So that’s it for another Strictly week! We’ve made it past the half way point of the series, and things are starting to hot up on the Strictly dancefloor.
I’m sorry this weekend has been a bit...alternative, but I’m in the liveblog chair every week now until the very end. So that’s pre-Blackpool, Blackpool, post-Blackpool, quarter-finals, semi-finals, Grand Final. Thank you as ever for joining in, have a brilliant week, and I’ll see you at 6.55pm next Saturday!
Laura and Giovanni take to the floor to shaggy-haired 80s crooner Michael Bolton’s ‘How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?’ Think of the lie-ins, Laura.
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All the judges vote to keep Ore and Joanne, which means LAURA AND GIOVANNI are out of Strictly. I’m sad to see them go, they had amazing chemistry and gave us a filthy Tango to remember.
Their goodbye speeches are oddly polite and formal, like for some reason they don’t want to reveal that they really, really fancy each other. Either that, or they’ve had a row.
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Laura and Giovanni’s dance was much better too – although it’s still too much about Giovanni. Still, they were hardly going to change the routine for my benefit.
Also, those white trousers.
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Ore and Joanne are up first - I loved this Salsa last night, mostly because it was a proper Salsa unencumbered by disco, hip-hop or Bollywood. Also I’m a sucker for a plastic day-glo palm tree. If anything I’d say this time is better, and the lifts still look pretty impressive.
So, time for the dance off! Who will it be?
So the Ed, Greg and Rinder fandom trains rumble on, which means two of them at least are going to Blackpool. I know Louise and Danny are technically better dancers, but I’d rather watch these three any day - they’ve all made such huge progress, and it’s such a pleasure to watch. Is 2016 going to be a big underdog year, I wonder?
So who is up against Ore and Joanne in tonight’s Dance Off? Louise and Kevin are safe, along with Ed and Katya (YAAAAAAS), Judge Rinder and Oksana and Claudia and AJ!
Which means LAURA AND GIOVANNI in the bottom two! This one could go either way, to be honest. I mean, clearly I know which way it goes, but if I didn’t know I’d be wondering which way it was going to go, you know? Oh forget it.
Time for Len’s Lens. You’re about to see something that will make you like Kevin From Grimsby. Brace yourselves.
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Time for a musical interlude, courtesy of Gary Barlow plugging his new musical The Girls, which is about the original Calendar Girls. Some of those actual ladies are singing on the steps, which I thought was rather fabulous. Meanwhile the pro dancers are doing some barefoot contempo-wafting whilst dressed as sunflowers.
I find myself torn re. Gary Barlow. Is it possible to be a tax-dodging Tory and still be a really nice man? It’s so confusing.
So who is in safely through to next week (AKA not-quite Blackpool), and who is the first couple in the bottom two? Danny and Oti are safe, along with Daisy and Aljaz (OMG) and Greg and Natalie!
The first couple in the bottom is…ORE AND JOANNE! There was an audible gasp when this was announced last night, what an absolute shocker. Of course we couldn’t vote because they took our phones away, which means you guys HAD ONE JOB AND YOU ENTIRELY FAILED.
Incidentally, I was sat about 8 feet from Aljaz at this point, with a lovely view of his bum. You can’t help but look, don’t judge me.
Last night on Strictly – too many firework metaphors (DRINK) and some brilliant dancing, at least from where I was sitting. My highlights: Judge Rinder’s Quickstep, Ore’s Salsa shimmy, Natalie snubbing Greg on the chaise longue, Ed’s footwork, Chas & Dave, and the double prop whammy of both Strictly Lamppost and Café Table in Louise and Kevin’s Argentine.
Lowlights: Daisy and Aljaz’s sugary Viennese (bleurgh), Claudia and AJ’s Pop Paso (stop it), Giovanni’s shameless limelight theft and Tess’s awful one-shouldered polyester pantsuit, which I can attest looked no better close up.
Couldn’t get excited about either Danny and Oti’s Jive or Louise and Kevin’s Argentine Tango – although I’ve watched both again today on YouTube and there’s no doubt that both have partners who bring out the best in them. Also the music for both was fab-u-luss.
