda Holden is back (she’s never missed a series before), alongside former Strictly champ Alesha Dixon and comedian David Walliams.

3) The auditions

This year’s acts are being kept under wraps, but there are a few things we know already.

A sneak peek clip from the new series showed the judges having a go at ‘doga’ (aka dog yoga), with an unfortunate result for David Walliams’ shoes once again proving the age-old ‘never work with children or animals’ rule.

Britain's Got Talent 2017 judges try 'dog yoga'

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We also know that the judges were successfully pranked by Simon Brodkin – the celebrity meddler who threw swastika golf balls at Donald Trump and crashed Kanye’s Glastonbury headline set.

While Brodkin’s scenes are unlikely to be aired on BGT, they were shown on Channel 4’s documentary Britain’s Greatest Hoaxer, revealing that the comedian auditioned for the show as a rapping orthodox jew.

4) What to expect

Have you been living under a rock for the last ten years? You have? Here’s how Britain’s Got Talent works – the series largely consists of weekly audition shows, where the judges are faced with unknown acts displaying their unexpected talents.

If the judges don’t like what they see, they can hit their large red buzzers – and if all buzzers go off, the audition is over.

Each judge gets a say over whether an act makes it through – three ‘yeses’ will send them through to the next round.

The live semi-finals take place nightly over the course of a week, with viewers able to vote from home for their favourite acts in the run-up to the grand final.

The winner gets a spot on the prestigious Royal Variety Performance.

ITV, Saturday, 8pm

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