Strictly: Week Six and results show 06/11/11

And so we’re half way, or very nearly so. Gosh, that went quickly didn’t it?

You can sense the remaining contenders jockeying for position as they face up to the possibility of a trip to Wembley in a few weeks time, should they stay in. It’s like a whole brigade of politicians dusting off their rosettes pre-election time, endeavouring to affix their best, most winning smiles to their faces. “Vote for me! I’m having the time of my life!” Not to mention “It’s not about the winning, it’s the taking part!”
And of course “I just want to get to Wembley!” It’s the new “I want to get to Blackpool”, don’t you know!

What you don’t see behind the smiles, the laughter and the camaraderie is the blood, sweat and tears. The sore feet, the blisters, the occasional tantrum. The injuries! I reckon that’s why sports people do so well on Strictly. They have the stamina to last to the end, and are used to pushing pain to the side in a desperate bid to reach that finishing line.

Whether Artem has reached the end of his own line is a matter for some debate. At some point during late rehearsals he managed to injure his back. Now, you can’t mess around with spines. They’re the very devil to sort out. That he managed to dance with Holly on the live show given that he had a fracture to his back says a lot for his nerve and dedication, although possibly not for his common sense. And a very good jive it was too, if unconventional. Artem really likes finding new ways to breathe life into dances: he rarely does the obvious. Holly, in matching pin-stripes, braces and spats executed the steps exceptionally well given the fact that in the rehearsal she’d had to train by herself. Sir Brucie stepped in briefly (and looked remarkably good!) but I guess when all is said and done, it’s perhaps not the same as training with your dance partner. All in all a good, quirky take on the jive, although I wish to god Holly would LOOK UP WHEN DANCING! Bashful jiving is not really what it’s about. There was more energy from her, but she always looks so apologetic!

If Holly has the demeanour of a partly comatose sloth, poor Artem looked as if he was in desperate need of some seriously strong pain killers. I think someone was waiting in the audience with a tranquiliser dart to put him out of his pain.
Looks like it missed and hit Holly instead.

Talking of the audience, nice to see Mr Ramps having a watch from the sidelines: no doubt relieved not to be up on the floor shaking his hips! I wonder if ex-strictly people ever have flashbacks to performing. Personally I think I would have been traumatised: first few bars of the theme music would have me scurrying behind the sofa with a pillow over each ear, just like I did when a child watching Doctor Who on a Saturday evening! But I guess that’s the allure of the show if you do well: it may leave terrifying scars but at the same time the people that you work with and the pride in being associated with something so loved must be utterly irresistible. Maybe, when the fake tan gets in your blood, you can’t get rid of it!

A word about the judges. Tonight, just for one night, we got rid of Len. I’m ambivalent to Len, to be honest. I think he needs to be there, but if he’s going to sit and do his best impression of Oscar the grouch from Sesame Street then frankly he can spend the whole show in his trash can as far as I am concerned. Please, could all the celebs and pros not cheese off Uncle Len? I like the Len who could pickle his walnuts in joy, not the one who looks as if his walnuts have been whipped...

Craig I confess to liking. There are times when I think he’s morphing into Gordon Brittas but again, if we could have the picky, acerbic yet constructive Craig rather than the one who delivers one-word critiques that make the celebs feel like they’re about to puke on his desk with fear then that would probably be more helpful. Although arguably not as entertaining.

Bruno I would like to retain, but only if he can be put in a straight jacket until he learns to sit up nicely in his chair. I know a lot of Italian people are expressive and constantly need to flourish their arms and assorted body parts but he does seem to have become excessively demented as the years have gone by. We have Felliway plug-ins to calm our cats in times of stress. There must be something similar for Bruno, surely?

Alesha’s role is to empathise and give out lots of unmerited 10s. She’s a bit hit or miss on the first, but she’s managing the latter quite nicely.

