Strictly Come Dancing 17 – It Takes Two Week 6

*small, forlorn voice* strictly klaxon 😦

Monday

Catherine & Johannes : I worried we might be in for another Dev & Dianne discussion of despair with these two, but I hadn’t factored in that the two of them are so inherently showbiz that they would of course be very “the show must go on, darling” about their exit interview. Catherine breezily announced that making it to Halloween had been her goal from the very beginning (“I said from day one that was my goal, and we got there – I mean, we left fairly swiftly afterwards but we got there”), and I’m always slightly suspicious of anyone whose goal is anything earlier than Blackpool, with the honourable exception of Jonnie Peacock who made it very clear that his goal was just to get to be a pirate for Movie Week and proved it by not really caring about everything after that. That said, she did also say that she’d kind of hoped she had enough in the tank to last a few weeks beyond Halloween, so fair enough. It was actually quite a brisk segment because before we knew it we were racing through their best bits and then the two of them were

dabbing tissues under their eyes and declaring their undying devotion to each other. (A personal highlight was Catherine’s “I feel like I’ve gone through a divorce and I’ve got custody of JoJo.”) All I’m saying is that the next time Beyoncé tours in this country, I’d better get a zillion Insta stories of these two in the front row, getting their absolute lives to Crazy In Love or this entire series will have been a complete waste of all our time.

Pasha’s Phoreography Porner : I feel like this might be the apex of two of this blog’s most beloved running gags, as the determination to alliterate the name of everyone who does Choreography Corner and [PUNCHLINE REDACTED] were both building to the day when Pasha would be sitting in for this and we’d have to call it a “Porner”. Heh. Anyway, the good news is that Pasha is

looking well and enjoying life with Rachel and their impending babby, but the bad news is that Pasha’s still his usual angelic self and as such wasn’t really here to go in on anyone like Erin did last week. Basically he thought everyone was great for various reasons, and any criticism (Mike’s tango “wasn’t [his] favourite”, Chris’s samba needed more bounce, the Viscountess’s charleston could have done with more oomph, there goes your lifetime free family pass to Longleat Pash-Pash, sorry) was always tempered within the context of how hard they’re all working, how brilliantly they’ve all done to get this far, what a fantastic job all the pros and choreographers are doing. Basically the only bit where he even came close to going off-message was to entirely disagree with the judges on Karim’s paso and say that even though the costumes and styling were a bit distracting it was still clearly a paso, and a great paso at that, so there – and even that’s the nerdiest kind of rebellion, god love him. But while his critiques might not have been life-changing, we did get him

as Rylan’s personal flamenco hands cheerleader, and even one last bit of Pasha Kovalev improv comedy. Never change, Pasha. And if you are going to change, can we w[PUNCHLINE REDACTED].

ONE LAST STRICTLY KLAXON :

In the words of Rylan: “it’s slightly annoying but I’m gonna miss it.” Indeed.

The Children In Need Reveal : So this year it’s an EastEnders charity special, and those taking part are Maisie Smith (Tiffany), who’ll be dancing with Kevin; Ricky Champ (Stuart), who’s going to be dancing with Luba; Rudolph Walker (Patrick), who at the age of 80 will be the show’s oldest ever contestant [edit: no he won’t, of course, June Brown was 83 and Steve apologises for not fact-checking this especially since this show proved it can’t be trusted after “Anton’s never opened the show before”-gate this weekend] and will also be Nancy’s first-ever partner on the show. And, making the playing field a little less even, they’ll be up against series four quarter-finalist and 2008 Eurovision Dance Contest 9th place finisher Louisa Lytton (Ruby), who’ll be dancing with Gorka. Presumably this has come at the request of Gemma Atkinson, who just wanted him to stop spending every Saturday furiously retweeting everyone who thought he should have a partner this year or at the very least SHOULD BE STEPPING IN TO REPLACE THE INJURED ONES *KEVIN*, because she’s ded tired and could do with him taking the baby for a bit because it’s just been sick in her hair, ooops what’ma like?

Saffron & AJ : I mean I’m not saying that the show is tapping its storyline well for Saffron and finding it alarmingly dry, but even Rylan opened the interview by saying he was getting a bit bored of congratulating her every week on a job competently done. Not as bored as I was by Saffron’s sixth iteration of her “I was so nervous but I really enjoyed it but I wasn’t expecting to get such a great reaction” speech in response.

