Strictly: Week Two

It’s week Two of SCD and tonight 14 become 13. Of course, we won’t officially find out until tomorrow who that unlucky individual is.

Thankfully, there are people going to the show who will be texting to let us know who that is. I shan’t be posting the results here before the general public find out. I’m happy to receive spoilers but I won’t flaunt them. It’s a bit like wearing polka dot undies...I love wearing them but I don’t flash them in public. Not often, anyway.

The general standard of dancing was an improvement on last week, it has to be said. And that’s good, because there are a few basic rules to winning Strictly, and amongst those commandments is ‘start well – get much better’. Actually, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, trying to see what the previous 7 winners have all had in common, and I’ve come up with the following guide to lifting the glitterball:

1. Entertain. If you’re a rubbish dancer but you can engage with the public, you will stay much longer than you probably should. If you happen to be a good dancer as well being entertaining and you can put on a show, you’re on to a winner.

2. Get on with your partner. There has to be a certain chemistry with your teacher. If you don’t listen or don’t respect your teacher, you won’t do your best. If the professional can’t stand you in return, you’re screwed.

3. Put in the hours. It takes effort, blood, sweat, tears and lots of practice to iron out imperfections. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Mind you, neither was Milton Keynes...

4. Hope your costume designer likes you. And the make-up lady. Remember, they have the power to make you look like a Satsuma.

5. If you have a good body, show it off...but do it subtly so that the audience are teased into a frothing frenzy. A bit of chest here, a glimpse of guns through see-thru fabric there. If you make it obvious that you are flashing your chest, the viewers will know you’re simply desperate to get votes and suddenly realise your dancing is just a little bit crap.

6. Flirt with the judges. Bruno needs no encouragement.

7. Don’t be a smarty pants from the off. Show you have potential, and gradually get better over the weeks as they pass by. Nobody likes a goody-two-shoes. Giving the teacher an apple doesn’t work. Pollyanna never won a dance contest.

8. Viewers like journeys. Strictly is like the ‘Discovery Channel’: Goughie found his softer side, Ramps discovered his inner tiger, Alesha transformed into a lady...and Ricky Whittle discovered that Chris Hollins was more popular than he was.

9. If you’re good, have a few bad weeks to make your fans panic and they will suddenly remember to vote for you. It shows you’re still human.

10. Remember to thank the voters humbly each week for their calls. Show humility. If you assume you have a god-given right to be there and love yourself too much, you will get right on the chesticals of the viewers.

11. Try to persuade the viewers you have never danced before. Sportspeople get extra brownie points because they are rough, tough bruisers who find locating their inner butterfly much more difficult than thesps and throat warblers. Sportsmen in particular tend to win over the (mostly female) audience. Sportswomen are looked on as unnatural, competitive semi-Amazonian warriors and remind the lady viewers just how saggy and unattractive they all are.

12. If you have children under the age of 12, trot them out so the audience can see them (the 'awwwwww' factor). If you have nans and granddads supporting you, wheel them out. If you have a performing seal that can applaud when you come down the stairs, that’s good too. Cute appeals to the general public. But if you have a fiancé, don’t bother. Fiancés and WAGS are considered tacky as weapons in the war for hearts and minds.

13. Perform according to the requirements of the dance. If you’re doing an Argentine Tango, don’t smile. If you’re doing a Salsa, please try to look like you’re enjoying it. If you’re doing a boring Foxtrot, please do your best to make ME stay awake...

I hate foxtrot. It’s the most boring dance ever. No amount of ooohing and aaahing over Fred and Ginger’s effortless gliding around the room in a sea of feathers will persuade me otherwise. It’s dance Prozac. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

And the problem for me tonight was that half the dances were bloody foxtrots! Some of them were surprisingly good, it has to be said. I suppose you would have to classify Matt Baker and Aliona in this category, although I expected to be more blown away than I was. I guess already the expectations for Matt are proving ridiculously high. I thought technically he was extremely good, but there was something not very...I don’t know exactly, grabbing about the whole thing. I just don’t find Matt very appealing to be honest. It’s like getting a 1000 piece jigsaw and discovering the last bit is missing! There’s something absent and I’m damned if I know what it is! I think it may be charisma. A tad too dramatic for me as well; I’d have preferred a more traditional foxtrot (you know, smooth, classy, dull as ditchwater). You can tell I’m going to bang on about this all night, can’t you?