Out come the judges, with bonus Salsa from Craig and Darcey. I love Darcey’s red dress, it’s stunning.
Tess and Claudia Dress Watch: Tess in a blue bandage with weird tramlines that make it look like the seams have given way, Claudia in a black webby dress that appears to have shrunk in the wash, paired with killer Louboutins that she couldn’t walk in.
Tonight’s opening pro dance – Ricky Martin’s She Bangs, complete with competitive hanky-tossing and Oti looking all kinds of fabulous.
Last night we watched this dance 2.5 times – the first time the exploding-glitter fire hydrant failed to deploy, and the second time AJ failed to catch the hanky and it all went to hell. Kids, eh?
So, are we ready for some Strictly results? Obviously I know how things panned out last night, but I’ll keep proceedings spoiler-free.
Through the magic of television, right now I’m both on my sofa in Wiltshire AND in the studio, hands all clapped out and feet tired from spending so much being a member of an audience that’s always on its feet.
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Jay’s put his Pudsey ears on for Friday’s weather, which is Children in Need Day. Bet Michael Fish is tutting right now.
Behold this week’s Countryfile Casual Weatherman – it’s the lovely Jay Wynne in a really boring grey shirt. Disappointing, like his weather.
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So, here’s my behind-the-scenes low-down on Strictly:
- You’re in the studio for what feels like forever – I don’t have to be there until about 5.30pm (the press has an allocated row, to the right of the band by the stairs), but the general audience is seated from about 4.30pm, until the results show finishes at 10.30pm. Some of the ticket holders had been queueing outside for the best seats since 12.30am on Saturday. That’s dedication for you.
- In the gap between the end of the show and the recording of the results, you get a Kitkat and a carton of juice for sustenance. Half the audience dashes out for a wee, the other half vapes madly in the car park. I had a bonus bag of Haribos in my handbag, it’s a long night.
- The chairs are really small, I spent five hours pressed up against the Editor of Grazia. Thankfully she was fragrant and lovely.
- The warm-up guy, Stuart Holdham, is outstanding – one of the funniest and best I’ve ever seen. He makes you clap a LOT, my hands were red raw by bedtime.
- One of my favourite things to see is the off-camera relationship between Tess and Claudia. There seems to be a lot of genuine affection there. Likewise the contestants, there’s a lot of support and hugging in the room.
- I also had my annual chat with Strictly’s Exec Producer, Louise Rainbow. She still loves this blog and thinks you’re all very funny. Although be fair, this conversation happened before she’d read last night’s blog. Let’s never speak of it again.
So this is my one and only Strictly picture (I’m the one with glitterballs for ears)
At #strictly with my mate @tattiwell. Sequins ahoy. pic.twitter.com/digYVe2ykh
— Heidi Stephens (@heidistephens) November 5, 2016
So last night’s Strictly was great fun as ever; I know the audience ticket ballot is hugely over-subscribed, but it you ever do get a chance to go I highly recommend it – it’s a great night out from start to finish.
No pictures of me hugging celebs this year – the press team had started really early yesterday to film the Children In Need special, and had better things to do (i.e. going home) than chaperoning a liveblogger on a jolly.
SUNDAY RESULTS SHOW UPDATE!
Afternoon all, Heidi here. This feels a bit like getting back from a night out and discovering a friend has let themselves in and puked in your favourite handbag.
I’ll be here spraying some Febreze around for a while, and I’ll see you for the Results Show later. Normal service is now resumed.
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Well, that’s it. It’s over and I never have to liveblog Strictly Come Dancing again. This, we can all agree, is in everyone’s best interests. Heidi will be back tomorrow or next week or whenever these things happen, so hooray for that.
If you want to follow me on Twitter, which you shouldn’t, I’m @StuHeritage. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to smack my head against the side of a ceramic basin until the memory of this evening goes away.
DON’T WORRY FOUND ONE
Oh a recap. I don’t have a YouTube video to tide you through this bit. Hang on, I’ll go and find one.