Even her name chyron screamed “will this do?” Actually, I felt a glimmer of sympathy for Saffron because in any other week she’d have been a prime candidate for an injury porn VT after sustaining whiplash and ending up with splinters in her bum (…..) from last week’s training, but obviously in light of Will and Neil both maiming themselves so severely that they had to pull out of Saturday’s show entirely, her boo-boos didn’t quite clear the bar for inclusion at the time. This week they’ll be doing a salsa to ‘Instruction’ by Jax Jones featuring Demi Lovato and Stefflon Don, and I am torn about this because it is unquestionably a grade-A banger, but it also seems like a prime candidate for the band to absolutely slaughter in the delivery. Saffron and AJ have not had much time to rehearse so far but apparently it’s going to be a lift-a-palooza that culminates in Saffron cartwheeling over AJ’s neck, so let’s hope she’s really precise about that otherwise we’ll be getting another “call an ambulance” VT this coming Saturday.

Tuesday

Tunes On Tuesday : A journey through the decades today, starting with Motown and ending up with the cutting edge modern pop of

…Noel Edmonds and Richard Branson? Oh no wait, this is Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber and their hit song “I Don’t Care”, which I’ve never heard of, oops I’m old again. Emma Weymouth will be dancing the samba to it so…GOOD LUCK! The Motown classic alluded to earlier is “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, which is providing the soundtrack to Alex and Neil’s American Smooth. The Marvin and Tammi version, not the Diana Ross version, they’re not going to spend three minutes walking about wondering when someone’s going to start singing. In between, repping for the 80s? “Another One Bites The Dust”, which is a (*checks notes*), paso doble apparently, today, and has been gifted to Michelle.

Chris & Karen : Moving scenes tonight, as Chris admitted that he suffers from a genetic disorder that affects his posture, his gait, and his whole range of motion, in a negative way, leaving him hunched over and spinally warped. That’s right, he’s Northern. Apparently Northerners being quiet and humble and unassuming people (*WILD bout of coughing, just WILD, I’m just coughing everywhere, all over, coughing*) they crouch up into themselves in public, and so it affects their ability to samba. That’s what it was, that was his excuse. We also got an explanation tonight for what went wrong with Karen’s wig – it got snagged on Chris’ tights and it jimmied it loose. So there we are, nothing to do with Lisa Lisa, stop sending them DEATH THREATS on twitter, Chris stans. Karen’s internal wig war apparently also meant she was out of position for Chris’s samba KILLER MOVE, but instead of trying to execute it and risk kicking her in the face, Chris just did an extra spin, what a pro. We also checked in with how Chris’ wife and child are doing in his absence and

this is more Stranger Things nonsense apparently, I don’t know. This week Chris and Karen will be dancing Street to “Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble” and at this point even Lisa Riley is looking at the dance card that’s been carved out for Chris and saying “enough side by side now, enough funnity fun, come on!”. Apparently “Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble” is the first song Chris ever danced to and a NORTH EAST ANTHEM! Do we feel like someone’s suddenly found a unique card to play to get him to Blackpool now that Auntie Cath has left, I do. NORTH!

THE DANCEMASTER A lovely

floral print from THE DANCEMASTER today, and also, potentially, a chink in Rylan’s armour, as…well let’s just say that Viennese Waltz wasn’t his dance. I think we’ve found the rare TALL LATIN BOY everyone. Although at points it did seem like THE DANCEMASTER

was trying to drive Rylan into the sharper edges surrounding the set, so he was probably just being cautious as he clattered around on the wrong foot. We covered natural turns, reverse turns, and the Killer Move – THE FLECKERL. Which is apparently German for “on the spot”. And those are all the moves in the Viennese Waltz! They left Rylan sweaty and dizzy, so more ballroom for Rylan in future please. (Also is Zoe ever going to get to meet the DANCEMASTER at any point, I don’t want her to feel left out)

Behind The Seams : Look, I could talk about Anton going full diva and demanding alterations of his King Of Clubs outfits because it was SPOILING THE SHARPNESS OF HIS LINES, but we all know what we’re watching this segment for


HARDCORE NUDITY! INCLUDING THE PHYSIQUE! Aljaz looks so jealous.