Peter and Erin were certainly more memorable than Matt was, for all the wrong reasons. Salsa in general tends to capture the imagination more than ballroom because of its very fast, twisty-turny, sexy, party atmosphere. All of the aforementioned words cannot in any shape or form be attributed to the Shilton salsa, which is a pity because Peter seems like a nice bloke who desperately wants to do well. There was a lot of what can only be termed ‘walking about in wallpaper paste’. Alas, it was more of a Salsaga...a dance for the over 60s on the hip replacement waiting list. As Zaphod Beeblebrox might have said, it was so ‘un-hip’ it was a wonder his bum didn’t fall off...

Tina and Jared’s Foxtrot was...nice. That’s all I can say, really. I guess I’m condemning with faint praise here. It was a much better performance from Tina and she looked a lot more natural and indeed comfortable this week, but there still seems something a bit weak about her. I dare say she’ll be one of those that improves if she stays in, but this couple aren’t doing it for me. I guess ‘sweet’ doesn’t really appeal. And they really are saccharine to me at the moment! God help her when it comes to the Paso.

Patsy and Robin were much improved on last week, and on only three hours of practice! Wow! It was a fairly basic routine to be honest, I think because of time constraint, but the Latin seemed to allow Patsy to show the actress off to the best advantage, with plenty of hip action and a reasonable amount of salsa moves in the routine. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, and to be honest at times there was a lot of time wasting and fruitless jiggling about, but it was jiggling about done with a lot of aplomb and with good timing. A transformation! Now, if she can continue to improve in the ballroom she might be one of the ones to claw her way up the leader board.

Paul actually surprised me again. He’s never going to win, but he was better than last week and additionally he was vastly superior to how I anticipated he would be. In places it wasn’t too bad, but he does cast a variety of weird faces as he concentrates on his steps. There’s one where he looks like he’s trying to suck on a golf ball and frankly that’s not a good look for anyone, let alone a 72 year old balding magician. I did like his come back to Bruno, who asked him why he couldn’t perform the middle of the routine to the same standard as the beginning and the end. “Because I can’t remember it!” Paul replied honestly. At least he won a warm round of applause from the crowd: I fear it’s the only thing he is going to win!

Scott and Natalie. Well, they are pretty good. I still put them in the same camp as Matt and Aliona, to be honest. He seems like a decent chap, and when you see him in the training vids that shows through, but I don’t know if Natalie’s quiet personality has made this partnership somewhat insipid. Last year Mr Whittle sort of counterbalanced Natalie’s softer nature, in the same way that Karen Hardy’s bubbly enthusiasm was a balance to Mark Ramprakash’s shyness. But these two seem rather similar, and as a result I find them a little...dull. The dance itself was just not salsa enough for me...yet again we have another case of trying to make a routine more interesting by taking a new tack when the thing that makes salsa interesting is actual salsa steps! It was danced well enough, but it wasn’t hot or fiery enough for me.

Michelle and Brendan. I want to like them. I do. I want to like her, specifically. I have sympathy for anyone who gets terribly homesick, although I’m not sure someone who puts 12 sugars in their coffee is going to live long enough to suffer with long-term homesickness. And she appears to be less ‘in your face’ and moany than I thought she would be. I did like the bench as a prop, although I’m glad Anne Widdecombe didn’t try that as I fear it would have broken on the end she was sitting on. I also liked the slide down the stair railing that Brendan did at the start, although again I’m glad that Anne didn’t attempt that: I fear she would have got halfway, fallen over the side, toppled into the band and taken some of them out.

Was I the only one though who was hoping Brendan would fall off the end?

The dance was not bad: definitely miles better than the poor effort the week before, but again I just find it very tough watching this uncharismatic pair trying to glide around the room. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of joy in Michelle’s dancing: if there is then it’s not showing yet. Bruno was a bit harsh with her, I thought, but by and large the love shown to the likes of Matt and Kara isn’t there for Michelle, and without much of a fan base I reckon she will struggle to progress in the show. Quote of the night nearly came from Len. I say nearly, because he said:

“I liked the bench.”