Leaderboard time now. Louise is at the top, Ed’s at the bottom, Chas and Dave are singing and I feel like I’ve been huffing bleach.
SCORES: 8, 8, 8, 9. See? I’m very good at this.
Brendan whatshisname just made the same birthday joke as I did. I feel dirty.
I think – and this is a bold prediction – people will give her a nine. That being said, I don’t really care if they don’t.
Oh, it’s AJ’s birthday. HAPPY 12th BIRTHDAY AJ!
This seems good. I mean, will that do? They’re dancing in a good way, and it looks good and dynamic and stuff, and I think it’s good.
This week, Claudia watches some men from Bristol play basketball and Claudia makes cow noises at them. It’s a no from me.
Finally it’s time for Claudia Fragapane and AJ Pritchard. The internet tells me they’re dancing the Paso Doble to Shut Up And Dance by Walk The Moon, which seems like a consolation prize in a competition where the winner gets to shut up, not dance and go home.
Incidentally, behold my influence
Husband now shouting "Cow! There's a cow in the road!" every time Bruno speaks. I blame @stuheritage 😆 #Strictly #scd
— Jayne (@Jaynee_R) November 5, 2016
SCORES: 8, 8, 8 and 8. Four fat ladies.
Last week Craig was mean to Greg. This week Craig says one bad thing about Greg and then says lots of nice things, because that how he’s judged everyone on Strictly Come Dancing without fail for the last three years.
The judges call Greg confident and good at dancing. Which means they’re really calling me confident and good at dancing. Vote for me, everyone *telephone fingers*.
Oh, I missed the dance. CONVENIENT.
This isn’t so much dancing, though, as sitting around on a sofa. I’m also sitting around on a sofa, so by that logic I can determine that I’d easily make it into the last half of Strictly Come Dancing. I’d probably win it, in fact. That’s how brilliant I am at sitting on sofas. God, I’m the all-time world champion of sitting on sofas.
This week. Oh god. My son sort of knows Greg Rutherford’s son, and now Greg Rutherford’s son is onscreen, so I’m ballsed here. I might as well go and make a cup of tea.
Next up are Greg Rutherford and Natalie Lowe. They’re doing a Viennese Waltz to You Don’t Own Me by Grace, which is apparently a type of dance, the name of a song and the person who sings it. Who knew?
SCORES: 9, 10, 10 and 10. And the room goes wild. Everyone is pretending to be very happy for her, and it’s lovely to see.
Bruno just had an accident in his pants. Definitely the highest score of the night.
Craig loved it, though. Highest score of the night?
Oh, she didn’t.
It’s good, I think. Louise Redknapp is quite good at dancing. I think Tess Daly might be about to tell her that everyone is standing up.
The Argentine Tango is a sexy dance. Louise keeps rubbing her legs and Kevin looks like he recently became so overcome with lust that he passed out face-first in a bowl of gravy browning.
This week, Louise Renknapp gets told off for displaying too much personality. This marks the first time this has ever happened in any situation in all of history.
Now it’s Louise Redknapp and Kevin Clifton. They’re doing the Argentine Tango to Tanguera by Sexteto Mayor, which sounds like a number from a musical about Operation Yewtree.
SCORES: 8, 9, 8 and 8. And Judge Rinder looks like he’s about to cry with happiness. I’d want him to win, if I was planning to ever watch any more Strictly after this.
Darcy just managed to get eight syllables out of the word ‘good’. She is a superwoman, and street parties should be held in her honour.
Oh, all the judges are talking about Rinder’s mouth too. Now I feel bad.
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Well, this is good. I especially like how Judge Rinder keeps opening his mouth so wide that he looks like a snake trying to swallow a boiled egg.
This week, Judge Rinder concentrates hard on his routine and doesn’t play snooker or go to a market or pretend to be Charlie Bloody Chaplin or anything, so I’ve suddenly become quite fond of him.
