BLOGS
Strictly Come Dancing: week nine
- Posted at 12:32pm
- 16 November 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
Strictly wasn't the same without Bruce Forsyth and you felt for the producers, faced with injury upon injury at the last moment. But of all the traumas on Saturday night, only one was self-inflicted: Ronnie Corbett should not have joined the show.
Nothing against him. And he didn't have a lot to do in the end. But bringing in anyone, any man especially, sang out that the producers didn't believe Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman could run the show.
Hopefully they've learnt their lesson: Tess handled everything deftly...
Bruce to miss Strictly because of illness
- Posted at 11:40am
- 13 November 2009
- by LauraPledger-RT
Bruce Forsyth is suffering from a bout of flu and will be absent from this Saturday's Strictly Come Dancing.
Tess Daly is gamely stepping into his shoes as the main presenter, but there's no word yet on who will be taking her place backstage and chatting to the dancers about their routines.
This week the couples return to London after their trip to Blackpool and will be performing a ballroom or latin dance. Normally the focus would be on which celebrity fails to impress the judges - and the audience...
Strictly Come Dancing: week eight
- Posted at 11:45am
- 09 November 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
"I can't believe that Zoe's gone and I had to endure that," said Alesha of Craig Kelly's dance, making every viewer wince at the overreaction.
I'd warmed to her, I'd thought she'd been saying some smart things, but it's as if I can believe her praise and yet can't believe her criticism. She just reminded me anew that she doesn't have the weight of experience behind her criticism that, say, Craig Revel Horwood does. Like or dislike, agree or disagree, judge Craig has reasons and points where so far Alesha does...
Strictly Come Dancing: week seven
- Posted at 3:30pm
- 02 November 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
Appropriately for Halloween, it turned out to be costume night on Strictly. Jade squealed in fright when her heel got caught in her dress, Tess wore a parrot on her shoulder and then even the voting surely came down to the frocks. Did you vote for Flavia's classy diaphanous leopard-print wrap, or for Ola's body?
And while every kid in the land plumped for a treat, we got the trick. Zoe Lucker is a fine dancer and an immensely likeable woman: to lose a dancing contest through lack of public support...
Strictly Come Dancing: week six
- Posted at 12:15pm
- 26 October 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
"Not to suck up," said Brian, "but Alesha, you look gorgeous this evening." She also had good, interesting things to say this time, including her summary of Brian and Ali's rather beautiful performance. Is Alesha improving or are we getting used to her?
This week was more like it. It isn't it yet, but it's more like it. After last week's rather flat edition, Strictly Come Dancing stepped back up a notch with great moments and a couple of fine dances. Unfortunately they were mostly from the professionals.
There is something intangible...
Strictly Come Dancing: week five
- Posted at 12:45pm
- 19 October 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
I could be on Strictly Come Dancing. No, really, I've thought about this a lot. I figure that if I just work harder, stop taking holidays and maybe pretend to launch a kid in a helium balloon somewhere, I could become famous enough to be on the show by 2017.
You can't start preparing too early. So while I've been away in Spain - I seem to tell you everything; you've just got that kind of face - my dreams were choreographed. Such dreams. Such routines. I was going to wow Bruno by breaking out...
Strictly Come Dancing: week four
- Posted at 1:15pm
- 12 October 2009
- by HelenHackworthy-RT
Softly spoken, genteel and refined, Strictly's supposed to be your better class of reality show - but controversy seems to be hanging around like a bad smell. The less said about Anton Du Beke's unsavoury comments the better, yet when Laila described her partner as "patient" and "racist" in her training video, I almost spat my red wine out - until I realised she'd actually said "patient" and "gracious". My mistake.
I'd read that Laila feared she and Anton would be voted out by the public over the scandal. Was it my imagination, or did...
Strictly Come Dancing: week three
- Posted at 1:10pm
- 05 October 2009
- by HelenHackworthy-RT
It was the week of The Big Clash. There was national outrage at the news that a marathon-length episode of Strictly Come Dancing would air against The X Factor on Saturday night, forcing viewers to choose between the two - which one to watch?
