Major blow for Simon Cowell’s Netflix show after 40 lads turn up to audition

SIMON Cowell’s bid to create the next One Direction looked like a flop when just a trickle of pop wannabes turned up to auditions.

The music mogul’s search for a new boyband — set to feature in a Netflix show The Midas Touch — began in Liverpool on Saturday and continued yesterday.

Only a handful of lads turned up but organisers had clearly expected huge queues at the Albert Dock venue — with long rows of railings outside just as in the heyday of The X Factor.

One observer said: “They started arriving slowly from about 9am on Saturday but the biggest number in the queue never amounted to more than about 40.

“By early afternoon, the number arriving had virtually dried up and it was the same story on the Sunday audition.

“The amount of railings they put up suggested they were expecting hundreds or thousands of people to arrive and pack out the queues but they had a fraction of those kinds of numbers.”

Simon, 64, had announced the search would start on Thursday in Newcastle.

But we revealed last week that the two dates there had been cancelled, with organisers saying it was due to the “travel schedule”.

Two more audition days are scheduled in Dublin later this month and three in London at the start of August.