Who’s this? Why, it’s Judge Rinder and Oksana Platero. They’re dancing the Quickstep to the Chantz Powell version of It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing). I don’t know who Chantz Powell is, but his version had better sound like a baby going down a cobbled hill in a shopping trolley or else the Strictly house band are SCREWED.
Now for this week’s joke. It is Claudia Winkleman dressed as a Spaniard. This concludes this week’s joke.
Laura’s scores are 7, 8, 8 and 9. This will mean things to some of you.
Len said that Laura messed up, and then said it didn’t matter. Seriously, I haven’t seen someone with one eye trained so closely on the exit since the last time I glanced at a mirror.
I mean, I think this routine is good. Honestly, I have no idea. Strictly Come Dancing has been on for 40 minutes, and I think I’m all danced out. They could be wearing overalls and vomiting into buckets and I still wouldn’t be able to tell if it was a good dance or not. SUBTEXT: I am a poor hire for this liveblog.
Either they’ve put a fancy filter on the footage of Laura’s dance from last week, or she performed it as a regenerating Doctor Who.
Either way, this week Laura went to the Pride of Britain awards and made it all about her, so *thumbs-up emoji*.
Time for Laura Whitmore and Giovanni Pernice now. They’re doing the Samba to Bamboleo by Gipsy Kings because they apparently hate people with ears and must be punished.
I forgot to pay attention to Ed’s scores.
Have we talked about Ed Balls’ teeth yet? They look like the aftermath of a radioactive incident in a secondhand teapot factory.
From my X Factor days, I can pinpoint this as the moment in Ed Balls’ dancing career where he transitions between hilarious novelty act and serious dancer. And, from my X Factor days, I can confidently state that he’ll be gone in a fortnight.
Apparently Ed and his partner are trying to capture the spirit of that silent slapstick movie where nothing happens and a fat man dances in a barely adequate way for what feels like six consecutive months.
Ohh hoo, Ed Balls has got a plank of wood. Ooh hoo, he almost hit his partner with the face with it. Eee hee, what a hilarious man Ed Balls is.
This week in training, Ed Balls became a black and white movie star and lost the ability to act in a convincing manner. That is all.
It’s Ed Balls and Katya Jones now. They’re ostensibly dancing the Quickstep to Help by The Beatles, even though in reality Ed Balls will just flap about like a circus bear on an electrified plate and everyone will vote him through because his surname sounds like genitals.
Ore gets an 8, an 8, a 9 and another 9. Claudia tells him that he’s joint second, which is a nice way of saying last.
Tess reads the words ‘hip hip hooray’ off the palm of her hand and it’s the funniest and most spontaneous she’s ever been. Meanwhile the judges mostly liked the routine, except for Len who’s become fixated by Ore’s bottom, and Bruno who just screams noise like he’s standing on the hard shoulder trying to inform a lorry driver that there’s a cow on the motorway.
That said, is Ore doing that thing where he spends a lot of time looking at his partner dance because she’s far better than him?
I don’t know what a salsa is supposed to be like, but Ore’s partner is wearing a nice dress. See that observation? That’s why I’m paid the big bucks.
This week Ore is repeatedly told that he has to wiggle a lot. And Ore decides to achieve this by training hard and not, say, eating an out-of-date petrol station egg sandwich and contracting tapeworm. What a fool.
Now it’s Ore Oduba and Joanne Clifton. Their dance is a Salsa to Turn The Beat Around by Vicki Sue Robinson. You know what I’d like? If they turned the beat off. Am I right, weirdly devoted Strictly fans? Am I? Huh?
Full of false hope that she’s somehow won the public over, Daisy goes to visit Claudia and waits for the scores. They are 8, 8, 9 and another nine. It’s Daisy’s highest score so far. SHE IS DEFINITELY BEING ELIMINATED TOMORROW.
Tess tells Daisy that the audience is on their feet, because that’s pretty much the bulk of her job description at this stage. The judges are all slightly overdoing their praise for Daisy because they’re clearly embarrassed that she keeps ending up in the bottom two. They all loved it, so she’s going home tomorrow.
