Strictly: Week Five and results show 30/10/11

I want to take Alesha’s 10 paddle away from her. And then I want to smack Robbie on the bottom with it!

But enough of my personal fantasies.

I know that at the end of the day Alesha’s marking the way she feels she ought to, and fair enough. Dance is subjective and affects us differently. Sometimes the performance will carry us along and make us feel deeply about it in a way that it might not some others. It’s just that I don’t get how you can award a 10 to something that is not palpably even near perfect.

Gosh, I miss Arlene. I’m not getting into this debate on ‘why was she removed’ or ‘why was Alesha brought in’ because it’s old history, but I’ve been thinking about this a little recently and I reckon the thing I miss most about Arlene was the fact that her scores were usually pretty much bang on, especially compared to the other judges. Len rarely dares to score below a 6 unless it’s obviously ghastly, Craig sometimes errs on the side of frugality although generally knows what he’s doing, Bruno is a law unto himself and Alesha is handing out 10s like they are sweets.

Yes, I appreciate the show has to change and adapt to keep fresh, and so it should. But I liked it when 10s were rare, and you felt they had to be earned. It was a real achievement to get a full house. It just doesn’t feel like that anymore.

Saturday’s show had a lot of mistakes in it, and I would have expected the marks to be lower generally than they were. Russell, the man who loves the samba to the extent that he actually became the samba, went wrong an awful lot, which I wondered at the time may have been partly due to going first for once. He looked so disappointed not to have done so well in his favourite dance, bless him, and it was really the first routine where he’d made noticeable errors. But of all the dancers on this Halloween themed evening he at least looked as if he was having fun, and threw himself into it, dodgy knee and all. I mean, a few years ago the words ‘Russell Grant and Kylie’ in the same sentence would have been a rather unlikely combination indeed!

Chelsee, bless her, almost fell out of her costume – in fact she thought she had – and led to her losing her balance, concentration and eventually to tears. Still, in spite of all expectations I’m starting to like Chelsee. I like her relationship with Pasha and she’s not only fun to watch but she’s starting to improve. I think perhaps, to my shame, I was slightly taken against her at the start because she reminded me very much of a girl I went to school with who was quite possibly the most irritating, self obsessed little monster I have ever had the misfortune to meet. Which of course has bog-all to do with Chelsee. However, I actually look forward to watching her and I thought both the tango and the dress last week were sublime, if somewhat problematic in places!

Audley, who seems as adorable as a basket of St Bernard puppies, unfortunately danced his jive as if he was suffering with severe bowel cramps. The jive and Audley Harrison were always going to be incompatible. Big men with huge feet tend not master the precision and kicks/flicks required for a fast dance, and at times he looked as if he were trying to remove a stick-tight piece of dog muck from the sole of his shoes. But the huge, beautiful grin was there as ever. And you have to admit that he played the piano beautifully!

I found the sight of James Jordan as Dracula rather distracting. I’m not sure this was the desired affect because Alex actually danced rather nicely, even if she was channelling Kate Bush at times with her white frock! It was an unusual Paso to say the least, but it worked well, and was probably Alex’s best performance to date. But if Craig found it strangely erotic compared to the previous week’s somewhat limp and lacklustre number, I just felt my eyes following Christopher Lee...sorry, James around the floor. I found it frankly disturbing how attractive I found him dressed as Count von Count from Sesame Street.

James, you can bite my neck any time!

Artem never does things by half measures either. In a daring attempt to reinvent the American Smooth by infusing elements of Natalie Portman’s Oscar winning turn in Black Swan, we had a rather delightful turn by Holly who, for possibly the first time in the show so far, seemed to perform beautifully the whole way through a routine. Holly hasn’t really set a dance alight for me so far: I’ve never really got the impression she loves the Strictly experience or indeed learning to dance. She hasn’t managed to light up the floor yet, but this take on Swan Lake actually incorporated her best attributes and used them well, and her arm placement was really lovely. The routine was innovative but split the judges less than I thought it might, with only Len admitting he would have liked more ‘in hold’ to make it a little more in keeping with the dance.

Nancy. How do you solve a problem like Nancy? She doesn’t really improve from week to week but she’s a game girl and always tries her best. She’s also difficult to read as a person because you never know when she’s being tongue-in-cheek and when she’s not, and this unfortunately could be misinterpreted as being diva-like. But for all that, Nancy has ZERO musicality in the way she dances. It’s the equivalent of someone trying to sing when they’re tone deaf. I’ve often considered the rumba to be the Strictly dance of death and, sure enough, Alesha thought she should have stayed in the coffin at the start of the routine! Poor Alesha: she can’t win. That’s the trouble with being the ‘nice’ judge; the one that’s meant to be sympathetic having been through it all before. The moment she makes a negative comment she sounds like a cat.

