The Strictly Come Dancing ballroom has seen plenty of tears over the years, but very few episodes have proven to be as emotional as Saturday night’s.
The biggest sobs came not from one of the celebrities taking part but a professional dancer. The adorable, and phenomenal, Carlos Gu - who always wears his heart on his sleeve - was the first of the Strictly gang to break down during Saturday night’s hour-and-a-half long show.
The dancer and his partner Karen Carney had performed a thrilling and dramatic take on the American Smooth – and the cracks started to show as they received praise from the judges. “I love watching you dance,” Craig Revel Horwood told the former England player. “The performance was out of this world,” added Motsi Mabuse, before Shirley Ballas commended Carney for how her posture is “coming along beautifully”.
The comments about posture, in particular, resonated with the pair as Carney has Scheuermann's disease, a spinal condition that causes a curved spine – meaning she has to work even harder than the other celebrities to achieve the stance needed for ballroom.
Through tears, Gu told Claudia Winkleman: "[Karen] worked so hard this week. I know the ballroom is not her strength, but she came into the training room and she said, 'Carlos, I really want to try hard. I know my back has problems, but I really want to try and I really want to show that I'm improving just a little bit'. And just hearing them saying that... you have no idea how hard she's been working." The sobs didn’t stop there.
Having been denied a poignant Couple’s Choice earlier in the series, George Clarke finally got to bring the emotion with a rumba set to “Somewhere Only We Know”, which his sister sang at their grandad’s funeral. Adding to the emotion, he revealed in his VT that the performance was dedicated to his mum. “Unfortunately, recently she got diagnosed with cancer,” he said. “Nobody deserves what she has gone through, but least of all her. It feels like it’s taking up so much of her life now.”
Finally, La Voix closed the show in her typical, glamorous style with a Couple’s Choice to Barbra Streisand’s “Don’t Rain On My Parade”. The drag queen - who trains out of character, as Christopher Dennis - explained his drag journey in his VT. Having heaped praise on his father, who was cheering him on in the audience, he said his mother died just months ago. "My mum was the same as my dad, equally supportive, she was there at every single show,” Dennis said. “I did a massive West End show in London and she wasn't well and I remember I'd gone from 1,500 people clapping and cheering to the next day, just your world's gone."
Was it Strictly’s most emotional episode of all-time? Aside from the finals, I can’t think of a single episode that has seen quite so many tears. And while emotions were running high thanks to the poignancy of the routines, the stakes were upped thanks to something on the horizon: Blackpool.
Blackpool Week was born out of necessity back in 2009, when Children In Need used to take over the BBC Television Centre studio used by Strictly for a week in November. The show stopped needing to move when Television Centre closed in 2013 but by that point, making it to the Tower had already become a goal for many Strictly stars and the BBC decided to keep it as a fixture in each series.
It’s not an overstatement to say the annual trip up north is the holy grail of Strictly. Even more so than the final. This is perhaps, in part, thanks to the fact it gives even the technically-challenged celebrities something to aim for. Viewer votes alone can’t carry you to the final - but they can get you to the iconic Tower ballroom. Just look at Ed Balls and Pete Wicks.
Saturday night’s tears proved just how much making it to Blackpool means to both the celebrities and their professional partners. At this point in the competition - when the themes have dried up and the dance-offs are starting to get tougher - Blackpool brings a much-needed (and incredibly camp) dose of joy to both the show and the winter months. Who can blame the cast for being desperate to make it that far?
