THE capacity audience had journeyed from their sofas to the BIC to watch the top eight acts of the 2014 X Factor series perform on the first of two nights in Bournemouth.

Eleven years on Simon Cowell’s prime time ITV show may be attracting audiences of little over half of what they were at its peak but the reaction to last night’s touring production proved it is still immensely popular.

In fact you would be hard pushed to find a show that attracts such thunderous applause – especially when Hampshire’s own Tom Mann took to the stage with his band mates from Stereo Kicks to deliver some standout performances of the night.

Former Football coach Tom, 21, from Chandler’s Ford, had a huge entourage of family and friends there to cheer him on, along with the boyband’s adoring young fans who greeted them with piercing screams.

The show had all the high production values of the TV show with its video footage of the series highlights, dazzling lighting, special effects and a company of 12 brilliantly choreographed exceptional dancers.

The evening had started in spectacular style with runnerup Fleur East singing Can’t Hold Us who later returned to impress with her powerful vocals and energetic dance moves to All about that Base and Bang Bang.

Lauren Platt delivered some crowd pleasers with Happy and How will I Know. She was followed by Jay James with Changing and Andrea Faustini With I’m Telling You.

It was the arrival of Stevi Ritchie that caused the loudest cheers and instilled the real fun factor as he strutted around the stage alongside outlandish dancers with Livin’ La Vida Loca.

Only the young maintained this party mood with I Wanna Be Like You from Jungle Book while the appearance of Stereo Kicks and their Beatles mashup with Let it Be and Hey Dude established them as audience favourites.

This slick, fast-paced show was soon into the second half with Stevi shooting out of the stage trap door and hanging in mid air dressed as Freddie Mercury and singing Bohemian Rhapsody, typically out of tune but the audience lapped it up!

Fleur’s thrilling Michael Jackson tribute was followed by a Frozen singalong from Lauren with Let it Go and then Stereo kicks raised the temperature as they appeared in the middle of the audience to work their way to the stage singing Everybody and Backstreet’s Back, followed by Jay James in black tux performing an atmospheric Skyfall.

Stevi’s karaoke-standard Footloose still managed to draw the greatest cheers – which all goes to prove this show is all about entertainment and not always talent.

Series winner Ben Haenow proved just why he took top honours as he finally appeared to perform a headlining sixsong set. His number one hit single You Got Something I Need had the family audience up on their feet singing and dancing.

The show’s finale with all the finalist singing Never Forget ended the evening on a high.

For anyone who missed it the acts will all be back at the BIC tonight to do it all again.