The mobile-phone salesman who triumphed in the Britain’s Got Talent series with his version of Nessun Dorma is poised for a new career as the “people’s Pavarotti”.

Paul Potts, 36, won the £100,000 prize and a place on the bill of the Royal Variety Performance after impressing the judges and 12 million viewers of the ITV1 show. Now the former Tesco shelf-stacker from Port Talbot, South Wales, is set to fulfil his dream of being an opera star. Potts begins recording his debut album this week and has received a string of concert offers. He is lining up a duet with Katherine Jenkins, the Welsh singer.

Potts spent £12,000 on singing lessons before deciding that his dream was not meant to be. He began stacking shelves in Tesco but had to quit work because of ill-health. Doctors treated him for appendicitis and removed a benign tumour, then Potts broke his collarbone. He landed a job at Carphone Warehouse after battling back to health, and married a woman he met on the internet.

The overnight sensation said that he was not certain that he would give up his job. He was planning to pay off his £30,000 debts and would treat himself to dental work. “I’m not sure about veneers but I do want to get the crown repaired,” he said. “It would be nice to be able to smile naturally.”

Potts spent £4,000 on master classes with the likes of Pavarotti but has not had any tuition for four years. He recalled: “Pavarotti took me aside and asked me to sing again. There were ten other people there and I was the only one he asked, so I took that as a compliment.” Potts ran out of breath on one note. Pavarotti told him he should not have and asked him to try singing a classic from the opera Tosca instead.

Potts added: “I wasn’t truly aware of the effect my voice can have on others so the reaction has been a surprise, it’s just incredible.

“I did suffer bullying when I was going to school, so having confidence in myself has been a bit of a struggle. So to go in front of some of the most feared judges on this planet was taking a considerable risk and I’m just glad that people in this country believed in me enough to make that risk pay off.”

Simon Cowell, the television judge who created the “cross-over” operatic quartet Il Divo, will guide Potts’s career.

The series, which ran nightly across ITV1, became a ratings juggernaut, marking Michael Grade’s first big success since becoming the network’s chief.

A swift return is expected for the show, whose variety wanna-bes included performing dogs and pigs.

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