And that’s it. It is my time to leave you now, to enjoy the rest of this series by yourselves. I haven’t read any comments tonight, but I’m sure you’ve all been wonderful and nice. I’m on Twitter as @Stuheritage if you want to follow me, which you don’t. Oh whatever. Bye.
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- Charles Venn knows what he’s doing
- I am pleased that this has finished.
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There’s a group dance now. This will come thick and fast, so I’m just going to bulletpoint observations:
- Ashley Roberts is going to win this
- The cricketer will be out first
- Unless Susannah will, which she will
- The cricketer can’t even clap his hands in time
- Which roughly puts him on a par with the studio audience
What do the judges think, Tess asks. SPOILER: It’s the same thing that they’ve said the last four times they were asked that in the last 90 minutes. Exactly the same thing. This is like a bad Doctor Who episode about fake tan.
So that’s all the Strictly Come Dancing partnerships revealed for the year. And yet I am still contractually expected to continue liveblogging this for another eight minutes. Hope you like long silences and indifference, kids.
That leaves Graeme to dance with Oti, who reacted to the announcement like it was a total surprise, even though she knew about it for at least the last three minutes. 7/10, but only by accident.
Charles Venn will be partnered with Karen Clifton. Karen just split up with her husband, who is also a dancer on this show. This bloody programme is like an Albee play. I don’t know how you people stand it. 12/10
Seann is being introduced to his partner, who is Katya Jones. Katya had to put up with Ed Balls, remember, so she’s bound to be pleased about not being lumbered with a novelty politician who still does the bloody Gangnam Style dance all the time without anyone asking for it. They have a weird faked enthusiasm for each other, but 8/10 nonetheless.
Finally, here’s Graeme Swann. I hope Graeme doesn’t DUCK rehearsals this year, or else he might face a FOWL. He’d better be SWIFT and not GROUSE on the show, or else he’ll be BUSTARD. Graeme Swann plays cricket and is named after a bird.
Graeme is swapping cricket balls for glitterballs, because of course he bloody is.
Next is Charles Venn. Charles is from Casualty, and also the first Strictly contestant to be named after a diagram since Barry Scatterplot in 2006.
Final gaggle of celebrities now. First it’s Seann Walsh, a comedian who either needs the money or just really wants to present intermittent field reports about kooky road signs for The One Show in the relatively near future. Those are the only two reasons for a comedian to do Strictly Come Dancing.
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This is definitely the Ghostbusters 2 theme tune, though.
There is also dancing. Singing and dancing. And guitar playing, if you count Nile Rogers. And just sort of standing there, if you count the woman standing next to Nile Rogers. This is time well spent, isn’t it? Also, they’re all standing on a lousy excuse for a plinth. I knew plinths and you, sir, are no plinth.
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But, hey, now it’s time for a musical guest. It’s Craig David and Nile Rogers performing what seems to be the theme tune to Ghostbusters 2.
Backstage again now, for another episode of Claudia Needlessly Pads Out A Show That Realistically Could Have Been All Wrapped Up In About Fifteen Minutes. Nothing happens, as expected.
Ashley’s partner is Pasha Kovalev. Upon realising that he was dancing with Ashley Roberts, Pasha pulled a face like a hungry dog looking at a sausage mannequin through a shop window. 10/10. No, 11/10. No, a million out of ten.
Stacey now, who’s already engaged in a terrifying bellow-off with Bruno. Her partner is Kevin Clifton. Kevin is the cornerstone of all the romantic and sexual intrigue that happens on Strictly Come Dancing. Remove him and the whole thing falls apart. 10/10, whether either of them like it or not.
Lauren’s partner is (14-minute silence) AJ Pritchard. You all know AJ, of course. He’s the one who looks like a 2008 Jonas Brothers Bratz doll. Barring the possibility that he has a weird smooth plastic nub where his groin should be, they score 7/10.
Katie’s going to meet her partner now. It’s Gorka Marquez, who is a professional dancer and, if memory serves, my dad’s first car. They earn a decent 6/10 in the bonkstakes.
Next up is Ashley Roberts. She’s a former member of the Pussycat Dolls, so her main form of training probably involves trying to run away from Nicole Scherzinger as fast as she can all the time. Because it probably would be, wouldn’t it?
Lauren Steadman now. Sure, Lauren is a Paralympic athlete who has proved the strength of the human spirit time and time again. But can she think up jokes about Casualty castmembers on the fly in a newspaper liveblog for barely any money? Actually, probably yes. This isn’t exactly brain surgery.