On the contrary, I found this week's scheduling a relief. I don't care for The X Factor at all, feeling it's a dull, formulaic show that routinely humiliates vulnerable people in the name of "entertainment".
For me, Strictly not airing on Friday meant that there was no clash...
Strictly Come Dancing: week two
- Posted at 11:46am
- 28 September 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
Last week it was Alesha - and you made very smart comments about her against this blog - but this week it's Len you've got to wonder about. He's supposed to be judging the dancing, we're the ones who are supposed to be wilfully supporting our favourites regardless. I embrace that role with gusto: I'll vote for someone who dances well, or someone I like who doesn't. Frankly, it's also possible to misdial, and I'm just crazy enough to do that sometimes too.
I have been asked how I accidentally voted for Lynda Bellingham...
Alison Graham on Strictly: week one
- Posted at 2:13pm
- 25 September 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
Ex boxing world champion Joe Calzaghe
won my girlish heart when he told Radio Times in our Strictly Come Dancing launch feature that taking part in the competition was more fun than "getting punched in the head for a living". I loved that; it was such a raw, honest and un-starry thing to say. What I know about boxing could be written on the back of a pixie's postage stamp, but from that moment on I knew I was in love with Joe Calzaghe.
That love even withstood the unassailable fact that Calzaghe danced...
Strictly's Alesha breaks her silence over Arlene
- Posted at 11:55am
- 22 September 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
"It's nonsense to say that I'm not qualified to judge the dancers," Alesha Dixon tells Radio Times exclusively. "If anything, the controversy has sparked the fighter in me."
Strictly Come Dancing champion Alesha's replacing Arlene Phillips caused storms among fans, with newspapers decrying the change and Harriet Harman raising questions about it in the House of Commons. It was ageist, they claimed - Arlene is 66 while Alesha is 30 - and Dixon only got the job because of her looks.
"When I read that I only won in 2007 because I was...
Strictly Come Dancing: week one
- Posted at 1:30pm
- 21 September 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
Brendan Cole famously keeps breaking the rules of Strictly Come Dancing with those lifts of his. But once, on the great It Takes Two, he and Craig Revel Horwood had a barney about it. Without the rules, claimed Craig, there's no test, no real challenge, no measure of the dancing. He's right - and this is why Alesha Dixon is a mistake.
As much as we loved Alesha Dixon for winning so brilliantly two years ago, all she's got to offer is that she knows what the contestants are going through. It's not...
Strictly Come Dancing line-up revealed
- Posted at 3:10pm
- 25 August 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
Sixteen celebrities, including tennis star Martina Hingis and boxer Joe Calzaghe, have been named as the contestants in a new-look Strictly Come Dancing. The Sunday-night results show is gone, the Saturday original is extended - and for the first two weeks there'll also be a Friday-night show with different dances.
As before, the sixteen will be divided into two groups with one dancing in the first week, the other in the second. The Friday show will be ballroom night with the couples dancing either a waltz or a tango, while the Saturday edition will be Latin...
Kelly Osbourne stars in US version of Strictly
- Posted at 5:07pm
- 17 August 2009
- by PaulJones-RT
Kelly Osbourne will be among the celebrities strutting their stuff when Dancing with the Stars - America's version of Strictly Come Dancing - returns for a ninth series at the end of September.
Donny Osmond, singer Macy Gray and R 'n' B star Mya will also compete, as well as Melissa Joan Hart, star of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Kelly follows in the dance steps of former Spice Girl Mel B and Paul McCartney's ex-wife Heather Mills as the lone British contestant - but she won't be the only Brit...
Strictly axes Sunday-night show
- Posted at 12:52pm
- 12 August 2009
- by PaulJones-RT
When Strictly Come Dancing returns for a seventh series in September, all the action will be packed into one Saturday-night show.
Producers are ditching the Sunday-night results programme, which has proved unpopular with viewers, and are combining the public vote, the dance-off and the judges' final decision into a single extended BBC1 show on Saturday nights, to broadcast simultaneously on BBC HD.
A spokesman said: "We wanted to make Strictly Come Dancing an unmissable TV event this autumn… Audiences will be watching, voting and, crucially, seeing who's in and who's out every week...
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