A ZIMBABWEAN teenage prodigy who has portrayed a young Michael Jackson is set to hit the big time after his boy band, New Bounce, eased into the finals of the hit TV reality show, Britain’s Got Talent.
Mitchell Zhangazha, 16, and friends James Anderson, 12, Kuan Lee Frye, 13, and MJ Mytton Sanneh, 12, are through to Saturday’s finals and in line for the £100,000 cash prize on the ITV 1 show.
New Bounce
wowed judges in Tuesday’s semi-finals, and commanded the largest share of the public vote as they did so.
Judge Simon Cowell told them they were “the ones to beat” at the finals.
"I saw your
audition, it was very dated. This time it felt like that you chose the song. I loved your version,” Cowell said.
"This is the first time in two days that I've seen an act which I genuinely believe will be successful in the real world."
"Finally, JLS have some competition," reckoned fellow judge Amanda Holden.
"You could win this competition," beamed David Hasselhoff, and Michael McIntyre, who did not want the band to progress through the audition stage, changed his mind saying: "You have totally turned that around."
Mitchell got together with James, Kuan and MJ Mytton whilst playing young Michael in Michael Jackson’s Thriller Live, and the quartet have been together as a group since August 2010.
The Zimbabwean, who has been acting since he was four, landed his acting roles through the Sylvia Young acting agency.
He has been in London theatre shows The Lion King, Oliver and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, has sung backing vocals on The X Factor, and even danced in the video for X Factor star Chico Slimani’s hit It’s Chico Time.
As a 10-year-old, he used to spend two nights a week performing in the West End’s Lion King and two afternoons a week in a recording studio where he performed the voice for a new TV animation, Little Einsteins.
“I usually get back at midnight,” he said. “Then I’ll go to bed after doing my school papers. My mother wakes me up at 8AM to go to school.”
A child-actor’s life is certainly tough, but his school was very supportive.
“My class came to see me on the first night I was in the Lion King, and they all said it was really good,” he said.
Mitchell is just the latest Zimbabwean to star on British TV, following a path well-paved by Makosi Musambasi’s double stint in Big Brother. In last year’s Britain’s Got Talent, Zimbabwean brothers Arnold, 19, Anthony, 15, and Amukheani, 13, reached the semi-finals with their dancing group, A3.
Also last year, Gamuchirai Nhengu became a national sensation after being denied a chance to go through to the X Factor finals. Over 300,000 outraged Britons joined a Facebook page calling for her reinstatement but to no avail.