Get ready to laugh/cry/cringe/complain that none of the contestants are actually from the UK – tonight saw the return of the best freakshow on TV, Britain’s Got Talent.

David Walliams, Alesha Dixon, Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell returned to our screens with their big red buttons to bring us this year’s selection of dancers, singers and (most importantly) dogs. With a slot at the Royal Variety Performance up for grabs, there were the inevitable sob stories, contestants of questionable mental stability – and the same clip of Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk played over and over again.

1. One guy played the comb. Yes, the comb. Apparently the recorder/piano/acoustic guitar were just too mainstream for this guy.

2. Then there was a “free runner” who basically just ran around and jumped off things. One of these things was a balcony, which was pretty impressive, but one has to question whether the Queen would agree.

3. Of course, there was an obligatory contortionist thrown in there for good measure.

4. Possibly the night’s most controversial act was a brother-sister roller blading duo, Emily and Billy England. Sounds innocent enough, right?

Except for the fact that they were both semi-nude and at one point Emily spun around at a terrifying speed, supported only by a harness on her head.

…But not everyone was so impressed. Pah, anyone can do that.

5. A 162-piece choir from North Wales split Twitter’s opinion down the middle. Some loved the group’s spine-chillingly beautiful song, others were deterred by the inevitable abundance of sob stories.

6. It wouldn’t be BGT without a generous helping of animal acts. While we had the inevitable “oh no, the dog isn’t doing as he’s told! LOL!” moments, one of the main talking points was a dog named Yolo.

Yep, some evil soul named her dog Yolo, after the buzzword of 2012.

7. The one dog act that actually managed to impress the judges was the incredible Marc Métral and his talking dog, Wendy. Obviously it’s totally impossible for a dog to ACTUALLY talk, but these two were pretty damned convincing.

8. The first sob story of the evening was of Jade Scott, a girl from Hull who dreams of singing professionally but is stuck in a dead-end admin job, doing pub gigs and trying to make it big.

Unfortunately, Jade’s singing just didn’t do it for the difficult-to-please judges. However they were all over her brother Callum, who auditioned straight after her. Awkward! Christmas is definitely going to be interesting this year…

9. Finally, the act who shocked us all were the Ruby Red Strippers, a diverse group of ladies of all shapes, sizes and ages.

We all cringed a little bit when the Rubys started dancing to Break Free by Queen – until their modest 50′s housewife dresses came off.