Mike & Katya : It’s interesting to see the comedy slowly draining out of these two as they settle into their new roles as dance-off foilers keeping themselves in by the skin of their teeth and the barest edge of technical superiority over the other bottom dwellers in the competition. No “I love how you just ignore the technique and go crazy” from Rylan here, Mike and Katya are polishing their footwork, working on their posture, and coming for your favos, NOBODY’S SAFE! Katya isn’t just screaming instructions at Mike throughout the dance any old how now, she’s got a full script, which she learns in advance, including a mid-dance “GOOD BOY!” to give Mike extra energy to perform (yeah, there’s still something not quite wholesome here, I can’t help it, it’s very odd). This week they’ve got the Charleston to “Those Marvellous Men In Their Flying Machines” and Katya is glad that she’s finally got the change to show off Mike’s goofy personality. Yes, it’s been a wasteland hasn’t it.

Wednesday

Will & Janette : Sad news right off the bat here, as Will turned up in a leg brace and revealed that yes, the rumours are true, he is unable to continue in this year’s competition, as the doctors won’t clear him to dance this weekend, as much as he’d like to. Obviously the first, and most important consideration, is that Will not jeopardise his livelihood in sport and long term physical wellbeing for the sake of a gameshow. Secondly, and barely less important, can they please play Weekend In New England in full on the Saturday show anyway, have Gorka and Nancy do a waltz to it, why not? Whatever you do, don’t TEASE ME with Weekend In New England and then not deliver show, it’s rude. Anyway, back to Will. He was a bit sad that he didn’t have a proper ending to his Strictly journey, with an official elimination in a 3-1 split dance-off decision against Emma Barton (or however it would have finished), but he’s glad that his contemporary was his last dance, because it was his favourite dance and also his best one in terms of scores. ALSO I notice that the Strictly Story has been moved to the end of these segments just in time for the contestants they can proper try to BREAK with them, I see you It Takes Two. Janette disclosed that dances like the contemporary with Will are why she became a dancer in the first place and well yes, we’d noticed it was any of the ballroom stuff but that’s sweet anyway. Lots of crying here, lots of tissues, lots of me wondering when it’s appropriate to celebrate that I’m going to get one of my beloved three person finals, obviously not RIGHT this second obviously. Best wishes to Will, would have at least made Musicals Week if we’d had my way, but here we are.

Waite’s Wednesday Warm-Up : A very perky Warm Up tonight after Will’s sad departure, with pretty much everyone getting positive reviews and both Chris and Michelle looking on course for their best dances yet according to Ian. Even Mike has lovely synchronisation and hatography in his Charleston. To be fair, Ian seemed more into gossip about who Alex will potentially be dancing with this weekend rather than critiquing her American Smooth rehearsal footage, but she’s looking fine as well! And whilst Saffron is looking sloppy as hell in her salsa, Ian is sure she’ll polish things up nicely for Saturday Night, she always does. Why was Ian so perky I hear you ask? Well because it’s that week of the year when he gets to wear a silly costume for the Hallowe’en Thursday Thaw Down.

I’m amazed they put a non-drag option in there, what’s the point?

Craig’s Creepy Caves : God but this was beautiful low-grade filler. In the past week someone decided that Kevin just talking about dances to camera in a cupboard with barely any make-up on wasn’t enough, so they added three key ingredients – piss easy trivia questions, Luba, and a shit fun park haunted house.





And magic was born. I could honestly watch Luba act like a Grade A wimp around a bunch of out of work actors rolling around on the floor pretending to be zombies all day. Kevin was at least hanging back in shot to provide us with some decent “I’M SCARED” acting as they rolled their tongues round their chins, Luba was absolutely hooning through every set-up, repeatedly almost headbutting the camera like an out of control Muppet and giving them more or less no decent footage of her. Truly she was taken from us too soon. (All the dances were from the last few series and were uniformly terrible hooray, like, Ed Balls’ cha cha was the only one I remember fondly, that’s how much the barrel was being scraped here SHOW ALISON HAMMOND’S AMERICAN SMOOTH AGAIN YOU COWARDS)

