Strictly: Week Five

We’ve gone all spooky and ghostie for tonight’s round of Strictly Come Dancing. I have mixed feelings about this. A part of me really likes the ‘themed’ idea as it’s fun, gives the dancers a chance to really have a good time, and just spice the format up a little. But the problem remains that if you change the nature of the dances too much, as this theme malarkey invariably does, you are at risk of ending up with a rather unappetising mish-mash.

I was surprised earlier in the week to find out that the Argentine Tango, previously held up as the last big test of nerve in the semi-final – the gold standard of excellence, as it were – had been given as an option for the couples this week. I can understand the logic in a way because it means that if anyone does an AT early on that is really outstanding, it gives them a chance to do it in the final should they want to. Still, I remain slightly disappointed that we’ve lost the AT as the final Strictly summit. Somehow, pushing it down amongst the other dances has lessened its status.

First up on the night was James Jordan and Pamela, dancing a jive whilst bedecked head to foot in devilish red. James even sported pointed cranial protuberances (cue obligatory horny joke) and fangs, a look that he seemed quite at ease with. I couldn’t fault Pam’s enthusiasm because she genuinely seemed to love the jive but it didn’t look especially good from my side of the telly. There were mistakes in it, to be honest, and at times it was scrappy. It was a little flat-footed and the flicks weren’t perhaps as sharp as they could be, but the one thing I did like was that the theme wasn’t allowed to interfere too much with the flavour of the jive, for which I think James has to be commended. However, it was probably Pamela’s least best (I don’t really want to use the word ‘worst’ for someone who obviously puts in a heck of a lot of effort each week) dance of all those she has done so far, and the judges more or less had it about right. I’d have given it a 7.

Next, Tina and Jared. Tina was, I am informed, wearing ‘pleather’, which sounds like a rather kinky mixture of ‘pleasure’ and ‘lather’. In fact it’s a plastic based faux leather, that instantly brought to mind Sandy in the last ten minutes of ‘Grease’, but only slightly more vamp. Big, eighties hair as well. And I mean BIG. The amount of hairspray used must surely have depleted the ozone layer by a further twenty percent at least. And as for the back-combing, it was as if Chewbacca had been given a makeover...

I think this was one of the instances I was dreading where the Halloween theme completely wrecked the dance. The music may have been powerful and dramatic but it didn’t convey the brooding danger or the emotion of the Argentine Tango. More than any dance the AT is visceral; part visual and part sensual. You can stick in as many kicks and flicks as you want, as many powerful hooks and dramatic lifts as required, but if it attempts to be too technical then it’s as boring as hell. Too theatrical and it’s a poor imitation of two people trying to do something with a few AT moves thrown in. Alas, Tina and Jared’s dance fell very much into the latter category. It all seemed a bit lacklustre, dull and feeble in places. In one respect it was good, in that it probably was their best dance to date, but a watery AT (albeit one with a few nice lifts) isn’t going to get anyone’s juices going. Another 7 from me, possibly a 6 because even Pamela’s unpolished effort had more believability.

Oh, and during the judge’s critique Bruno nearly smacked Alesha in the mouth (accidentally, I think). Not that I detest Alesha, but in terms of unintentional hilarity it was probably the highlight of the evening!

Now, I like a bit of ‘Phantom of the Opera’. It reminds me of my days at High School, trying to belt it out in the music room at break time with a little help from some similarly obsessive friends. Perhaps I am therefore predisposed to like something that looks as if it has a little Phantom magic sprinkled over it, but in truth I really thought Kara and Artem’s Paso was well danced, finely choreographed – and actually worked well in the context of the whole ‘themed’ evening. It wasn’t the best dance of the night (more on that later) but it was probably my favourite looking at it from an overall perspective. And finally – at last – Kara managed to instil some much needed fire and intensity into her performance. All the midweek histrionics must have worked a treat. Sure, Kara will probably have buried her stiletto in Artem’s head by the end of the series, but it’s a small price to pay if we’re going to get performances like this for the next however many weeks. A very worthy 9 from me, because there were one or two mistakes in it and however small they were still noticeable.

Noticeable to all except Alesha, who gave it a 10. I could have had money on Alesha giving the first perfect score of the series.

Now, Patsy and Robin. For some reason Robin has dressed as a brussel sprout. Oh, of course: we’re doing theme stuff again. The outfit doesn’t quite work though, and the reason for that is that he hasn’t gone quite far enough with it. Look at James ‘second coming of Satan’ Jordan! Look at Brendan (more on that later)! Why didn’t Robin paint himself entirely green instead of wearing a shirt that looked as if it was a Captain Kirk hand-me-down fashioned from boiled cabbage?

Costume aside, a good, solid effort from Patsy. I thought it was fractionally better than Pamela’s, which surprised me a little as the training footage in the week definitely didn’t favour Patsy at all. Looks like Robin’s boot-camp style fitness regime is paying off a little, although frankly (speaking as a member of the ‘I’m hibernating, speak to me in April’ brigade) I’d have playfully kicked him in the nuts if he made me go jogging all the time.