And you have to be fair to Alesha, because Nancy (for all that she’s a stylish glamour puss) does have a rather tomboyish way of strutting her stuff on the dance floor. I’m not sure the unladylike ‘legs apart’ comment went down too well with Nancy though, even if there was a certain degree of truth to it...

At least Alesha didn’t say she should have stayed in a ‘Y-Shaped coffin’.

Harry is a very fine ballroom dancer, there’s no question of that. Such a pity that he actually danced very little tango steps within his dance. I understand Aliona wanted to do something different for Halloween and make it showier, but this is one reason I wish the Beeb wouldn’t persist in themed evenings. Props, themes and costumes distract from the dance itself. Strictly shouldn’t be just a dance contest, true, or otherwise you should just bring back ‘Come Dancing’. But neither should it be the Generation Game.

I just have this feeling that Aliona might end up costing Harry with her choreography somewhere along the line, which is a shame because it’s quite clear that Harry can dance very well. I’d still like to see him smile more (although I grant you it’s not really appropriate for the tango) but I’d have Harry down to make the final three as it stands. If Aliona wants him to win, she’s going to have to start being a little more thoughtful.

Okay, where do I stand on the groinal thrusting as performed by Robbie in the Paso Doble? I’m actually not sure. On one hand I thought it went with the whole Michael Jackson inspired theme. On the other hand it’s a Paso Doble, not a Porno Doble. It didn’t offend me to be honest because I’m not a prude, but I guess I didn’t really see the need for all the crotch grabbing in the dance. Fine if the bullfighters in Spain start doing it; then it might feel a little more authentic (although considering where some of them get speared it might be more realistic than you might think). It did make me wince a little when thinking of all the kiddies up and down the country that watch the show, and all those who might not want their little treasures subjected to Craig having Robbie’s bits shoved in his face at the end of the routine like, to quote Red Dwarf’s Arnold Rimmer, ‘a dog that’s missing his master’s leg’.

It’s like swearing. It doesn’t bother me, and I curse a blue streak if there’s nobody there to hear it. But if I hear it on public transport it bothers me greatly. Double standards? Or just a matter of common decency? You tell me.

I can’t really say I enjoyed the routine anyway so the air-humping made no difference to me. But as long as Ola doesn’t put more of the same in the routine when they do the Viennese Waltz, I guess I can live with it!

I loved Anita’s costume and I loved her acting. I adore her enthusiasm. But Craig’s right: it’s time to sort that posture out. She stands very straight and tall (and speaking as a serial sloucher I am extremely envious), but it’s not helping her when it comes to the dances that are in hold. The tango was fabulously choreographed especially as Anita actually had to dance the whole way through rather than rely on props and gimmicks *cough* Aliona *cough*, but until she sorts that ballroom stance out she’s always going to look stiff and unnatural. But Anita will want to sort out the imperfections because she quite clearly wants to learn. I hope she stays in long enough for the judges to see that she has.

Lulu has a different problem, but one that stems from the same source. Whereas Anita is too inflexible and rigid, Lulu is too floppy and soft. That said I actually quite enjoyed Lulu’s performance. I think there’s no doubt that the theatricality of the dance suited her amazingly well, and the stylised batwing dress actually gave her something to help her in terms of the physicality of the routine. It was almost a prop, yet not a prop. A very good piece of work from the costumiers. And the entering and exiting on the wire harness was extremely well done.

Nice work, Brendan!

Jason of course upped his game again, as did Kristina. She’s obviously having the time of her life, having such a marvellous canvas to paint on. The quickstep to ‘Bewitched’ was very clever indeed and beautifully choreographed with extremely clever storytelling. It was so nice to see a dance routine that incorporated the theme of Halloween without it dominating the dance itself. I can’t help but feel that both this year and last the flavour of each unique style of dance gets gobbled up in a kind of pantomime farce. This dance bucked that trend wonderfully.

Oh, and then there was Alesha waving that 10 again for a dance that did have a few mistakes in it. Someone wrestle it off her, would you? I have an errant ex-footballer to chastise!

Well, the inevitable happened and Nancy, as if by a puff of magic, exited the show (unladylike legs and all). Having been in the bottom two already on a couple of occasions it was clear that she was a likely candidate to be voted off. Whilst I didn’t dislike her – and from a warped entertainment point of view it was almost a shame to see her leave - I have to say from a dance perspective it was probably for the best.

There are only so many weeks of seeing Anton going purple in the face that I can take...