Strictly Come Dancing

I have absolutely no doubt that Anton comes up with this stuff under instruction from the production team who have clearly decided to take the piss out of susannah from day 1.

I do appreciate that these shows are cast, and that people are put into certain pre-determined roles. I really hope that it’s done with the celebs agreement and understanding of what will be involved. But even so, and despite what motivates people to agree to it (the money, presumably) the blatancy of it last night was staggering. You can bet your life that the ever so PC BBC would not put Lauren Steadman or Katie Piper in a position where they got ridiculed by judges or audience. 

I remember when Celeb Fame Academy was on years ago and comedian Jenny Exclair was on it. She said afterwards that the whole thing had a culture of low level but constant bullying by the production team to get people to do things they really weren’t comfortable with. “Of course it’s for comic relief so you’ll be ok with putting a pair of knickers over your head to perform this...right?” kind of thing. I suspect it might be the same here. “Oh but it’s Strictly... you don’t want to disappoint anyone do you?”. I don’t like it 😑.

Interesting first week. Very solid without anyone really standing out.

Danny danced well but seemed a bit subdued. Maybe more of his personality will come out later.

Kate was a riot, her husband looked petrified at the end, and should be a fun addition.

Lauren and AJ were decent particularly given the minimal training time they had.

Seann wasn't great and I don't think laughing at his 3 will endear him. Think Katya has her work cut out for her to match the last two years.

Vick was awful and Graziano needs to pull it back a bit. Given how low profile she is she could be in trouble.

Susannah was as terrible as expected, Anton looks like he wants out already and just threw in all the gimmicks to get through it. That said she should have ballroom next week which is surely preferable for her in a dance off week. We'll see if he makes an effort there. Oh and yes Ann Widdecombe did get 1's from Craig.

Charles is a little over confident and as suspected wasted on Karen.

Ashley was as good as I thought so she'll last a fair while.

Ranj was one of the bigger surprises so we should get a great salsa from him. With Jeanette's limitations that's probably it though.

Katie is the years oh the nerves contestant. Gorka worked wonders with Anastasia in his one week with her so hopefully can help her through it.

Graeme & Oti seem like a great partnership and he was better than expected. Hopefully they'll be around for a while.

Stacey and Kevin are uber annoying and she's not the first person to do the Quickstep as first dance. Hopefully gone soon.

Lee was nothing special in a dull waltz.

Joe was a surprise, think he might struggle in the ballroom though.

Faye seemed nice and danced well. Another trip to the final for Gio I suspect.

Hopefully the pre dance interviews won't last. Interviewing isn't Tess's strong point so giving her more to do is somewhere perverse.

Decent! he had a little slip but the judges chose not to mark down because it was on a stray bit of glitter or something that wasn't cleaned up. He did a nice solid week one ballroom and continues to seem like a nice chap. So not standout, but also not awful. I think he could be safe enough to have time to grow into something good if his Latin is ok. 


Oh and apologies I called Lauren Laura above. My bad! 

I always wonder who has the say over theme of the dance - is it the pro, Jason Gilkison the director of choreography or the show's production team? My feeling is it is the show's production team as Jason seems to be more there to oversee the group numbers and as a former top dancer himself he'd probably not go with some of the cheesier ideas. For someone behind a lot of the show's content he seems to keep a low profile - the first time I ever saw a photo of him was when he married his partner and some of the pros were at the wedding.

I recorded the show so am watching it back in bits as you can end naturally after any dance.

We have seen that older women are not necessarily duds so they could have tried a bit harder to get Susannah off to a better start.

iplayer is the best way to watch - you can just fast forward though the dreadful VTs and chatting. Focus on the dance and the comments.

Would be a much better show without the faff and Tess's inability to SHUT THE F UP!

Other than that though - a great opening episode. Enjoyed Dr Ranj and Kate the most. Shirley is such a great judge - excellent rapport with Bruno and not afraid to really pick the contestants up when they make mistakes. Watched back her comment about Sean's hair. Fair enough when he was doing a tango, head movement v important in that dance with quick rotations etc and his thick hair waving around made it hard for her judge. Like she said, keep it down for the latin.

Also watched back Susannah's dance thinking it wasn't as bad as a 1, but actually, there is zero technique - all she's doing is literally walking and stepping so clunkily. Then again, no worse than Ed Balls' worst and even he rarely got a 2.

Joe's online social media presence is clear to see. On Strictly's Youtube channel most of the dances from Saturday night have hit somewhere around 30 to 50,000 views. As of this moment Joe is sitting on 531,000 views. It's a good job he can dance!

It's all about Dr Ranj! Not only is he a nifty mover, he's as cute and funny as a bag of puppies AND he's been working the night shifts at the hospital this week. Oh and he helped a mother deliver her baby the morning of the Saturday show too.

Ooo how interesting I didn’t know about his social media following.

Now up at 809,000 views! Now bare in mind that the Strictly Youtube channel only has 123,000 subscribers so there's hundreds of thousands of people specifically seeking out Joe's video. If he can encourage all of his followers to vote for free online then he pretty much has this in the bag.