Now Stacey Dooley, who presents documentaries for BBC Three. Her next one will be called Stacey Dooley Investigates Probably Going Out Third On A Dancing Competition.
Next gang of celebrity introductions now. First is Katie Piper. Katie has faced numerous challenges in her life, so trying to look comparatively more likeable than Lee Ryan on television should be an absolute piece of cake.
Here’s a video where all the dancers travel to the studio in cars together. This is partly because Carpool Karaoke is a thing and Strictly looks like it wants to have its finger on the pulse, and partly because the dancers really do have to share cars because they’re all second class citizens as far as this show is concerned.
Backstage with Claudia. Dr Ranj wants to wet himself. Lee Ryan is clinging on to his partner like Leonardo DiCaprio at the end of Titanic. This is all going swimmingly.
Joe Sugg says that he wants his fans to make a meme out of him. It is impossible to think of him as a sexual being. 0/10, even though his partner is Dianne Buswell.
Danny has been partnered with Amy Dowden. Amy danced with Brian Conley last year, which might explain her utter relief at the fact that Danny John-Jules is not Brian Conley in a wig. A lowkey chemistry - 7/10
RETROSPECTIVE BONKSCORES: Lee Ryan - 9/10
Dr Ranj’s partner is (45-second silence) Janette Manrara, who is married to Aljaž Škorjanec. They’re not going to do it, but I will pretend they will. 8/10
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Lee’s up now, ready to be introduced to his partner. They all look very nervous, for some reason. It’s Nadiya Bychkova. I read last week that Lee Ryan was desperate to be Nadiya’s partner. We should probably take this opportunity to do a Kickstarter to buy bars for her windows or something.
Next is Joe Sugg. Joe Sugg is a YouTuber, so he’ll have to fight every instinct not to look directly into the camera during his dances, while also fighting the instinct not to present his life as so relentlessly, vapidly aspirational that he’ll directly destroy the self-esteem of an entire generation who now all have dark empty voids in their chests where their hopes used to be thanks to this berk.
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Now it’s Danny John-Jules, who was in Maid Marion and her Merry Men and deserves better than this. He’s swapping Red Dwarf for um, red spandex?
And now it’s Dr Ranj. Dr Ranj will win Strictly, because I’ve never met a mum who hasn’t experienced profound feelings of lust for Dr Ranj. They’d throw themselves in front of a bus for Dr Ranj, such is their undying love for him, so texting his name to a television programme five times a week is no real sacrifice. He’s swapping the operating theatre for the, um, television theatre?
And now, after literally the worst iPad joke in the history of language, we get to meet our next clutch of contestants. First it’s Lee Ryan, who is is a self-confessed bad boy. Go to your room without any pudding, Lee.
I think of all the new dancers, Johannes is my favourite. He’s the only one who seems to remember how shirt buttons work, after all.
Oh! Now there’s a dance. The new dancers are onstage wearing hats, being filmed through Instagram’s Brannan filter. There’s a car onstage. That’s about the gist of it. They’re not so much dancing as pushing tables around. Maybe this is how Strictly works. First it’s table pushing, then it’s washing up, then finally they get to have it off with a newsreader. Seems like a logical hierarchy.
The judges have repeated their spiel about what makes a great partnership (reminder: it is DOING IT), and now Claudia is backstage again. This episode could be better presented as a press release, or a sheet of paper pasted to a wall.
Vick says that she feels like she’s got married to Graziano. This is like watching their Sidebar of Shame audition.
Claudia’s backstage to chat. Because that’s what this show is going to be. We meet the contestants. Then we meet the contestants again. Then there’s a 20-second silence. Then we meet the dancers. Then we meet both of them together. Then we do that over and over again and then it ends. I’ve figured it out. This must be like what seeing through the Matrix is like.
Next it’s Faye, whose partner is Giovanni Pernice. I like Giovanni. I keep forgetting who he is, but I like him. They’ll probably have it off, but only if they remember who the other one is. Which I can’t, so maybe they won’t. 6/10.
Susannah now, who looks less than thrilled to be there. Her partner is lovely Anton Du Beke. You know what this means, right? It means that Susannah is this year’s joke contestant and she may as well go home now. Sorry, I don’t make the rules. She’ll be gone before bonking even becomes an issue. 2/10.
Now it’s Vick Hope’s turn. She’s partnered with Graziano Di Prima. Graziano is a new dancer this year. He essentially looks like Jon Snow with an Instagram account. They are definitely going to do it. Definitely. I’m amazed they aren’t doing it already. 10/10.
Kate’s partner is Aljaž Škorjanec: part man, part dancer and part astonishingly low hairline. They look a bit nervous, but I’d still give them a respectable bonkscore of 7/10.