It’s not so much ‘set in a market’ as ‘performed near a pretend market stall’. That’s disappointing. Anyway, this is a Viennese Waltz so they’re both spinning around a lot and everything seems nice.
Daisy’s the one who everyone hates, isn’t she? Even though she’s good? Is that right? Anyway, their dance is going to be set in a market, so they both went to visit a market this week because neither of them apparently have the power to imagine what a market is like.
It’s time for Daisy Lowe and Aljaz Skorjanec. They’re dancing the Viennese Waltz to Daisy Bell by Harry Dacre, because she’s a Daisy and he’s a… no, that’s too easy. I shall not be goaded into cheap insults like this.
Danny gets a 9, a 10, another 9 and another 10. He seems pleased about this. I think. I’ve only ever really seen him pull one facial expression before, so realistically he could be scared or angry or nauseous. Who knows?
In more interesting news, it looks like Tess Daly is wearing an electronic ASBO tag around her arm tonight, so that’s something.
Now for the judges. They all seem to have realised that the word ‘Mac’ rhymes with things, so that’s basically the way this is heading.
I don’t really know what a jive is, but this looks acceptable. Danny’s doing the thing where you stick your leg out. He’s doing the thing where you look like you’re trying to murder a ton of spiders. He’s doing the thing where he touches his hair and pulls a face that makes him look as if he’s just accidentally ejaculated. Yes, that was a jive alright.
Last week, Danny apparently danced in a bad way. So this week they’re trying to counter that by playing lots of snooker instead of learning how to be better at dancing. And when I say ‘playing lots of snooker’ I mean filming a bunch of overdone reaction shots and then going home.
First up tonight: Danny Mac and Oti Mabuse. They’re apparently dancing the Jive to Long Tall Sally by Little Richard. Meanwhile, I once danced the Jive to Long Tall Richard by Little Sally and I was run out of town by an angry mayor. No, that’s a lie. I hate dancing and music.
Ooh, time to meet the judges. Good to see them stick to their tried and tested ‘walk to the tables like they’ve just lost all bowel control in a pubful of invisible monsters’ entrance shtick. Really good. Pleased they’re still doing that.
Here are Tess and Claudia. One of them is wearing a dress, another is wearing a pair of trousers. I hope that helps.
LAST WEEK: People danced, one of the judges was meaner than the others, that’s about it. THIS WEEK: we’re halfway through the series. Only halfway.
Right then. Strictly Come Dancing is about to start. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
To try and keep you Heidi Stephens fanatics happy, I just looked at her Instagram account to try and see all the glamorous backstage shenanigans she’s been getting up to tonight. Unfortunately she hasn’t uploaded anything yet. Unless she took this tonight, which I cannot possibly rule out.
The good thing about doing my sole Saturday night liveblogging stint of the year on November 5th is that all the fireworks make me feel like I’m in a warzone. Which seems fittings, in a way.
I’ve just realised that I’ve forgotten to do Heidi’s Strictly drinking game/bingo thing. Fine then. Off the top off my head:
- Tess Daly laughs at her own jokes.
There, that’ll do.
Hello world, and welcome to the Strictly Come Dancing liveblog. You will notice that I am not Heidi Stephens. Heidi is busy backstage at the Strictly studios for one reason or another. Some would say that she’s abandoned you, because she prizes cheap photo opportunities with disinterested dancers over her loyal readership, but I couldn’t possibly comment. Anyway, you’ve got me tonight. Sorry.
BRIEF DISCLAIMER: I hate Strictly Come Dancing, and dancing, and glitter, and audiences who clap in time to stuff, and most things. I don’t know who many of the contestants are. I definitely don’t know who any of the professional dancers are. I wouldn’t know a paso doble if it smacked me on the arse and I want this evening to be over just as quickly as you do. I don’t know why I was asked to do this, and I can only apologise.
There’s probably a theme tonight. From previous episodes I’ve seen, that theme is probably ‘Songs That The Strictly In-House Band Can’t Quite Nail’ again. Anyway, the show starts at 6:55. I’ll have lost the will to live by ten past seven, so that’ll be fun. See you soon.
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