If he’d left it there, rather than go on to elaborate, I’d have been perfectly happy.

Goldie gets plus points for learning how to sell a Foxtrot. He actually made it different, in a way that was still in keeping with the tone of the dance, and made it work. It was still rough around the edges; more bling than real polish, but it had a certain charm to it. Yet again Kristina has managed to tailor a routine to her partner’s strengths. She probably should get more praise for this than she does. Liked the hat (was it stapled to his head?), and the whole brat pack look to it. He does have great musicality, and obviously gets the flavour of each dance. Now, if only he could master the actual dancing as well...

Pamela and James again stole the evening with their salsa. Actually, if it wasn’t for the wild flying about the room like something out of ‘The Who’s’ “Pinball Wizard” you might actually say it was one of the best salsa’s Strictly has seen for a good long while. The content was there, the look of the dance was there, the high energy, the steps, the speed...quite brilliant. I say quite, because the whirling dervish bit, whilst amusing, was a very obvious error. But it’s so nice to see James actually enjoying himself! And goodness, Pamela is very flexible! She did a back bend that put some of the pros to shame! I think this couple are going to be good to watch over the coming weeks. Just to add to my enthusiasm, James nearly carried out my wish to fall on the stairs after the dance was over!

Felicity has been a little disappointing, in that she has all the class and elegance you could wish for but because she’s so naturally refined she seems to have trouble letting that go and just living the dance. The Foxtrot tonight was a bit safe, in the same way that their cha cha had been, and whilst there was nothing wrong with it, neither was there much to make you applaud wildly. I think Vincent is going to have to work hard if he doesn’t want to have another Stephanie Beacham on his hands (albeit a more willing one).

I’m with Craig. I don’t know what to make of Anne and Anton’s “salsa”. I do hope she stays in for a few more weeks because she is genuinely entertaining, if for all the wrong reasons, and she did actually make Anton’s attempts at Latin almost bearable. I wasn’t so keen on the reappearance of the du Beke mancarpet (which probably should be demanding its own dressing room and spin off show, such is its prominence), and was quite glad when Anne buttoned him up! But whilst the audience howled, Bruno screeched like a capuchin monkey and a stunned Craig searched desperately for something, anything, to say Anne had the presence of mind to tell the Revel-Horwood just to give her a 1 and get it over with!

Ask, and it shall be received! The lowest ever Salsa score on strictly. Is it wrong that I desperately want to see Anne Widdecome do a Paso Doble? No question who is going to be the bull in this case...

Kara and Artem were really classy. There were one or two little niggly things if you wanted to nitpick at this stage in the contest, but she has a good idea how to move well. She seems to adapt well to both Latin and ballroom if the first two weeks are anything to go by, and may prove to be a genuine all-rounder. Artem seems a little serious, though. I think I’d like to see him show a less severe side to his personality. I love ‘To Russia with Love’...Quentin Wilson and Carole Vorderman could have danced to this and I would have loved it! Well, okay. Maybe not Carole Vorderman. I have some standards.

Gavin and Katya. The dancing wardrobe is back! Dear lord...he was woeful. He had the look of someone who knew he was wearing something made from the same material as Matt Dawson’s electric pink shirt from series 4. He shuffled around in a vague attempt to keep in time with the music, didn’t pick his feet up properly and clearly wanted to be a million miles away! Rhianna’s “Please Don’t Stop The Music” was another good choice of song (I’d been waiting for someone to use that for years now) but I’m just sorry that rather than the memorable routine it deserved, it got a half-baked, badly danced, self-conscious performance from a man who was aware all his rugby mates in Wales were laughing at him. Not to mention his ex.

And finally there was Jimi and Flavia. I have to admit that when I saw them walk down the stairs in the preview show I picked Jimi out as my winner. Last week was a little disappointing: this week I think he shows definite signs of improvement. Flavia seems to be bringing his personality to the fore, and whilst it’s definitely a work in progress there was much to like about his Foxtrot attempt. By and large his footwork was very good, and it’s reassuring to know that he quite likes the ballroom as well as the Latin! And his enthusiasm is infectious: he definitely wants to be there every week, whilst frankly Gavin Henson doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing or why.

Money, probably. And hair products. And a really shiny mirror.