The X Factor returns tonight with beat-boxing, boy bands and Brazilian dancing

A beat-boxing duo, a boy band, a Brazilian dancer and a teenage pub singer will put their skills to the ultimate test tonight as the X Factor returns with its first auditions of the year.

The ITV singing contest will officially kick off its search for Britain’s best musical performers on Saturday with a tour of some of the UK’s biggest cities.

Among the first round of hopefuls is all-male foursome Rak-su presenting their own track I’m Feeling You – including rapping, singing and dancing – while 27-year-old plasterer and father Sam Black takes things back to the 1960s with his rendition of Runaround Sue.

While the audition bill is peppered with Ed Sheeran covers, Oxford graduates Jack and Joel stand out with their medley of Divide’s best tracks, remixed with acoustic guitar and human beat-boxing.

This weekend’s opening programme will also show some key moments for members of the judging panel, which once again includes Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne, Nicole Scherzinger and Louis Walsh, as well as presenter Dermot O’Leary.

Music mogul Cowell finds himself transfixed when Elisangela Mahogany – who many waiting contestants cannot help comparing to his former partner Sinitta – takes over the room with her scantily-clad Brazilian moves.

Meanwhile, Osbourne has an important message for Liverpool mother Kayleigh Taylor, who cracks jokes about her own dress size.

After a stunning performance of Evanescence’s My Immortal, Osbourne tells the emotional 27-year-old: “Stop all the crap about the weight, it doesn’t matter, it’s who you are, if you want to be, and if you are comfortable then show it”.

At the younger end of the scale, 15-year-old Holly Tandy tells how she was inspired by her former musician grandfather to take the next step in her pub-performing career, wowing the show as she takes on Alicia Keys’ If I Ain’t Got You.

Grace Davies, on the other hand, presents the judges with her very own song, Roots, performing it for an audience for the very first time.

The 20-year-old warehouse assistant from Blackburn receives glowing praise from Cowell, who describes it as a “beautiful, beautiful song”.

The X Factor returns to ITV at 8pm on Saturday.