Uncle Len was replaced for the evening by Jennifer ‘Dirty Dancing’ Grey. As films go this one was pretty iconic, and her own winning stint on America’s version of Strictly gave her, like Alesha, a certain insight into what it was like to suffer in the name of public entertainment and public profile-raising. This brand of empathy manifested by turning itself into a paddle with the number ‘8’ on it. My conclusion from Jennifer’s brief stint on Strictly was that she seemed like a lovely person who had as few clues as to how to score a dance as Alesha ‘decimus maximus’ Dixon...

In fairness to Alesha, she didn’t give a single 10 during the show. And the reason for that was that, strangely enough, everything was littered with mistakes to the extent that not even she could whip out that big one-zero. Not even Harry Judd, a man who normally has both Bruno and Alesha fluttering their eyelashes from behind their desk, could work his pectoral magic in a samba that seemed just a tad too...antiseptic. It wasn’t a bad effort, and for the most part it was all there save for a few dodgy Voltas where his bounce action looked like a man on a pneumatic drill, but it’s the one dance where you have to just say ‘hang it all’ and channel Carmen Miranda! If you’re a bloke and you find the gaping, chest exposing v-neck seem as wide as the Grand Canyon, the steps too camp and the bounce action as difficult to control as wrestling with a giant inflatable, believe me it’s going to show. How many years has this show been going? And how many decent male sambas have there been? I think I can count about three!

And yes, Ramps’ samba was the best before anyone asks.

Credit to Aliona this week for giving Harry lots of good content! Someone else who always gets a fair amount to do is Russell, but I’m not sure that people see that. Possibly after the antics on the bull at the start of the campest, cutest, geekiest, most hilarious Paso you are likely to see you were even less likely to spot it! I’m not sure how long Russell and Flavia will stay in now that (as one of my friends wickedly put it) the detritus has been removed but I do hope they manage a few more weeks, as I want to see what other ingenious takes on dances Flavia and Russell have up their flamboyant sleeves!

The two Charlestons were the stars of the show. Chelsee and Pasha’s dance was an absolute triumph of choreography and storytelling, whilst being quite complex technically. Craig spotted something that I did, in that Chelsee had not only mastered the hands but also the head moves as well. And whilst Chelsee sparkled and shone, Anita too mastered her dance with consummate skill. It perhaps missed the odd trick or two in the routine, and there were one or two timing issues, but the style of the dance suited Anita’s sense of theatricality. Here she could act to her heart’s content without being lampooned for looking frenetic and ever so slightly dotty!

I guess that time she spent doing ‘Play Away’ in the 1970s must have paid off! If you can cope with that, you can just about handle anything...

Ah, now here I agree with Alesha on something because I was actually quite bored with Robbie’s routine as well. Actually, what was it? I can’t remember...I think it was a waltz? Of all the ballroom dances the waltz is one that I think is potentially open to the most innovative choreography, and (this isn’t a pop at Ola, who I like) I found that it didn’t really seem to do much for me. Not that I’m saying all waltzes have to be romantic and fluffy, but a melancholic waltz just didn’t hit the spot for me. I guess it’s that old chestnut of different strokes for different folks.
It is sad to see how dispirited a celeb can get when they feel they’ve done well, walk over to the judges with high hopes for great scores, only to have their performance dismissed as lukewarm and inoffensive. But for once I was kind of the judge’s side. Sorry Robbie!

Audley was another one who fell in to that category. He produced the sort of Viennese Waltz that you would expect from a big, friendly giant: sweet, endearing yet ultimately not very delicate. At times he seemed as stop-start as my sister’s last car (which conked out just seconds after she got it to the place she had sold it to). It wasn’t so much the sickly marshmallow of a dance you expect with a VW but rather the Stay Puft Marshmallow man from Ghostbusters...

