3 is the tragic number

Week 2: 15 Couples Perform - Saturday 30^th September

Last week! All 15 celebrities danced-in the case of some of them, dancing in the loosest terms (Ruth, Simon, Brian, Richard). Mega ringer Aston topped the leaderboard in a display of confidence that, were he a woman, would have no doubt garnered him 18 Digital Spy threads and various Daily Mail articles about what a confident monster he was whilst mega ringer Debbie won all our hearts with the most outrageously filthy paso this show has ever seen and getting us all far more invested in Giovanni than has ever been the case before. The whole thing lasted for ever and Steve still has the blisters on his fingers to prove it. [Not even kidding, I've barely been able to type properly all week. - Steve]

Tonight! A show that is just as lengthy, followed by a 45 minute results show “tomorrow”and I am full of cold and in danger of losing my voice partway through (also the reason this is late – apologies). Hold me, I’m scared!

We begin with the pre-credits montage of everyone saying they don’t want to go, which ends on Alexandra - possibly as a preview of what is about to come, who can say? Cue credits! Looking at Debbie sitting saucily on Giovanni’s knee, the signs have been there from the very beginning, haven’t they?

As there is such a lot of show to get through, we are straight into business, with no pro-dance, which I’m grateful for the sake of my health, if nothing else. Our hosts enter. Daly dress watch: a mink coloured pantsuit that actually looks more flattering than it sounds. It is somewhat tight around the nipple, but given the way the trousers make men’s bums look, perhaps it’s just wardrobe offering something for those that like the ladies. What Winkleman’s wearing: black, lacy, off the shoulder. However, never mind what they are wearing, Darcey is the one trying to take the dressing to the next level-possibly to show that Shirley who is really the Queen round here (which: bless. Of all the judges on the panel, Darcey is the least likely to be crowned Queen). Whilst Shirley comes on in plain black and Bruno and Craig in black suits (Craig with a natty tie - well, natty in the sense that it’s the kind of thing Apprentice candidates wear in their opening VTs), Darcey is here in a long black dress with sheer panels covered in colourful flowers and butterflies. Personally, I like it, but then I have a fondness for all things garish (as my two-count-em-pairs of yellow converse will testify) and your mileage may vary.

Our pairs enter: Ruth and Anton; Davood and Nadiya; Mollie and AJ; Brian and Amy; Gemma and Aljaž; Simon and Karen; Debbie and Giovanni; Aston and Janette; Chizzy and Pasha; Richard and Dianne; Charlotte and Brendan; Joe and Katya; Susan and Kevin; Jonnie and Oti; Alexandra and Gorka. I’m really looking forward to there being far fewer of them, if only for the fact that writing their names takes FOREVER when the voice software gets about 40% of them correct (also, whilst on the subject of over-disclosing, every time I am sniffing with my cold, it’s interpreting it as ‘this’ - so if a few errant ones turn up here and there, you can be reminded of the great sacrifice I am making in the cause of blogging).

Observers of the intro dancing, note almost everyone is already half arsing it with Mollie looking particularly uncomfortable vaguely moving a single arm. Debbie and Giovanni are the only ones even bothering putting any effort in (naturally). I also love that we finally have located Giovanni’s personality and all it took was a mature ringer. Who knew? Perhaps we might even grow to appreciate AJ if, next year, he is paired with inevitable mega ringer star of the future Bonnie Langford? Note to producers: don’t actually do this - the many, many jokes about terrible showbiz children and recalls back to Bonnie as a youngster are really not something any of us ever need.

First up tonight are Chizzy and Pasha. They remind us that last week, Chizzy’s heel got caught in her dress, but they styled out the wardrobe malfunction (only to have it replayed over and over again afterwards). Chizzy’s sister comes to see them in rehearsals and that's all the VT we have time for with so many couples.

They are dancing a foxtrot to 'I'm A Woman', with a storyline about Chizzy not making Pasha breakfast or something because feminism, I assume? They are both dressed in bright purple, although Pasha’s purple shirt is mixed with a mauve waistcoat and trousers, the type of colour clash that you normally see on the afashionable likes of Anton or Kevin, but doesn’t work for Pasha. 

