CityLife

SUSAN Boyle upset her Manchester fans when she pulled out of two performances of the Britain’s Got Talent live tour.<br /> <br /> Thousands arriving for at the M.E.N. Arena gigs yesterday were met with signs stating that Susan would not perform at either the matinee or evening shows.<br /> <br /> A spokeswoman for the tour said the singer Susan wished to apologise to fans, but said she had been told advised to rest up after appearing in Birmingham on Friday night and at two shows in Sheffield on Saturday.<br /> <br /> She said: “Following three sensational performances Susan Boyle has been advised to rest. She sends her sincere apologies to her fans for not appearing in Manchester.”<br /> <br /> Fans were offered a refund on their tickets at the arena if they didn’t want to stay and watch the show, which included all the other finalists from the ITV talent show and the winners, dance group winners Diversity.<br /> <br /> Among those who returned their tickets were Joan Harvey and Denise Taylor, from Chester to see SuBo. Joan, 55, said: “We’re devastated – we came just to see Susan.<br /> <br /> "We checked on the internet before we set out to make sure she would be appearing and it said she was. It’s atrocious that we’ve been treated like this. We don’t blame Susan, but how can she be expected to do 23 shows if she can’t do three without a rest?”.<br /> <br /> Denise, 45, added: “We’re the people who put her where she is and yet we can’t even see her perform.”<br /> <br /> Fans who stayed were shown a video of Susan’s performance of Les Miserables classic I Dreamed A Dream on the TV final of the hit talent show. When show host Stephen Mulhern mentioned that Susan wouldn’t be appearing, there were boos from the crowd.<br /> <br /> After the video Stephen said: “We do hope that Susan gets a good rest and joins us back on tour at some point.”<br /> <br /> Susan became an overnight sensation after her first Britain’s Got Talent audition, generating garnering 100 million hits on youtube and winning fans across the globe.<br /> <br /> Diversity<br /> <br /> But after coming second in the final to Diversity, the 48-year-old spent a week in was taken to The Priory clinic in London suffering from exhaustion.<br /> <br /> Fans had been buoyed by her appearance on the first night of the tour in Birmingham where critics gave her rave reviews for her performances of I Dreamed a Dream and Memory from the musical Cats.<br /> <br /> A spokeswoman for Susan said the decision to sit out the two Manchester shows had been a joint one between Susan and tour managers after her performance in Sheffield, and insisted there was ‘nothing sinister’ behind the decision to sit out the Manchester shows.<br /> <br /> She said: “There was always going to be some dates on the tour that Susan would not perform, it was always going to be up to Susan how she felt.<br /> <br /> “After the Sheffield show Susan felt a bit tired so the decision was made that she would return to London to have a rest day, and then depending on how she feels she may return for either the Glasgow show on Monday or Edinburgh on Tuesday.”<br /> <br /> “There’s absolutely no pressure on her to do the shows, because her health is paramount to all of us.”<br /> <br /> But fans heading to the Arena were still treated to a show packed with thrills and spills – with dance star winners Diversity getting standing ovations for their spectacular routines.<br /> <br /> There was also a welcome return for last year’s winner George Sampson who joined dance act Flawless for a hip-hop routine before showing off his nifty moves in a solo piece to Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall.<br /> <br /> Teen singer Shaun Smith also got some of the biggest screams of the night.<br /> <br /> Show host Stephen Mulhern then sent out a happy birthday message to 99-year-old Ivy Jones in the audience – proving just what a huge following from all age groups the Britain’s Got Talent phenomenon can now claim.<br />