The sand animator reduced judges and the audience to tears by sculpting and drizzling sand over a light table to tell the story of Germany conquering Ukraine in World War II.

In her eight-minute performance, Simonova creates images before her audience's eyes, before morphing them into new figures to keep the narrative rolling.

And now her star is rapidly rising on YouTube, where nearly 800,000 have watched her performance since it was posted in June.

"WOW ... I'm speechless this is so beautiful...," writes one viewer.

"I thought Britain's got talent had some really good people but after seeing this ... It's just so much more original and creative and touching than someone singing a song or doing a funny routine," says another.