Strictly Come Dancing The Live Tour – Disjointed Thoughts

I came, I saw, I ate a very dry hot-dog.

• This is not to cast aspersions on this particular warm-up man. I’m sure he was fine. He seemed charming enough in an ITV Lunchtime News kind of way but… is anyone warmed up for anything by the threat of having a camera waved in their face and being told to dance under the threat of being singled out on Jumboscreen and made fun of? Because nothing will make me want to sit down, shut up, and hide behind my seat faster than that.
• Whoever was sorting out the pre-show music clearly just went into their iTunes library and went “ctrl+f dance”. I can’t deny that I’ve done the same thing for parties so… kudos to them, my kindred spirit.
• Speaking of the music, the band are MUCH better live, after they’ve had time to learn the songs properly. Nobody once sounded like they were passing a kidney stone. Although whoever was sorting out the mic levels can expect to receive a visit from the police after what happened to me during Goldeneye. I felt VIOLATED BY NOISE.
• It’s only when you’re sat amongst people who didn’t know that Ali & Brian were dating, who were convinced that Rachel Stevens won series 6 (IF.ONLY AM I RITE?!) and also that Kelly Brook had to leave series 5 because her dad was arrested, that you realise just what a ridiculous level of attention you give this show.
• Regarding Kelly Brook, I’m so glad that she hasn’t lost her capacity to be wonderfully, incredibly, beautifully annoying. Her intro VT contains the line “I can’t help wondering that if I’d stayed in if I would have made the final” and you can HEAR the audience go “NO!” in unison so loud it fair makes you twinge. She giggled through her entire scoring section after completely messing up her jive (quite disappointingly for me, because I heart Kellys jive) to the extent that Kate Thornton actually said “Just shut up and take it Kelly, I would”. So many times Kelly has received that advice throughout her career.
• Oh yeah, Kate Thornton. Better than Tess Daly, probably better than Bruce, is looking kind of terrifying.
• Kelly Brook’s American Smooth was almost as amazing as it was in the main series (FUN FACT: my favourite American Smooth ever) but I don’t care, it’s that extra illegal lift that made it magic. Matt’s FAR too nice for her.
• The Ali & Brian romance shit is officially out of control. It is destroying Tokyo. It is causing red lights in bunkers across Nevada to flash red and wail like Jan Ravens when she was eliminated (Just imagine that instead of your fire alarm at work. Instead of “WAH WAH WAH WAH!”, “I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY CRAIG, I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY CRAIG, I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY CRAIG!”. It’d be far more fun. And you’d get your ass out of the building a HELL of a lot faster). I kind of simultaneously both hope that they’re happy together forever and also that they break up in Glasgow and have to play out the whole “IF WE GET 4 TENS WE’LL GET MARRIED!” stuff even then, through angry gritted teeth. And then get back together obviously, don’t cuss me out, crazy Alian fans.
• Oh yeah, there’s an awful lot of obviously scripted fakey stuff. Including one “slip” from Ricky Groves that probably made Jennifer Garner (Undisputed Queen of Comedy Cutesy Rom-Com Pratfalls) get gooseflesh. I do kind of hope “just shut up and take it Kelly” was spontaneous though. Some things you hope are real. Some people this approach benefits – Craig is a lot more lucid on script. And some people it does not – ARLENE somehow manages to sound even more stilted and awkward when she’s reading off cards then she does when she’s coming up with her own brainfarts
• The entire show is wedged up Arlene incidentally. They milk her for the biggest applause, and say “ISN’T IT GREAT TO HAVE EVERYONE BACK TOGETHER?!” about 17 times. Needless to say she offers nothing except tired old “tragic randy menopausal old Arlene” jokes and  she only alliterates once. Boo.
• Ali’s Viennese Waltz is really lovely in the large venue. I’m still sad that her samba came last chronologically in the main series, and therefore the show has to pretend it was her best Latin dance, and therefore she has to do it on tour. I would rather her salsa. Or cha cha. Or… heck just run through all her Latin dances. All of those. Her jive and paso would have been better if they hadn’t gone wrong for one reason or another.
• Ricky Groves deserved slightly better than the Chris Parker/Julian Clary role he has been given. He got a 2. And it’s not as though overmarking wasn’t generally in abundance. I mean, he’s not good, but if you want a comedy shit contestant, book one.