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Kate’s being introduced to her partner now. This is like Take Me Out, but with an even more pronounced stench of last-chance desperation.
Next to be introduced is Susannah Constantine, who was one half of Trinny and Susannah. If you don’t know who Trinny and Susannah were, they had a show that was like Queer Eye except hosted by two howling schoolmarms who hated people and the concept of nice clothes.
Lots of ‘I’m swapping X for Y’ lines in these intros. Silverton said ‘I’m swapping the newsroom for the ballroom’ and Hope said ‘I’m swapping the radio studio for the dance studio’. Keep your eyes open for more of these, because this is a THEME.
Third in this group is Faye Tozer. From Steps. No, not that one from Steps. No, not that one either. Or that one. The other one. No, not that one. The other one.
Next, we meet Vick Hope. Why not find your Vick Hope name by taking your favourite over-the-counter medicine brand and putting it next to your prevailing emotion? Mine is GlaxoSmithKline Dismay.
Time for what we all came for – matching contestants with dancers. First contestant up: Kate Silverton. Someone on Twitter recently said that they’re pretty sure Kate Silverton has been a Strictly contestant every year since the show started. I agree.
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Bruno Tonioli has prepared some lines about how the contestants smell, for some reason. Look, let’s give him this. He doesn’t get out much.
Darcy’s explaining what makes a great Strictly couple. She didn’t explicitly say ‘They definitely have to sex with each other regardless of their marital status’, but it was pretty heavily implied.
All the contestants are being announced now. Full marks to Alan Dedicoat for not audibly throwing up in his own mouth when he had to say ‘social media star’ as a qualifying profession.
All the judges are here, except for Darcy Bussell, who is granted a very special entrance. That entrance? Getting dragged onstage against her will by a couple of burly men. I know the feeling, love.
Here’s Tess and Claudia. One again the dynamic is unchanged: Tess reads things off an autocue and then Claudia goes ‘BINKY BONKY BOOP’. It’s like a weirdly glitterly version of that Kanye West ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’ video.
Nile Rogers is performing We Are Family, suggesting that everyone on Strictly Come Dancing is also a family. If that’s the case, then it’s one of those families that definitely has sex with each other all the time.
FINALLY. We’re in a recognisable studio, and so is Nile Rogers. Unfortunately so is Craig, DJing in glittery headphones, and Bruno, slunk into an armchair and wearing a fur coat like a sort of nightmarishly gangsta Father Jack.
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Now the professionals are all tossing themselves around, and the assembled masses are whooping out of time as well as clapping out of time.
This is such a weird opening. It’s the new contestants parading around Broadcasting House, which has been done up like one of those shopping centres that Gok Wan used to force women to parade around. It’s like Strictly has suddenly decided that it really wants to be Britain’s Got Talent, which I’m not sure is a particularly great thing.
We open on a montage of past Strictly moments. They almost exclusively consist of orange people pulling their groins in various elaborate ways.
OK. Strictly Come Dancing 2018 is GO. May god have mercy on our souls.
I would have lost this Pointless round about 2017 X Factor contestants. That feels so good to say.
Also, because this is basically a pointless DVD extra of an episode, I say we should liven things up by guessing how likely the contestants are to do it with their partners. Scores out of ten. Bonkscores, if you will.
Before we begin, I urge all of you to read my ranking of all the new Strictly Come Dancing contestants from earlier this week. It is good and right and you will all see.
Here we go again
Hello world, and welcome to The Guardian’s Strictly Come Dancing liveblog. The sequins have been sewn. The fake-tan machine has been topped up with sludge. Your dad is still pretending not to know who Joe Sugg is, even though Google exists. We are all ready to go.
Except, not quite. This is very important to point out, but I will not be your regular Strictly Come Dancing liveblogger this year. That will once again be fan favourite Heidi Stephens, a woman singularly gifted at not being around when she’s supposed to be liveblogging things. She’ll be back next week, I’m told. So this is a one night only affair, which is probably for the best given the actual riots in the literal streets that followed my last attempt at liveblogging this stupid programme.
This might not even count as a proper episode of Strictly, anyway. There’s no competitive element tonight. Nobody’s getting voted off. This is simply a getting-to-know-you exercise where we meet the celebrities and they meet their partners and then Craig David sings a song that nobody can properly clap at. That’s all it is, and yet it’s still inexplicably going to last for an hour and a half.
The show starts in half an hour. In the meantime, why not use the comments to express your gratitude that I’m liveblogging this and not Heidi? See you soon.
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