Chizzy is giving the dance plenty of personality - at the expense of technique. Full on skirt swishing and growls down the camera are what we’re talking here. That said, there are moments where she makes a reasonable attempt at the moves - particularly the footwork. Her top line is all over the place, though - and the whole thing doesn’t really feel like a foxtrot (this is not necessarily a bad thing in the minds of a lot of people - I know foxtrot is not exactly the most popular of the dances).

Two unidentified men in the audience, who I am assuming are team Chizzy, give it a standing ovation. We are introduced to the singers, Dave Arch and the orchestra (including the Man in the Hat) and then it’s over to the judges. Shirley says it was a little disappointing for her because she considers the foxtrot as the Rolls-Royce of all ballroom dances, it needs to be gliding and smooth, but she found this performance a bit too lumpy for her taste and although she loves Chizzy’s personality, she would have liked some more sophistication. Chizzy says she is more of a Beetle girl than a Rolls-Royce one (if only you were a Beatle girl, Chizz, you could have done it for LIVERPOOL.  But more on that later). Bruno says he’s going to put her on the naughty step if she carries on and that she is being ‘too sassy, too soon’ - which I feel could make an excellent T-shirt slogan - because the performance made her lose the style of the dance. As if Chizzy had any control over that. Craig said it had too much gapping and she was too far over to Pasha’s right and that he wanted to see more foxtrot and less musical theatre. He said she was also looking down too much, but she does have an amazing sense of musicality – his new euphemism for 'rhythm'. Darcey says she doesn’t want to cut any of her enthusiasm and that she travelled across the dancefloor - not necessarily with long gliding steps, but with a sense of performance. Helpful as ever. Tess says ‘we can’t get enough of that Chizzy charm’ - but will the viewing public think the same, given she is not especially famous compared to the rest of the cast and the great British public has such a good track record at voting for larger women and/or black women over the age of 35? 

They go to the Clauditorium, where Simon attempts to do an arch over their heads but is the only one raising his hand so looks incredibly odd and I kind of like how endearingly awkward that was, so I’m warming to him slightly #fickle. Chizzy then pulls her weave, which is slipping, and apologises to all the black women around the world who'll be telling her not to do it. Scores: three (and this isn’t the last time we will see that paddle tonight); five; four; four for a total of 16. Ouch.

Claudia then reminds us that the scores will be added to the totals from last week before reading out the terms and conditions over Black Box’s Ride on Time (apparently not the tune she was expecting). Chizzy tries to mouths along with the autocue, before giving up, grabbing Simon and dragging him into front of shot to steal the limelight once more. Everyone dances along and Ruth shows far more dancing prowess in 10 seconds of this than she did in the whole of last week’s routine.

The second couple of the evening are Aston and Janette. Their VT involves them going to a field with some yurts in it, ostensibly for the glamping experience, although clearly they just rocked up to do a quick video and run away again. The rationale behind this is to get them into the festival vibe for their dance - although, of course, it should be noted that this appears to be some random camping field and there is not another person in sight, never mind any sense of festival atmosphere. My favourite thing about this whole VT is how un-invested in the whole comedy VT process Aston really is.

They are dancing a salsa to ‘Despacito’, which has been trailed all week, both for using one of the most popular songs of the last year and for having some death-defying lifts. The fact that it has appeared in the death slot suggests that the problems we were seeing with this dance from rehearsal footage during the week (not least Aston biffing the lifts so badly that Janette NEARLY DIED!1!!1!) mean the show’s expectations for it have become somewhat lower as the week has gone on.

With Janette being a salsa specialist or whatever she is, I have hopes for this dance nonetheless. 

