WITH uneven teeth, £35 suit and shambling gait, he made an unlikely opera singer.
However, anyone who watched the first round of ITV's Britain's Got Talent last year could not fail to have been moved by Paul Potts' mesmerising rendition of Nessun Dorma.
Introduced by Ant and Dec, the mobile phone salesman from Port Talbot stepped nervously into the spotlight, eyes cast to the floor, and placed his portly frame in the firing line of the search-for-a-star show's sceptical judging panel, Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan – all three of whom looked on incredulously when the 36-year-old announced he would sing Puccini's soaring aria from Turandot.
Their expressions quickly changed to ones of astonish-ment, however, as Potts' outstanding performance brought Holden to tears and a 2000-strong audience to their feet in a spontaneous standing ovation – something the singer is no doubt hoping will be repeated a week on Sunday (January 27) when he makes his Capital debut at a packed Edinburgh Playhouse.
"I was so nervous I was shaking like a jelly, but when I watch that audition back, I can see in my eyes that when I start to sing I go to a totally different place and the nerves just vanish," Potts said of his first TV performance.
"When I stopped singing, there were a few seconds when my heart was racing because I had absolutely no idea what the judges were going to say."
Cowell summed up all three judges' feelings when he described the performance as "simply magical". "We were not expecting that," he admitted.
Eight days later, 12.1 million viewers tuned in to watch Potts win the live final, and secure the £100,000 prize money, along with the opportunity to appear on the bill of the 2007 Royal Variety Performance at the Empire Theatre, Liverpool.
"I keep waiting for someone to pinch me and say, 'Wake up, Paul, it's time for work – you're late again'. I feel like I'm on a roller-coaster – a white knuckle ride into the unknown. And I don't want to get off," Potts revealed after achieving his lifetime ambition.
To sing professionally had, indeed, been Potts long-held dream. "My mother recalls me listening to the theme from ET and conducting an imaginary orchestra with sticks," he recalled.
By the age of 11 he was singing in one of the best church choirs in Bristol, and it was that love of singing, which he developed while he was attending St Mary Redcliffe school, that gave him solace when he was bullied for being "different".
At 16, Potts discovered opera. "I bought a cheap recording of Carreras. It was the first time I had heard Che Gelida Manina (Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen) and I was so moved by it. To this day La Boheme remains my favourite opera."
From that day, opera began to play an ever more important role in Potts' life and eight years prior to his TV debut he entered a karaoke competition dressed as Pavarotti.
Around the same time he also appeared on Michael Barrymore's My Kind Of Music, winning £8000 – money he spent on singing lessons in Italy where he sang for the great maestro himself.
Some time later, Potts performed the roles of Don Basilio (Marriage of Figaro), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Don Carlos in Verdi's Don Carlos, and both the Prince of Persia and the Herald in Turandot with the Bath Opera of Bath, Somerset.
He also sang for the Royal Philharmonic in front of an audience of 15,000 and toured Northern Italy as a soloist. However, he is quick to point out that all these engagements were on a strictly amateur basis.
"I have never worked as a professional singer. I have poured everything I could earn into a few lessons – my four performances with Bath Opera a few years back were all amateur."
His reason for staying amateur was simple – low self-esteem, the legacy of the childhood bullying he endured. As he explained, "As I saw it, if I never asked (to get paid] – never put myself out there – then I'd never get told, 'No'. It was safer that way."
Having spent in excess of £12,000 training his voice, Potts' chances of pursuing his professional dream appeared dashed forever when, in 2003, doctors discovered a benign tumour on his adrenal gland while treating him for a burst appendicitis.
Soon after the tumour was successfully removed, the Bristol-born entertainer broke his collar bone in a bike accident.
"It meant for a couple of years, instead of thinking about singing, I was lying on the sofa in agony. Now when I go on stage my wife Julie doesn't want people to say, 'break a leg', because I probably will.
"Of all the health problems I'd been through, breaking my collar bone was the most painful and it took months to recover. I got very, very low and for once, singing was the last thing on my mind."
Reportedly £30,000 in debt after his illness, it could be argued that Potts' appearance on Britain's Got Talent could not have come at a more opportune moment, as he acknowledged on winning.
Fast forward seven months and Potts has not only topped the album charts but performed all around the world. From Mexico to New York, Canada to Portugal and Amsterdam to Helsinki, he has wowed audiences.
"It has changed my whole life. I used to feel so small and insignificant. But now I know I am someone – I am Paul Potts and this is what I do.
"All of this is like a fairy tale and I'm terrified I'm going to wake up soon and find I've dreamt it all. The support I've had has been incredible and I feel so touched and humbled by it. It has done so much for my confidence and I really can't thank people enough for giving me the chance to realise my dream. To be given an opportunity like this is more than I ever could have hoped for.
"Finally, I am going to be doing what I've always felt I was put here to do - something I love and that gives me so much joy".
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Paul Potts, Edinburgh Playhouse, Greenside Place, Sunday, January, 27, £23.50, 0870-735 5000 or visit www.bookingsdirect.co.uk