Michelle & Giovanni : All sorts of records reeled out for these two here – best dance of the series so far, Michelle’s best dance so far, the best ever week 6 foxtrot done in a black wig from eighth on the bill (or something like that, who cares honestly) but Michelle isn’t allowed to celebrate any of them by Giovanni, because as soon as Saturday’s over that’s that dance done over and forgotten with forever (/until they have to do it again in the final) and they have to move forwards on fresh to new horizons. Giovanni’s not going to find himself buried half-deep in Craig’s Creepy Cave, no sir, not again, no nostalgia for him. Although he did allow himself a moment of satisfaction for having provoked people to stand up halfway through the dance so they could applaud Michelle’s standing spin. Not like the way Katya and Mike had the audience standing up halfway through their samba, as people collectively headed to the box office to try to obtain a refund. Still, we should have seen it all coming, as apparently Giovanni is always a top on Hallowe’en. Good to know. This week they will be dancing a paso doble to “Another One Bites The Dust” by Queen, which according to Michelle is an “LGBTQIA+” anthem and no it isn’t Michelle. Maybe the A. BUT THAT’S IT!

Thursday

Waite’s Thursday Thaw-Down First of all

yes, Maleficent won, even though Harley Quinn would have been far more hilarious, don’t look at me, I didn’t vote for it. The sliding scale today started with Karim at the top on a perfect run in his quickstep, then Kelvin on a perfect run in his Viennese Waltz but Ian totally saw some footage earlier where he wasn’t doing it right but his dog ate it or something or nothing, then Emma Barton with her lovely long legs…not really using them properly, and then last Emma Weymouth, who looked a right old state, but Ian of course said she looked lively and lovely because he didn’t want to get met with

one of these. Maleficent’s witchy powers ain’t got NOTHING on that Medusa gaze. Michelle got the gold star of the week, if that’s something you care about, I can’t imagine it is.

Emma & Aljaz : A sign of a slight flaw in the whole “two hosts” formula here, as tonight was apparently the first time Zoe has met The Viscountess. Halfway through the series. Not really conducive to the whole “ONE BIG IT TAKES TWO FAMILY” vibe, but he we are, Emma just wanted her mate to interview her the first five times as a run-in, I get it. Also I love how much the nonsense with Aljaz’s nameplate now takes up a good 50% of all of his time on It Takes Two. This time it was a “Trick Or Treat?” that warranted Ian having to sprint in from off-set bringing in a lollipop for him. I always knew we’d see Aljaz licking someone’s Twizzler on this show sooner or later though it had to be said. Anyway, Aljaz put up a spirited defence of Emma’s Charleston in the face of Craig’s FOUL and INSENSITIVE critique, and Emma rattled on about some pirate party that her son had had for his fifth birthday. They ate chocolate coins, they drank non-alcoholic kiddy tropical fruit punch, they played Pin The Tail On The Parrot, they bought and pillaged the Caribbean island nation of St Lucia…FUN TIMES! This week they have the samba, to “I Don’t Care”, by Ed Sheeran, which Aljaz is a big fan of even if nobody else is. Everyone did their best to pretend it isn’t going to be a big old sloppy mess, and well done to them for trying. (Also both Zoe and two whole other people on twitter tried to front to me that they thought that Aljaz looked like Phillip Schofield on Saturday Night and I am NOT HAVING IT, DON’T LIE. Don’t just name the first man with grey hair you can think of, it demeans us all)

(PHILLIP SCHOFIELD?)

Let’s Get Fucked With Vicky Gill : This week Michelle Visage will be wearing a red bolero jacket and trousers

It Takes Who Sorry, every single time I get distracted by



how bad the art direction for these cards is. OTI ISN’T INDIAN! ALJAZ VERY VERY CLEARLY DOESN’T HAVE BLUE EYES! KATYA ISN’T LEAKING BLACK OIL OUT OF HER EAR! YET!

I know Gorka, what were they smoking? That’s my question as well. Anyway, the question here was “which pro would have been a rugby player if they weren’t a dancer?” and after some stern Oti-esque musing from Oti about how none of these pansies have the MACHISMO and the STRENGTH to be a rugby player, the answer turned out to be Johannes. Dianne and Karen got it right, and it set AJ off thinking about his meaty powerful thighs. Again, I reiterate, I love a pointless filler segment.

