Alesha Dixon revealed her soft side, running onto stage during BGT to comfort nine-year-old Malaki Paul, after he succumbed to nerves.

Malaki showed that it’s hard enough being on stage belting out a Beyonce song on your own, let alone when you're nine.

His mother had been concerned that he would stumble on his version of Listen and, sure enough, the tears soon came. But he battled on after a hug from his mum, and wowed the judges. Walliams and Alesha agreed, “You’re a total star.” And Simon added, “You’re brave.” Four yeses (and note no hashtag – was this BGT responding to questions of exploitation of a vulnerable youngster? It was a VERY swift edit away from his tears to a commercial break...)

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A little un’ that didn’t need so much looking after was Molly Rainford, 11 from Essex. She sounded shy and told the panel she went to church on Sundays with her nan. And then Simon’s prayers were answered when she started singing One Night Only. Four more yeses.

Organ player/singer Graham was the first one up this week – very likeable, according to Walliams – and ingratiated himself to everyone except Simon, who stopped him halfway, for “smiling in a weird way”. Graham finally cranked into action with a weird churchlike version of La Bamba, which brought the crowd to their feet, but which Simon termed “hideous, like vanilla icecream and a sausage – they don’t go together”. Graham went sailing through.

New School were neatly turned-out children, polite, school-uniformed and with no wriggling, until the music started, and they kicked off an acrobatic dance routine. (We knew they got the producers’ vote, we saw the hashtag.) Alesha decided, “You may be little but you mean business.”

And Geisha offered something not seen before on BGT – “a message to the people”. This turned out to be Humpty Dumpty, Bjork-lite.

Two buzzers sounded, but “you’re so out there, I actually really like you,” reported Simon, and Geisha was through. Simon’s afterthought: “Bet she’d be fun on a date.”

Which of these do you think looks like a winner? Pics of this week's bunch in action...

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• Graham unnerved and delighted the judges in equal measure. All pictures: ITV