MOSSLEY’S own Britain’s Got Talent winner Jon Courtenay is getting ready to tick off one of the items on his bucket list after landing a slot at Edinburgh Festival.
That has meant coming up with an entirely new show, which he will perform over the two-week stint.
Top Mossley-based Courtenay wowed the crowd – many of whom he knew – with a show on his doorstep at George Lawton Hall on Friday, March 18.
But speaking exclusively to The Correspondent, he revealed his plans for the rest of the year, and beyond.
“I’m doing Edinburgh Festival for the first time, which is a bit crazy,” he said.
“I’ve been up there as a punter before to see shows but never thought I could do what I’ve got.
“And I couldn’t go up there with my BGT show. I thought, ‘If I’m going to go up there, I’ve got to write something specific for it.’
“So it’s a slightly unusual show, which does cover some of the BGT stuff and is a bit autobiographical. We’ve got a venue too for two weeks at the beginning of August.
“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Talk about ticking something off on your bucket list.”
Jon, who won Britain’s Got Talent in 2020, has been busy rehearsing, preparing and discussing his new show but he will also be heading back out on the road around the country.
“I’m going back out at the end of the year again. There are a lot of venues I couldn’t get into last year because of performances being carried over from 2020.
“Normally, having won the show, we’d have done a tour show almost every night but a lot of venues were booked up.
“There are lots of areas of the country I didn’t even get to last year.
“I’m still writing but still enjoying home time. It’s the longest I’ve ever been at home. I thought I’d be fed up of it but it’s the new normal and I’m still loving it.
“Everything’s on social media now – and being a middle-aged dad I’m not brilliant at it, much to my manager’s upset!
“But I try and write something every day and there’s things like YouTube and TikTok, not necessarily music.
“I’m spending a lot of time writing the Edinburgh show, along with some friends who are helping, and I think it’s looking like something that could tour in it’s own right.
“I’ve got to learn the thing first – it’s a mammoth thing to try and get in your head.
“But hopefully if that comes off, that’s maybe something I can do in 2023. I may be home-based but I have a studio that locks from the inside, so if I want to write something, the kids can’t disturb me!”
Jon may be a star, playing Edinburgh Festival and venues around the country – including George Lawton Hall on Red Nose Day – but he is also just Jon from Top Mossley.
And the biggest impact of his success was that he was able to carry on almost as normal despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I don’t think that’s really changed,” he added. “People ask me, ‘Did BGT change your life?’ and my initial answer would be, ‘Yes, of course.’
“But Covid-19 pretty much changed everybody’s life and what BGT did was it meant I could maintain some sort of semblance of what I’d been doing for the past 20 years.
“I was still performing, albeit a lot of it was virtual, but people with what you’d call normal jobs weren’t working and they had to pay the bills.
“I was very lucky, BGT gave me the chance to still perform. Rather than change my life, it just gave me the chance to carry on really, which was great.”
How do I get tickets for Jon’s Edinburgh Fringe Show?