It has its merits, to be sure. Their multicoloured costumes (Jannette’s being made from the off-cuts in Vicky Gill’s bin, how eco-friendly) work with the festival theme of the dance and it starts generally pretty well in that it is very pacey and fun. However, the problems are evident very quickly. Aston can certainly move, but his hips lack a sense of rotation. As for the lifts, whilst none of them go as disastrously wrong as in rehearsals, they don’t exactly go right either (there’s one neat move where she is flung under his legs early on but that’s the only one that really excited me). Indeed, this dance suffers quite a lot in comparison to Jake Wood’s salsa. Janette has clearly tried to recreate that magic by using some of the same moves, but whilst they felt novel and exciting then, here they feel like Queen trying to recreate their greatest hits with Adam Lambert. Sure, the new guy has talent in his own way, but it’s just not the same and it doesn't feel as new or exciting.  It’s true that Aston has a greater sense of flow between movements than Jake did (watching again, Jake’s performance is somewhat stilted in places, especially transitioning from move to move), and he is keeping up with the ridiculous speed, but it still feels as if it should have been a whole fireworks display but is really just a fairly pretty Catherine wheel. To compound that feeling, it ends, not with a flourish, but with a misjudged lift in which Janette’s skirt is halfway over her head so we see half of their knickers and he nearly drops her when she’s coming down from it. I mean, it’s not terrible, but it’s so clearly missed the bar it was aiming for. [Considering salsa is Janette's specialty, Aston slightly biffing it did leave me worrying a bit for him in terms of how he'll cope with the genres she's less experienced in. - Steve]

Tess says it looked like a showdance. Talk about a backhanded compliment. Bruno says it contained the most difficult lifts he’s seen in a salsa and that Janette was lucky not to have ended up in traction. He says it is almost perfection and that his hand is on ‘the paddle’ but for the final lift which was a little unbalanced (/an unholy mess). Craig points out the problems with the lifts and notes that Aston didn’t have a strong figure eights in his hips, although praises the performance and rhythm of the piece. Darcey praises him for keeping his cool in a dance of that speed and praises Janette for the amount of detail in the dance. Shirley says she loved it, loved it and loved it some more. She says a stumble is what happens in dance sometimes and tells him he needs to watch his sickled feet and that she doesn’t want to tell him a third time about it. 

Scores: seven, eight (and if you are wondering if Darcey is doing that thing where she pulls a face at Craig’s score then goes on to only give one higher, then, yes, of course she is) eight, nine for a total of 32. It’s apparently more than they got last week, which I’m not really feeling but I suppose it’s only one mark.

The third couple of this evening are Susan and Kevin, and my DVR decided to cut out the whole of their footage until they came over to the judges, so I went to watch it on iPlayer, which then promptly crashed, so it took me quite a few goes to even see this dance. They’re lucky that I like them, there are certain others I might not have bothered for (oh hi Brian/Simon).  Their VT acts as a promo for Susan’s new BBC series Armchair Detective, as they do their rehearsals around her filming.

They are performing the Charleston to a song I’ve never heard before, called 'If You Knew Susie'. And in case you were wondering, Komedy Kevin is locked and loaded after being released from the torture of having to do four finals in a row what a tragedy. The dance focuses on Kevin as Susan’s defence solicitor. It’s not entirely clear what her crime is meant to have been, possibly stalking? Anyway, it goes without saying that the comedy value of the dance is played for all its worth. Susan’s height gives a sense of cheeky charm to proceedings, although does somewhat disadvantage her in terms of legwork.  It ends with Susan pleading with the judges/jurors, which is one of the most thought through bits of storytelling I’ve seen in a comedy routine for a while. Technically, it’s really not great (lack of swivel or flex in particular), and has no doubt suffered from Susan’s attentions being on the day job, but it is fun and should be enough to see them comfortably through until next week assuming the rest of the lower end of the pack don’t all pull out blinders tonight.

As they go over to Tess, Susan’s teeth are completely covered in red lipstick and Tess eventually does the wiping teeth motion to alert her several comments in. Viva la sisterhood! Craig says swivel is the basic requirement of the dance and she had none. Darcey praises her for making the dance her own because she is now apparently the Louis Walsh of this panel (hey, at least she stopped short of saying Susan reminded her of a little Janette Krankie, even if that might have been a comparison some of us had in mind not me honest I love Susan). Shirley says they were entertaining, coordinated and synchronised and that she loved it. Bruno says she is guilty of having too much fun and calls it ‘Pan’s people gone demented’ in his latest attempt to whip up moral outrage. Oh, and she should sort her footwork out, too. Scores: an all over the shop 3 (which gets resoundingly booed), 6, 7 (at which Karen Clifton pulls a ‘you have got to be kidding me’ face right in the middle of the camera gawd love her), 6 for an overall 22. 

