Did Britain's Got Talent comedian rip off Peter Kay?

Not really, no...

comedy Peter Kay has previously been on the receiving end of complaints that he stole material from the likes of Hovis Presley.

But the tables seemed to turn last night when Britain's Got Talent viewers took to social media to complaint that one of the acts had ripped off the Car Share star.

Ben Langley performed a routine in which he held up cards with the misheard lyrics of popular songs such as Abba's Dancing Queen, when he suggested the line 'only seventeen' was 'only seven teeth'.

All four judges stood up to applaud him, with David Walliams saying his act was 'perfect for the Royal Variety Show'.

But many viewers complained that it was too similar to Kay's routine from his Tour That Didn't Tour Tour in 2010 – though in fact he has been doing it since the very start of his career.

In comments seized on by the media, fans tweeted the likes of: 'Guy on Britain's Got Talent stolen Peter Kay's whole encore' and #BGT pretty sure I've seen Peter Kay do that first...and it was 100 times funnier #notoriginal'

However the tweeters, and the journalists following up the allegations, appear to have short memories.

For Kay cannot lay claim to originating misheard lyrics, which even have name, 'mondegreens', which dates fro 1954 when American writer Sylviaa Wright confessed she had misheard the lyric '...and laid him on the green' in a Scottish ballad as '..and Lady Mondegreen'.

And the device has been used in several films and TV shows, including 1971 movie Carnal Knowledge, and a series of adverts for Maxell cassette tapes in the late 1980s, which featured the same cards device used by Langley.