Now, Patsy is someone I like very much although I think she has a snowflake’s chance in Hades of winning. But for some reason her legs always seem to look as if they are weighted down with lead in every dance, and I’m not entirely sure why. Every week I feel like I’m writing the same critique: some small timing issues, enthusiasm but no dramatic improvement, general lack of energy. Actually, that reads like my school report from the age of 6 to 12. Yet somehow she remains utterly likeable. There was a fair bit of time wasting at the star of the routine but I will forgive this in those doing the jive, because it’s such a high-energy dance that even the fittest will probably feel like collapsing at the end of it. I thought it was another 7, although I’d have given 7.5 on the pumpkinometer if such a thing existed.

Next, Felicity and Vincent. Gold stars are deserved for using the Waltz from Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite, which ironically felt out of place because of all the rubbish...er, sorry, pop music that the others were using. There was a high proportion of faffing about at the start, but it was stately, elegant faffing and I guess it formed part of the overall story so I will just about let Vincent get away with it. That said, Felicity’s footwork was a bit hit and miss this time and she seemed to skip about a little, which meant that it wasn’t as graceful as I’d have expected. It just didn’t flow in the way you would hope a Viennese Waltz to. I’m not really sure Felicity is going to last very long in this show. A 6 from me, because I was a little disappointed.

Jimi and Flavia...oh, crumbs! Those eyes! I must be a perverse individual. I’ve never really found Jimi especially hot before but I rather thought the upwardly swept wolfman hair and freaky contact lenses actually made him look rather dishy! Not sure what that says about me, really...

Moving swiftly on. I find Jimi a very puzzling performer. There’s so much he gets right and so much he gets wrong, all in the space of one dance! I think the performance aspect comes naturally and he works it as hard as he can, sometimes too hard, and as a result it gets a little ragged in other areas. Tonight was the same: I rather enjoyed his Paso tribute to Michael Jackson and I thought it worked reasonably well within the horror theme of the evening, and yet there’s a tiny part of me that felt if he hadn’t had the whole ‘Thriller’ crutch to perform to and had been asked to do a traditional Paso he may have done less well. I’d like to comment on his footwork but at times it was so covered in dry ice smoke that you couldn’t see a damn thing! Maybe that was the plan? It seemed a tad clumpy and heavy, but as he was supposed to be dancing like a thing escaped from a crypt I suppose you might say he fulfilled his task!

Flavia’s dress was really lovely, by the way. And Jimi was one of the few people I have ever seen on 8 series of the show to make the see-thru matador top attractive! But I’m afraid it’s another 7 from me, and most of that was for the cat eyes...

Those who know about the Rocky Horror Picture Show, have gone to see a production of it (and spent ages picking rice out of their hair/cleavage/insert relevant body parts here) dressed as French maids or watched the film with Tim Curry in it will actually realise why Brendan looks like Lurch’s prettier younger brother. Those who haven’t are probably wondering why Brendan has aged 50 years and resembled Mr Pinch from Martin Chuzzlewit! Perhaps a swift refresher course on ‘Rocky Horror’ via the wonders of You Tube will calm everyone who feared that Brendan’s unfortunate trip to New Zealand resulted in an excessive amount of exposure to radioactive material.

I saw both sides of the judging argument to be honest. This must be a difficult series for Len to sit through. He’s there to pronounce on technique, when by and large technique is being sacrificed for performance. He’s there to make sure rules are followed...yet the rules have been thrown out the window! There are lifts galore these days, and so much of the structure of the actual dance is lost to time wasting, with alien steps added to pad out a routine. Looking at it purely from Len’s side of the desk I can understand that Brendan and Michelle’s Rocky pastiche was just a jump to the left and a step to the right too far (pardon the pun).

From Craig and Bruno’s point of view as choreographers, and Alesha’s as a...er...a...actually I’m not sure what Alesha’s role is, so I think we’ll be kind and call her a neutral observer, the performance was wild, frantic, goofy, fun, energetic and completely bonkers! And despite being neither Brendan’s biggest fan or especially enjoying any of Michelle’s dances so far, I can honestly say I really liked this. It was as mad as a couple of ferrets stuffed down plus four trousers! But of course, poor old Len had a conniption fit and complained that the last half of the dance didn’t actually have any proper jive steps in it (which was true), leading to the traditional spat where Brendan nearly combusted with apoplexy.

This was a tricky one to score. It was in some respects better than the other jives and yet, probably due to the amount of time lost through Michelle’s ankle injury, it was limited slightly in a chorographical sense and there were a lot of errors all the way through. Entertainment-wise it was great and I want to give it 8, but in the end I gave it a 7, despite the masterly manic performance from Michelle! Altogether now... “It’s just a jump to the left!”