Charlotte and Brendan now, and their VT begins by reminding us how surprisingly decent she was in ballroom… before covering a floor-based spin that keeps going wrong in rehearsals - including the dress rehearsal - and Charlotte ominously noting that if it goes wrong on the night, it could ruin the whole routine. It’s always somewhat baffling to me why couples persist in attempting movements that keep going on in rehearsals when it comes to the live shows. Surely if you can’t get it right often enough in rehearsal there’s a good chance it will go wrong on the day as well? (Aston and Janette had the same problem but at least he had more base material to work with than poor Charlotte.)

They are dancing the cha cha to ‘Sugar’ (which isn’t a brilliant song in the first place and the Strictly singers don’t particularly seem to get on with it). It begins with Brendan (in his best Saturday Night Fever-esque white suit) groping Charlotte’s breasts and that’s pretty much as good as it gets. Vicky Gill’s magic tassling on the dress does an excellent job at making it look as though she’s spinning and turning much more successfully than she actually manages, because this is an unholy mess. She is walking, rather than dancing, through part of it, almost stops still entirely in a couple of parts and looks completely terrified the whole time.  She doesn’t seem to know what to do with her arms and Brendan visibly pushes her into position in multiple places. Then comes the spin and she pulls a face going into it, clearly hating it, and whilst she doesn’t fall completely flat on her arse, they do stumble and this clearly knocks her confidence so much that she can’t get back into it, losing the timing, forgetting the moves, and the whole thing completely falls to pieces, with both of them grimacing throughout.  Poor Charlotte.

As they go over to the judges, Tess has to tell Bruno off for laughing at Charlotte’s misfortune, which is always a good start. [This should've been where Tess said "that looked like a showdance", because we all know *which* showdance it looked like. - Steve] Even Darcey can’t bring herself to say anything positive, resorting instead to telling Charlotte she should get into character (spoiler: maybe she should talk to Mollie about that), and think about being ‘Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman or something’. [She needed to...be a hooker? Not quite following Darcey's logic there. - Steve] She tells Charlotte repeatedly that it’s a shame it went wrong but that she is a good looking woman so there’s that.  Shirley says the routine should maybe have been made more simple for her.  Brendan says the routine was spot on in practice.  Not according to the training footage, Brendan.  Bruno repeats that she is a beautiful woman and tells Brendan off for dragging her around the floor and looking at points like he was sweeping the floor with her. Craig brings out his ‘complete dance dis-ah-stah’ line and tells her the positive is that she won’t have to do it again-what, even if she gets in the dance off? Scores: two, four, three, three for a total of 12 and the joint second lowest score for a cha-cha ever. Brendan is completely fuming.

On the subject of people who did better than expected last week, we now come to Joe and Katya. Their training VT focuses on how pleased they were to get a good response and sees Joe being this year’s first recipient of the stick a broom handle on the back to improve your posture technique. Continuing the trend of downer VTs, Joe tells us he has been struggling with this dance in rehearsals. Great!

So what song have our dart throwing monkeys come up with for their tango? Yet another entirely inappropriate one: ‘Castle On A Hill’. It’s way too fast, meaning Joe is up against it from the very beginning. To think they wasted a perfect tango choice ('Temptation') on Brian last week as well. The theme of this dance is Scotland and Scottishness and involves a lot –  like a Len-baiting amount, if Len were still here - of mucking about with a wardrobe selecting kilts and waistcoats at the beginning - and he doesn’t even wear a kilt in the end, what a cheat. Unsurprisingly, you can’t tango very well to Ed Sheeran and this dance feels like Joe is fighting the music the whole time. His posture is appalling and he is stumbling all over himself to try and keep up. As with Brendan and Charlotte, Katya is pushing him into position a lot of the time, although she is marginally better at distracting us from it than Brendan was, using her skirt to hide the worst of his movements. Tonight’s going so well, isn’t it?

Over with the judges, Shirley says there was too much messing about at the beginning, his frame was all wrong, there shouldn’t have been any rise and fall in the tango and she believes in him, but today wasn’t his day. Bruno says he spent so much time in the wardrobe - and full marks to Bruno for not saying closet - and wondered if he was going to Narnia. He says he was skipping around like a March hare, but the tango is a jaguar. He says that was too much impetus and no control-the music really didn’t help that, did it? Craig says there was too much energy, his thumb was up, his hand was splayed and knows he can do better. Darcey says everybody else has already said it and he had too much energy but he can come back and be great. 