My one problem with Lulu is that she doesn’t really ‘perform’ a dance, with the exception of last week’s Paso. What we see is Lulu dancing, or going from step to step...yes, she may be having a good time (or not as the case may be) but there’s no real sense of drama or acting, which is a shame because if you can’t put on a show you may as well be dancing round a handbag at a disco on a Friday night. Arlene called it right, many years back. The one who will win will be the one who masters steps, technique and performance. And despite the gamest and pluckiest of efforts it was clearly never going to be Lulu. Her tango with Brendan had a lot to like about it, although like so many others it had mistakes (including one glaring one), but as soon as they descended from the stairs the performance sort of ran away from her a little.

Alex and James were really rather good: much better than I thought they were going to be from their training footage. Considering Alex managed to dance the majority of their quickstep with a heel stuck in her dress and still performed well, looking as if she was having a lot of fun in the process, a lot of praise should be accorded to her. The key to Alex, for me, is that she needs to have a character to hide behind – a hook – so that she can find her way into the dance. The more she understands the flavour of each dance and the acting skills required for it the better she has become each week. And the comedy pratfall at the end of the dance where she and James hit the floor on their backsides was up there with my favourite Strictly moments!

And then to Jason. In training he looked rather good. He had a lot of sway, he did good rumba walks and didn’t look especially phased. He’d chosen a piece of music much beloved of his dad, and Kristina had choreographed a beautiful routine (which bearing in mind it was the first time she’d ever gotten far enough in the show to do a rumba was quite a challenge). So, what went wrong?

I mean, Jason didn’t look nervous. But he didn’t look entirely like he was trying to be seductive either. There were moments of awkwardness which I personally believe is inevitable in a male celeb rumba unless you can really get into the part and lose yourself in it. But Craig managed to put his finger on what I found was wrong: he called it too ‘earnest’. It wasn’t especially tender or heartfelt, just a little strange and desperate if Jason’s expressions were anything to go by.

Kristina, naturally, didn’t particularly take kindly to the criticism of their performance although at least she stopped short of throwing a strop. Later on she was heard to say that some of her fellow pros had said that Jason’s was the best celebrity male rumba the show had seen. Er, let me see. So, that’s:

Colin Jackson

Matt Di Angelo

Matt Baker

Three of the best celebrity rumbas airbrushed out of Strictly history then? What a short memory some people have when it’s convenient! I mean, Matt Baker was only last year for goodness sake!!!

Of course Strictly is littered with the putrefied corpses of male rumbas. Too showy and it can look effeminate. Too blokey and the man looks as if he should be felling trees rather than wooing beautiful women. Ramps seemed as if he’d rather have had his teeth pulled than do rumba. Matt Dawson looked like he wanted to cry and hide his face in his mum’s skirt. It’s the dance of destruction. I mean, how do you cope with it? Is there a dance that is more likely to make you look a total prat? You could say the samba, but at least that’s fast! It’s gone in a blink – and a fun blink at that – whereas the rumba is 90 seconds of protracted agony; every wrong step, every shapeless arm and every terrified twitch of the lips highlighted for millions of people to see!

To top it all, you never know when it’s going to arrive in the contest. Do you hope that you get it late on, where you might have built up a reasonable fan base that will vote you through even if you did dance the thing with the air of a condemned man on his way to the guillotine? Do you hope to get it out the way early, and pray that there aren’t any fast, showy Latin dances by opposing celebs which might catch the public’s eye? I’d be interested to know which dance gets people out the most on Strictly, because if it’s not the samba then my money would be on the rumba...

Having said the above it came as no real shock when Mr Donovan was not voted out, even if his position looked slightly dodgy. I reckon his Neighbours-watching fan base back in the 1980s, all grown up now and in charge of their own phone bills, will keep him safe and heading to that final. The bottom two was even less of a shock. Audley had been in that spot twice already but Lulu found herself there for the first time.

And the last time, as it happened.

Much in keeping with his reputation as a fighter, Audley yet again dodged the elimination bullet and this time it was the Scottish singer who found herself being given the Strictly boot. Perhaps she went a week earlier than she should have but I suppose now we are getting in to the better dancers it would only have been a matter of time. Audley lives to face another round, but one can’t help but feel it’s only a matter of time before he hits that metaphorical canvas for good...