• Aliona Vilani could not be less interested if she was at a lecture on thermodynamics.
• Natalie Cassidy is from London. She may have mentioned this about 70 times.
• Darren Bennett put in an awfully good case for BENNETT DOMINATION 2010, working it like the gayest straight man alive that he totally is throughout the evening. Of all the new partnerships on the evening, I thought Darren and Natalie were the only ones who had even remotely similar levels of chemistry to the original pairing
• This may be because THE PROS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SPEAK AT ANY POINT. The only one I remember talking at all is James. Brian doesn’t count, because none of his words came from his actual brain.
• Zoe officially has the worst dance draw EVER. Waltz and rumba? The only worse draw in the deck is waltz and samba in terms of pulling public support. Having said that, she did her best and she obviously benefits from not having been DRIVEN TO MADNESS AND INCOMPETENCE by her Bottom Two appearances as she was in the main series. Also if she’d stayed in? She would have owned the Charleston.
• That’s right, everybody Charlestons. It’s one of 3 group routines throughout the evening along with a gaymazing Quickstep and… I want to say a cha cha. I think it was Latiny though. (It was a jive…)
• Zoe’s rumba prompts an absolute torrent of filth from Bruno. In fact the whole show is very “Late Night Hollyoaks”. There’s talk of gay go-go dancers, Len shitting on Craig’s forehead, Craig’s penis and Arlene’s ever moist va-jay-jay. It’s like grown-ups time at Disneyland, and Donald Duck’s getting SAUCY.
• There are about 17 too many gay jokes. There just are. I know the audience you’re aiming at is what it is- Middle England (seriously, I live and walk around in multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, youthful, impressed with itself London all the time, so the contrast of going into a room that looks like the WI branch of the KKK is particularly noticable) but… too many. Uncomfortable. I mean I’M saying this, this is how many too many gay jokes there are.
• I feel like going back and watching Austin’s tango again, because it was so the best dance of the night and I didn’t particularly like it the first time round. I’d forgotten quite how good Lilia is at tango.
• This being the best dance of the night made me feel a lot better about voting for BENNETT DOMINATION 2010 and AUSTIN WUZ ROBBED (when his pre-dance VT said “some experts believe Austin deserved to win” I was all DAMN STRAIGHT WE “EXPERTS” DID!) to win, despite the fact that he went arse over tit in the jive and completely didn’t deserve it.
• Chris is totally charming and lovable and I actually understand why people loved his Charleston more after seeing him perform it live but I swear, I literally could not have been further away from the stage and I could see the problem with his hands from there.
• Ola is a particular victim of the pros being weirdly gagged for some reason. Apparently they’ve not even Top 2′d thus far and if she was allowed to say even one line I’m sure they’d have managed it at some point.
• I think Mark got slightly hosed with being forced into doing the Argentine Tango again. An Argentine Tango is emphatically not the sort of dance you don’t want to be doing in a massive great arena without some very sympathetic lighting and this… did not get very sympathetic lighting.
• Having said that, I did love the lighting. I am officially a fan of irrelevant shit being projected onto the dance-floor (see my near death experience of joy when Dancing On Ice projected a GIANT SPOOKY HOUSE onto the rink for Aggy’s routine to “Total Eclipse Of The Heart”) and so the constant shining of giant plants, stars, and possibly rainbows and unicorns for every time Ali & Brian danced, I can’t remember, was very very pleasing.
• Mark’s salsa is amazing and totally justifies him winning, which he did when I went. Ali was second. I’m sure Kelly Brook will get her day in the sun somewhere (A HA HA HA HA!)
• Obviously my favourite thing about the tour was Ian being epic and Natalie Lowe slowly worming her way into everyone’s hearts one person at a time, by being brilliant and crazy. Their showdance is the stuff of legends, even if it kind of looks like she’s taking a slow-motion glittery poo through (some of these dresses are WEIRD. I wouldn’t recommend looking directly at Kelly Brook during her American Smooth if you’re epileptic)
• In suummary : I liked, would recommend, but I would say that you should get to watch as early in the run as possible. Things were feeling a little frayed when I saw it – by the end I would imagine it’s going to be like New Year’s Eve Island from The Simpsons. Every day is THE HAPPIEST DAY OF THE YEAR and everyone involved WANTS TO END THEIR OWN LIFE! HAPPYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!