In the Clauditorium, Claudia points out they only had five days to do this dance compared to a fortnight for the previous one-although surely that’s the same for everybody? Joe says it was just too fast. He’s not wrong. Scores: 5, 6, 5, 6 for a total of 22.

If you were thinking that surely they must throw in a good routine now to break up proceedings, you’d be wrong. I’m not saying this year’s cast is somewhat lacking in dance flair, I’m just saying it looks a little bit that way at the moment. Anyway, here’s Brian!

His VT storyline centres around him wanting to show off personality at the expense of technique and Amy putting paper under his shoes to get him to work on his footwork (the idea being that if he does a heel lead, the paper will slide out so she knows ) whilst still barely getting any words in edgeways.

Their cha-cha is a 70s themed disco Latin routine to 'Shake Your Groove Thing'. It gives Brian a lot of opportunity to gurn away as if his life depends on it and you either like that or you don’t, but I suspect most of us fall in the don’t category. His posture is terrible - hunched over most of the time.  There’s a really annoying fake out ending where the music stops whilst he’s on the floor doing the half splits (ie stretching one leg out) before eventually kicking in again-and I feel that such a fake out is only really valuable when the dance is interesting enough to merit it, but then I’m a curmudgeon who is full of cold so maybe after a few Saturday night sherries this would seem quite exciting to a certain kind of viewer. I’m not sure who that kind of viewer is, but the BBC does aim to provide something for everyone, I guess. It descends into a badly done moonwalk, which I’m sure is just what Michael Jackson expected his legacy to be. Next year, let’s look forward to Bobby Davro in full Ziggy Stardust mode as a tribute to David Bowie (actually, that doesn’t sound any worse than this). He does, however, have a decent sense of timing and doesn’t fall over, so that’s something anyway. It gets a standing ovation, I suspect primarily because the audience had had enough of cringing through the mistakes in Charlotte and Joe’s that even something they are meant to cringe at because it’s so cheesy comes as a welcome relief.

Bruno says he has a severe case of Saturday night fever, the flu and influenza. I am not entirely sure what Bruno thinks the difference between the flu and influenza is, but as we all know, the mind of Bruno Tonioli is a weird and wonderful place. He says that the footwork got stuck in the 70s, but as an entertainer he is great. Craig says he thought it was very stompy and gets resoundingly booed. Sigh. Darcey says he needs to watch his arms and she thought the moonwalk was spectacular (?!) [I suppose it certainly was a spectacle - Steve] but not enough to save the dance - although she enjoyed the homage to the 70s – ie the part neither he nor Amy could control.  Shirley tells him to stop shying away from the technical aspects of the dance and learn his choreography but that he might be a frontrunner in terms of entertainment. In a competition where Debbie McGee did what she did last week? I know entertainment when I see it, Shirley Ballas.

They get cheered an earsplittingly loud amount as they bounce up to the Clauditorium, which I can only assume is the audience’s relief at watching someone who is supposed to be bad rather than someone who just flubs it like most of the others tonight.  Brian tells Claudia that he thought he might have split his trousers when he did the splits. Just to clarify Brian, you definitely did not do the splits in that routine.  Scores: three, five, five, six for a total of 19. I love how surprised Amy is when Darcey gives them a five, bless her.

Gemma and Aljaž now.  Tess tells us they’re doing a song from Romeo and Juliet and calls them a ‘lovestruck couple’. I know you love a showmance, Tess, but is it a good idea to start rumours about a dancer who just got married to another dancer on the same show? The VT storyline shows her struggling in training so she takes Aljaž home to meet her DED NORMAL family where she is magically cured of her struggles through the power of lasagne and home video.

Their waltz is to ‘Un Giorno Per Noi’ and it’s your standard Aljaž Skorjanec Lovely Waltz – with attendant lovely lighting, wardrobe and hair.  It’s not setting the world on fire, but it’s tasteful, elegant and a nice palate cleanser after what we’ve just seen.  They do a floor spin that actually works and Gemma’s prospects are looking a lot better than they did last week.