Karim & Amy : Second interview of the evening where most of it was SPENT defending the contestant’s artpop against the critique of the judges, and lord knows Karim was 100 times more diplomatic than even Aljaz was, so it didn’t make for a terribly exciting chat. He respects the judges, he enjoyed the paso, it was very tricky, he just went out there to please all his CBBCers, and if he accidentally pulled Bruno in as well, as he has the mind of a pre-teen, then so be it, it’s all good. Amy defended her choreography by saying that she wants to show VARIETY in her routines, and it ended up sounding like she wanted the VARIETY to be “all the ballroom routines are going to be good and all the latin ones are going to be shite Zoe”, which…fair enough. ERIN BOAG’S LEGACY! I’m also glad that she and THE VISCOUNTESS have bonded enough

that Amy’s been allowed to borrow training room attire from the LONGLEAT COLLECTION. Between this and Alex and Michelle, so many female friendships being forged in the cast this year, good to see something beyond the usual bromances. This week they will be dancing a quickstep to “Mr Pinstripe Suit” and he’ll probably get 40 because it’s ballroom, isn’t it? VARIETY! Certainly it makes more sense as a predictive tool than

whatever Zoe was seeing in this graph. Apparently there’s a pattern here. Answers on a postcard.

Friday

Emma B & Anton An odd atmosphere tonight, as you could tell that Rylan wasn’t quite sure at the chemistry here, so like the good little interviewer he is, he kept delicately prodding at it like a 7 year old at a loose tooth. I think my favourite part was when Rylan asked Emma how Craig’s comments had made her feel, Anton answered for her, then Anton did a full “HA HA MARVELLOUS!” apology for taking over the interview, and Emma’s

FACE as she said “yes that does tend to happen”. Either they’re just being theatrical types and playing out Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf or…well there’s some form of enmity here, let’s find out. Rest assured Emma didn’t like the tango, didn’t care for it, didn’t much enjoy it, in the 15 minutes training she did for it, AT ALL, whilst Anton was again quite proud of having done a Propah Ballroom routine with Propah Steps in it and Propah frame and posture and so on, and these two opposing positions definitely didn’t run up against one another AT ALL. This week they’ve got the rumba, to “Woman In Love”, which certainly excited Rylan, although not as much as when she gifted Rylan a little Albert Square sign on the grounds that “we might not get to see you again”. Portents of doom all over these two, I’m feeling an ominous fog gathering.

The Friday Panel : A very vicar-y panel tonight, as Kate Botley and Richard Coles flanked Dawn Porter who, let’s be honest, was entirely here to flog a book. She had nothing to say. You forget the good old days of It Takes Two, when there were literally three or four interviews a week when someone turned up to flog a book, or a cd of Cole Porter songs, or a new brand line of enemas (PAULINE QUIRKE!), but then it just comes RUSHING BACK. Anyway, Kate openly admitted she thinks everyone is great and can’t tell when a dance is bad because she thinks everyone is just great (great booking there), and Richard came with a copy of the show’s script from about two three weeks ago, when Mike was a comedy God, it was great to see Anton with a strong dancer who’s really on a journey, and isn’t great to see a big burly BLOKE MAN like Kelvin be so tender and diligent. He also said that a highlight for him was watching Chris interact with the judges, so if you want to search for Chris-Craig slashfic by author, here’s your man. For the second week in a row, we closed with everyone piling on Mike and predicting his demise, including a very lengthy speech from Kate about how some people just don’t know when their time is up and need to be removed from the showbiz arena via a swift boot into a taxi for their own good. I’m saying nothing.

The Perfect Salsa, With Jason Gilkison, Luba, and Graziano : Presumably this is the DANCEMASTER knowing her limits, and not wanting to be involved with a demo on a dance outside the Ballroom Ten and good for her but

this was very boring indeed.

