Unknown From Nowhere Reveals Extraordinary Gift and Stuns World.

The judges sighed and smirked. But then Mr. Potts burst forth into a soaring rendition of “Nessun dorma,” the aria from Puccini’s “Turandot,” forcing them into a quick re-evaluation and astonishing the equally skeptical audience.Mr. Potts’s audition clip has now been viewed more than 43 million times on YouTube, at youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA.

SHOOT: It's wonderful that ordinary people can surprise us with their purity of spirit and sheer talent to do the unexpected and to do so better than those who pretend to be better. When I spoke to Gavin Hood yesterday he said that he believes all people have a certain capacity to dislike (some aspect) of themselves, and he is interested in making movies about that. The reason for his success and Pott's and Boyle's lies in this - that the more interesting story is that we are not perfect, but capable of extraordinary things all the same.

clipped from www.nytimes.com LONDON — She has been watched by more than 20.2 million people (and counting) on YouTube, Twittered about by Demi and Ashton, praised by Patti LuPone, admired by the bloggerati, snapped by the paparazzi, swarmed by camera crews, interrogated by reporters and restyled, sort of, for American television. But now Susan Boyle, the middle-aged church volunteer whose soaring performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” on a British talent show last week turned her into the world’s newest instant celebrity, at youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY, is trying to catch her breath. Miss Boyle is unmarried (and unkissed, she told the program), has no job, lives with her cat and has until now sung mostly in her local church. But she has become a heroine not only to people dreaming of being catapulted from obscurity to fame but also to those who cheer her triumph over looks-ism and ageism in a world that so values youth and beauty.