Susan Boyle's triumph on Britain's Got Talent has led Elaine Paige to suggest a collaborationMore on Susan Boyle and Britain's Got Talent

As global media phenomena go, little could surpass Susan Boyle's stratospheric rise to superstardom. So, what better high note to end an extraordinary week, one that has seen the 47-year-old Scottish singing spinster win plaudits from around the world, than the prospect of a duet with her heroine, Elaine Paige?

It was just before her life-changing performance on Britain's Got Talent last Saturday that Boyle revealed her dream: to become a professional singer as successful as Paige - with whom she has sung along countless times, alone, in front of her bedroom mirror, equipped with a hairbrush for a microphone.

Now, in a message of support, Paige, the original Evita in London's West End, has punted the idea of the pair singing together. "Ever since Susan's appearance on Britain's Got Talent my Radio 2 inbox has been flooded with emails," she writes on her website.

"It seems her performance has captured the hearts of everyone who saw it, me included ... it looks like I have competition! Perhaps we should record a duet?"

But then anything, it seems, could happen now in the incredible brave new world Boyle inhabits. As Paige puts it: "She is a role model for everyone who has a dream."

Paige is just the latest of a string of celebrity endorsers since Boyle's jaw-dropping performance of the Les Misérables song "I Dreamed a Dream" on the ITV talent show, which has so far attracted 25 million YouTube hits, and helped her do what few British A-listers can: crack the US market.

Appearances on Larry King Live, Good Morning America, NBC and CBS, and the prospect of Oprah, have fuelled demand for an album, something of which Britain's Got Talent supremo Simon Cowell and his record label are no doubt aware. Actress Demi Moore - "It made me teary," she tweeted on Twitter - and singer Patti LuPone are among celebrity fans.

With Ladbrokes' odds of Boyle winning the series slashed to 2/5, last night's wannabes on the show must be pretty deflated, though 39-year-old Julian Smith, a saxophonist from Birmingham, may yet challenge. His "Somewhere" from West Side Story reduced judge Amanda Holden to tears. "It was stunning, absolutely stunning," she said. Cowell, too, could see potential. "Certain people, Julian, you know, they've just got it. I think there could be something special about you."

Clearly there was not much special about all-female threesome the Singing Souls. "Like three cats being dragged up the motorway," pronounced Cowell.

Almost 12 million viewers tuned in to watch Boyle on last week's show. However, while Boyle-mania grips the world the lady herself appears unfazed by the excitement.

"I'm taking it all in my stride," she said yesterday at the pebble-dashed terraced house in Blackburn, West Lothian, in which she grew up, sharing it with her late mother Bridget, who died two years ago. The youngest of nine and with mild learning difficulties caused by oxygen deprivation at birth, Boyle never left home.

Now living alone, with only her cat Pebbles for company, she was spurred to enter the competition by a pledge she made to her mother to do something with her life. "It's all been complete mayhem, like a whirlwind going like an express train," she said. "I never expected all this attention. It's been indescribable and completely mad."

"But," she admitted, "I could get used to it."

Despite the avalanche of tempting showbusiness offers, she is reluctant to discuss possible plans for future public appearances or recording contracts. "It's too early for things like that. I'm just taking baby steps until I see how I do in the competition."

Today the unruly hair, bushy eyebrows and spinster image that for so long attracted cruel teasing, especially from young children, are set to be the passport to her undoubted future success. "Why should I change?" she told Larry King on his US chat show, when asked about her image.

But she does expect life to be very, very different. "Well, I certainly won't be lonely any more," said the church volunteer, who has admitted she has never been kissed.

Her first "date", it would appear, will be with Talent judge Piers Morgan, who, appearing on the same Larry King show, promptly invited her out for dinner in London, an offer she accepted.

"People used to shout things at her in the street, but they have all changed their tune now," said neighbour Vicky McLean, 24. "I ran into her the other day on the way to the shops and she said she knew who her real friends were - the people who liked her before the show. She knows that a lot of the people calling round now are not being genuine."

School friend Derek Brown, 47, said there was more, much more, to come.

"I wouldn't say the one she did on the telly was her best song, you should hear her belt out 'The Fields of Athenry' or that song from Titanic ['My Heart Will Go On']," he said.