Gethin’s Homoerotic Backstage Adventures :

Choose Dick indeed. Gethin’s jaunts were split into four here. Firstly there was a one-on-one with

Saffron & Whatever The Hell AJ Is Doing With His Hair No Really, I Thought We’d Got This Sorted. Also anyone who knows AJ from his three previous series on this show will recognise that uncanny zeal in his eyes – yes, they are doing lifts this week, and lots of them. Also AJ apparently hasn’t taken his cue from the spate of injuries going around the cast, and full on ploughed ahead here with bragging about how he was “TRAINING SAFFRON SO HARD SHE’S NOT PHYSICALLY CAPABLE OF WALKING AT THE END”. I feel like sensitivity training isn’t really a big thing chez Pritchard. (Oh also Saffron is an auntie so get ready for yet another generation of Barkers to be visited on us in a VT, what’s this, the fourth one now?). Secondly Gethin visited with Michelle, Karim, and Emma W (ie the most random assortment of people possible) and it was mostly Karim and Michelle luvvie gushing over one another and you’re not getting pictures because my Viscountess was showing BOTH side-boob and camel-toe and she deserves better. Then third was Mike just…sweating everywhere, I’m not sure about anything he said, because he was just, visibly, one giant human sweat patch. To be honest, I’ve given up at this point on the show being kind to Mike, I just hope he’s at peace. Fourthly

he and Kevin were lounging all over one another, and I can’t say why, because SPOILERS, but let’s just say the words “you know me, I’d do anything to make the final Gethin” are coming out of his mouth here and…I’d watch.

Kelvin & Oti : Bless Kelvin but he’s not the brightest is he? We started this interview with him talking about the dressing up aspect of Hallowe’en, and saying he was a “bit suspicious” when he was told he’d be dressed as a caveman. Kelvin, the show putting you in nothing but a loincloth was the most transparent its agenda has been since Len spent the entirety of the Series 14 final shouting “VOTE ORE YOU TWATS, I’M AN OLD MAN, HE’S NEVER DANCED BEFORE, PLEASE, I’M VERY SICK, FOR CHRISTMAS!”. There was no mystery here. Oti meanwhile clarified (/maybe had a small implicit dig at Amy, let’s stir!) that she’d pulled back on the content in the tango so as to allow more space for story-telling and building drama. Rylan then showed off this “storytelling” by airing the bit where they repeatedly smashed their crotches into one another. Again, by this show’s standards, that’s The Brothers Karamazov, normally it’s just “someone pushes someone over at the end” or “the ghost of the dead lover goes back into the haunted ukulele”. This week Oti has mostly been watching Emmerdale (notice she never claimed to have watched Hollyoaks when she was with Danny, I wonder why…) but in between episodes they’ve found time to cobble together a Viennese Waltz to “Say Something” which…almost “Come On Eileen” levels I hate that song, sorry, I’m feeling a Karim Winning Week on the blog here. Also

some of these Friday tans are still something, huh?

Pro-Dance Rehearsals : This week’s pro dance will be a tribute to Elton John, referencing the movie Rocketman, in three parts, with each part being done to a different song, and representing a different type of dancing. There’s “partner”, “jive-commercial” and “spinning”. The boundaries get ever blurrier on “Strictly” don’t they. Everyone will be wearing funny glasses and feather boas and having bum-sex with Richard Madden (hopefully) and

God when was the last time you saw a shot of Anton on this show where it didn’t look like he was begging for the sweet release of the dance-off and an early Christmas?

Alex & Neil : Lord knows the show’s been milking it all week, so let’s cut right to the chase here – Neil won’t be dancing this week either, and Kevin’s still going to be her dance partner until Neil’s fully confident he can put weight on his legs again. No reaction as yet from Gorka, but there’s still time. We also learnt more about the exact nature of Neil’s injury (he appears to have messed his leg up…removing his proton gun from his backpack in rehearsals, which makes no sense to me, but who knows how dancers bodies even work, everything’s probably one big jumble of rubber bands in there ; it doesn’t really hurt, his leg’s just gone all funny ; he was about to come out of the proton gun move directly into a lift but Alex saw that his face just looked wrong so she put the kibosh on it) and doubled down on the claim that Kevin only had 45 minutes to learn the routine. This week, Alex and Kevin will be dancing the American Smooth to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, and have only been rehearsing since Wednesday evening and…it looks bobbins, to be honest, but Neil has faith he’ll be back with Alex to dance again next week. Barring another visit to the studio from the STRICTLY SLASHER of course, nobody’s 100% safe.

Rick Astley : Another no, it sounded like he was singing about Margaret Rutherford in the club style.