Oh god...here come the pecs. Having no doubt spent most of the week (when not signing for Saracens or learning how to pull faces for the acting coach) rubbing beeswax into his chest, Gavin has decided to guarantee his continued participation in the contest for a further week by performing a semi-nude Paso. And yes, I can admire a sculpted torso as much as the next person. But the little cynical devil whispering in my ear is telling me that cuprinol-boy has decided to flash the flesh to distract attention from his footwork. Is that wrong of me to be so suspicious? Maybe Anne Widdecombe is going to do the same next week?

I can only assume that the standing ovation was for the six-pack rather than Gavin himself. It was all a bit meh for me, apart from the surprise ‘Buck’s Fizz’ style dress removal moment that reduced Katya to her swimwear. Gavin did hit the odd nice shape, and it was more powerful than Jimi’s Paso but to be honest whilst it wasn’t grim, it wasn’t great either. I still didn’t see much in the way of emoting from him and he seems to have been carved from the bit of wood that Gepetto threw away. Next week, folks, be prepared to see Gavin doing the Viennese Waltz wearing only a pair of boxers with a ‘kiss me quick’ sign painted on his body, because it seems that this year pretty much anything goes. An improvement on last week was the general assessment, and if one can improve on posturing, walking about and posing then Gavin certainly managed it...

A 6 from me, but possibly bordering on a 7.

Ah, now we come to the dance of the evening. And, surprise surprise, it was from Scottttttttt and Natalie. Oddly enough I’m starting to warm slightly to Natalie. I think it helps if you’re paired with someone who is half decent at dancing but appears to be an engaging person on at least one level. Last year I just couldn’t quite get the appeal of Ricky Whittle (who I found a tad vacant) and Natalie, but I rather like her with Scott and am beginning to see how clever at times her choreography can be.

Kudos for actually making a Viennese waltz that had a Halloween theme, yet didn’t egg it excessively, and could have been a straightforward and beautiful routine in any normal situation with the odd tweak at the start to cut out the cauldron malarkey. I’m not going to go on at length about this routine because with only three steps it’s rather difficult to make an interesting review, except to say that Scott has probably got the best posture when dancing ballroom that I have seen for many a year in a male celeb. As for the scores, I guess Alesha had no choice to give another 10 considering she’d already given one to a dance that was probably – just – a smidgeon less worthy than Scott and Natalie’s, and accordingly Len and Bruno didn’t have much room for manoeuvre either, with all three of them bestowing maximum scores. Only Craig showed some much needed sanity with his 9. It’s far too early to be using 10s...I may be an old stick-in-the-mud, but I can remember back to the days when you had to sleep with one of the judges in order to get a 10.

I don’t suppose either Anne or Anton have made any such propositions to the judges (if they have I don’t want to know about it). Cyclone Widdicombe didn’t fly in on a broomstick this week (missed a trick there, folks), but managed to produce a comedy Paso doble that would have given John Sergeant a run (or march) for his money. There was a lot of stomping, clumping and out-loud counting, with Anton swinging Ann around until she resembled one of the killer Christmas trees from Doctor Who’s ‘The Christmas Invasion’. Ann’s costume reminded me of one of those rather gaudy festive bell-shaped decorations that you fold out and stick to the roof with a drawing pin! I rather think Craig’s “OMG” just about summed it all up (although I had to explain what that meant to my mother), but I will say that Ann didn’t half give the floor a nice sweep at the end. 3 out of 10 would be a kindness.

Next week, it will be Anton in the harness. Connected to a very large truss for the hernia he undoubtedly just picked up...

And now Matt Baker and Aliona. No comments this week from maitre regarding Aliona’s hair...she’s maybe becoming desensitised! This is the second Argentine Tango of the day, and in terms of story it was only marginally more successful. I’m sorry, but the gothic AT experiment has not worked at all. It’s taken a great big stake and malletted it through the heart. For all that, you can’t criticise Matt’s dancing (or his guyliner) but it was again a somewhat imbalanced mixture of style and flash over substance. His posture was at times a little dubious but he is a natural mover; it just wasn’t his dance. Ramps can relax for the time being: I don’t see anyone challenging his ‘best male celeb at the AT’ crown any time soon (I’m not counting Ricky Whittle because I didn’t think his was as good, frankly).

Over all, it was a bit of a daft evening. But then I think it was meant to be. Pamela ended up surprisingly near the bottom after so many weeks near the top. Patsy and Robin finished in fourth place on the leader board! And down towards the bottom Felicity, Gavin and Anne find themselves in real trouble. This is a bit of an interesting one to call, because it will be a test of the pulling power of Gavin’s body, Vincent’s many female fans and members of the Conservative party’s ability to pick up a phone and hit redial. Felicity probably only has a few weeks dancing left in her, so I would think she will be in the bottom two, but who else might join her? Michelle and Brendan? Jimi and Flavia? It’s a thriller night after all!