Backstage at Britain's Got Talent: What to expect from tonight’s third semi-final

Young dancer Dylan Byrd has flown back over from Ireland to perform tonight. Having hopped on a plane for the first time ever for his original audition, he’s becoming quite the frequent flyer now.

He’s nervous about his performance, he told me, but reveals, “There’s a surprise for Alesha.” He can’t say what – that would ruin it now, wouldn’t it? – but he’s hoping to get the judge on side after she buzzed him during his original audition. “I just hope she doesn’t buzz me tonight,” he admitted.

Dylan’s got some friendly faces in the crowd, though, revealing that his dance instructor has flown over to watch. And with a final tease about tonight’s performance he says: “There’s lots of colour”.

Pulling out the big tricks is magician Jamie Raven. We’ll get to see some of the close-up magic of his original audition, which saw him turn a £50 note into his very own brand of Britain’s Got Talent dosh. But he’s also planning on pulling off an almighty trick. “It’s going to be the biggest thing I’ve ever done,” he told me. “Without spoiling the surprise, it will start off like I finished last time with the close-up magic, and then I’m going to try and raise the bar.”

No pressure, eh? But this is the man who managed to make Simon Cowell truly believe in magic. “I’m going to dine off of that for the rest of my life,” laughed Jamie.

Upping the game with a risky song choice is twelve-piece vocal harmony group The Kingdom Tenors. “We’re taking a big risk tonight, we’re taking a gamble on a different kind of song, but we think we’ve got the right song. We wouldn’t normally think of it, but we worked on it and we really, really like it. We really like what we’ve got for tonight.”

Their change of song choice follows comments from Simon Cowell that their original audition, singing Westlife’s You Raise Me Up, didn’t quite tick all the right boxes. “It made us think,” the group admitted. “It made us up our game. It’s a bit more current as well.”

Dancers Terrell and Lauren are no strangers to the BGT semi-final, having reached this stage as a duo last year. This time around they're back with dance troupe IMD Legion. “We’ve got a lot better since last year, so we’re just waiting to show the judges what we can do," they said. There’s a theme to tonight’s performance, which they couldn’t give away, but laughed as their outfits lit up – a tiny sneak peek at what they’ll be getting up to. We can expect big tricks too, they reveal, and say they’ve put in so much training “there shouldn’t be any mistakes.”

I feel puffed out just thinking about it all. The judges look like they'll have a tough decision on their hands tonight.

As usual, one act will go straight through to this Sunday's final based on the public vote and a second will follow after the judges' vote.

See Britain's Got Talent from 7:30pm tonight, with results (and a performance from Alesha) from 9:30pm on ITV