Christmas Strictly Special

[shallowness]

Strictly continued its Disney love-in, with the judges as Snow White characters and Pasha (of course) going full Tim Burton’s Hatter. Meanwhile Alison ‘the laugh’ Hammond was playing Lisa Riley and TessnClaud were dressed in colour. Claudia’s running Christmas lunch gag had me hooting, especially the giant bird business – and that was just the right amount of Brucie for me, so even if he’s better next year, I hope they don’t give him more to do.

Lisa Snowden’s quickstep content looked good – judges’ favourite if never the viewing public’s, although I always quite liked her. With her dancing with Pasha, because Brendan was busy, we had the first of many switcheroos. And if she really hadn’t danced since doing Strictly, that wasn’t bad at all.

Alison is the one person of the lot who I wish had kept up with her dancing, because she looked larger than she had when she started doing the show, and although she was never going to trouble the top of the leaderboard, she flagged noticeably as the routine went on, although the shove she gave Robin was good. (If she and Abbey were fighting to dance with Aljiaz...well, Janette would win, so it’s a moot point.)

I never watched the People’s Strictly, so Cassidy Little was new to me. I would imagine that choreographing for him as an amputee would be an interesting challenge. What really impressed me (apart from the slight Matthew Goode resemblance), was the performance level as a non-performer. He also had a good rapport with Natalie. I enjoyed watching them.

I could live with rewatching the other three, because the iPlayer was being really funny-peculiar, so I suspect, rather than know that Abbey danced like a dream. I loved her gown on the first impression, and though my love for the purple gloves did not wane, the outfit looked tackier the longer I looked at it.

So, let’s move on to Harry, but first, Jo’s make-up was ace (Harry’s just looked weird). I knew she’d be tough on him, ‘That’s good. About a four’! But whatever she did, it came off so classily. How much time did they have to practice? I wanted him to win when they announced who was on the show, but I did squeak at Craig’s 10 like I always do.

Then Tom Chambers, who of course, has been dancing in the past few years (although Harry was like ‘nope, never danced, just watched myself on YouTube...except for the American Smooth that I must have practiced at my wedding’. But that’s still going to be less than Tom Chambers.) I always found him irritating, anyway, so I wasn’t the most receptive listener to the ‘They didn’t do the Charleston in my day, so I jumped at the chance’ claim. Of course, he was excellent, but so he should be, and it’d be more to the point if he was on a special competing with people who have appeared on the West End stage than not. Oti looked simply lovely, and, like Jo, probably enjoyed having a partner who can dance.

Anyway, Dame Shirley Bassey was in fine, fine voice. Jo was having a night of it (although I seriously dislike them pairing her with Anton; it’s too June-November).

As with pandering to Bruce/being kind to the elderly, taking us to the centre for disabled ex-servicepeople, the visit to the young carers’ party was a nice touch. Fortunately for the kids, Kevin and Karen danced for them, not Iwan and Carol.

It was nice that the choreographer trusted Harry and Abbey to dance without pros in the big closing routine, although this was all topped later by something I’d like to see centre stage next year: Anton mortifying Claudia by dragging her for a dance, lifting her and giving her a spin right at the end. BRILLIANT. Shame the director didn’t have it in tighter focus.

Also, thumbs up to the studio audience, who had the casting vote as Craig had got the 10 paddle out twice to put Harry and Tom ‘West End Star’ Chambers on equal footing. Clearly, they thought it was fairer to give it to the person who hadn’t been tap dancing as part of the day job/they like Harry Judd more. Jo’s over-reaction was hilarious, especially as I hope she will crow it over Kevin. I know I was going on about bringing back Iveta, but I suppose it will be Jo, which is fine, even though it makes the Grimsby gravitational pull harder, and she sometimes comes off as a hyper thirteen year old.

There was no McFly floor invasion!