Strictly Blackpool

[shallowness]

I didn’t get the full effect of the opening number, because I spilled a drink and was busy trying to sort that out. Tess (not hoarse voiced) was in asymmetric yellow, Claudia was in a green mullet dress, Darcey had crazy hair (and was often inarticulate) and Shirley wore red and got too caught up with being at the Tower to hit her mark at the judges’ intro.

It made sense that they gave Mollie’s Charleston the opening slot. It was a bit as imagined by a Kylie collaborator and went for the ‘wings’ theme with about as much subtlety as did most things on the night. Was that the longest lift of the series? After that, she deserved to go off for a long while to put her wings/safety harness on.

If you’re a SCD fan, you have to be a Strictly Ballroom fan, really. I thought Susan’s paso was much more about Kevin as a dancer and choreographer than her, and Susan’s stature told against her. I agreed that she wasn’t doing enough with her whole body.

Is Debbie going to become the new Ruth WRT wigs? I’m deep in the anti-Spice Girls camp, but she certainly strutted as Ginger. I’m not sure what to make of the routing, beyond giggles at the camp tribute, because it switched from a couple dancing a samba to solos so much. A1 performance from her, though.

Jonnie and Oti’s outfits only made sense during the dance – which had a great concept, but his tango was a bit stompy and I noticed his posture wasn’t great. It had some good moments, but it was unfortunate that his eyeline sometimes seemed to be directed at the pro men. He wasn’t doing it enough for it to be storytelling, so it was distracting.

Like the rugby (well, certainly the Wales match) it was a show of two halves.

I was pleasantly surprised as Gemma’s foxtrot American smooth developed. It had a lovely, graceful, even sophisticated quality, proved you didn’t need mega lifts, just ones with lovely rotation. We were reminded of how great she is at ballroom after a few ropey weeks. It got better marks than I expected (two 10s!) but I’m chuffed for them. And yes, possibly I didn’t expect sophistication because of the neon and the colour explosion and homage to Blackpool which says more about me than anything else.

The Bond paso was a very, very good Blackpool routine, with a big opening, and great use of the extra dancers. More importantly Davood had clearly got the gist of the dance. He was imperious, pulled off nice shapes and great leaps. I liked it a lot and think it brings this year’s number of good pasos to six (if it was ‘memorable pasos’, obviously I’d count Ruth and Anton’s).

Alexandra’s quickstep was brilliant. She shone throughout. A very Charleston-y routine, but its structure did remind me of old song and dance movie routines. Happily so. And it was stylish.

I can see why they closed with Joe (and for the first time, huh). I spotted some stilted bits, which were a shame, and I thought perhaps the 90s theme was fighting with the rotation I want in a salsa, but he deserved all the praise he got.

I said it was a night of two halves, but a closer look at the final scores made it clear it was broken up into groups of two, three and three, before I start going on about how Debbie was in the bottom half. This show suggested we have five real contenders based on their dancing ability, although some of that will depend on who gets what dances when. It says something that I thought I’d like to see Oti’s tango and Kevin’s paso danced with better partners. Good going big for Blackpool routines from the pros in general.

I voted for Gemma and Aljiaz, even though I agreed with the ranking of the couples, because that was the routine that tugged at my heartstrings the most.

Also, Lenny Henry 1, Peter Kay 0.