Tess patronises her by calling her CHUCK and LUV in a north-off. Wonder if this is what it’s like chez Daly-Kay every night? [*shudder* - Steve] Craig says her rise and fall were great, although to watch her leg when she turns out. Darcey says she had great control over the rise and fall and has a strong core but needs to watch when she finishes her lines. Shirley calls it a huge improvement and she’s worked on the toe-toe-toe-flat in the footwork as well as coping with the change in the pace of the music. Bruno says it was so much better and she needs to believe in herself. Aljaž squees ‘ooh, it was all so lovely!’ 

In the Clauditorium, Aljaž still seems overwhelmed for some reason.  Scores: 6, 6, 7, 7 for a total of 26.

Richard (I'm just not with the Rev. I know quite a few vicars and none of them use it outside of when they have to, so it just sounds weird and TBH I'm just not one for honorifics anyway, never using my own unless I need to professionally) and Dianne now and we’re reminded that Craig gave him a 2 last week. So what, Tess, he’s already chucked one Charlotte’s way tonight as well as dishing out 3s like there’s no tomorrow.  They go to watch Richard and Mariella Frostrup filming The Big Painting Challenge, coming soon to your BBC One, don’t forget to watch, in what looks like an aircraft museum. They don’t bother doing any training but Dianne paints a six-year-old-style picture of Richard, so hooray for the arts anyway.

Their American Smooth (to ‘Love Really Hurts Without You’) is about – I think – a couple separated by distance.  She wears a cork hat (with glittery corks) because she is AUSTRALIAN and he eats a pork pie because he is ENGLISH. Love overcomes all, though, which we know because they are united by a shared love for brown, sack-shaped ballroom outfits (Dianne in particular looks a STATE). He has a decent enough sense of timing and you can see he’s trying hard, and there’s a decent couple of lifts, but it’s still mostly a clumpy mess. He ends by grabbing a plate of cakes from the set and carrying them over to the judges as a bribe. Heh. 

Darcey says you can really see him trying and she appreciates that. Shirley echoes that, saying he had a good song choice (which I’m sure he had a lot to do with) and she likes that he keeps in time, even though the dance needed more content. Bruno calls it an Australian Bender rather than an American Smooth. Tess says to Craig that she hopes it’s better than a measly 2. Have you seen Craig’s scoring tonight, Tess? Craig says the petals falling in the background had more grace and Tess tells him to watch out as Richard has a friend upstairs. Craig vs God isn’t going to get old quickly at all, is it? 

In the Clauditorium, Richard and Claudia both agree they like a bit of Australian rough.  Given Jonnie’s near complete transformation into Chris Hemsworth, he might need to start watching out for them. Scores: 3, 4, 5, 5 for a total of 17.

Because either this show has little sense of how to space out the good and bad dances or because, well, there aren’t that many good ones, we’re onto Ruth and Anton.  Anton goes to the set of This Morning and Eamonn passive-aggresively calls him Brendan.  Such larks!

The Charleston itself is traditional in terms of look and music (a piece called ‘Charleston’ indeed) – Ruth wears a brown bob and everything.  However, it is one of the most polite, mumsiest Charlestons I’ve seen in some time. Whilst Susan’s was sloppy but energetic, Ruth’s has a little more in terms of attempts at technique, but no energy or stretch – she’s stiff throughout and every time she moves she looks vaguely apologetic, as if she’s been allowed a sniff of liquor and is ever so concerned she might fall over in front of the vicar and embarrass us all. Don’t worry Ruth, the vicar is doing a good enough job of that all by himself. [I can't decide if this was a deliberate character choice or if Ruth was absolutely zonked on painkillers for her hamstring injury. Or maybe both? - Steve]

In the audience, Ruth’s son looks faintly embarrassed as teenage sons do. Shirley says she was 100% better this week, mostly staying on time and remembering her choreography. Bruno calls her a good flapper and says she could have had some more cocktails down her to go more crazy. Craig says the dance needed 80% more energy than she gave it. Darcey says she likes seeing the self-belief and wants Ruth to come back stronger next week.

In the Clauditorium, Ruth says she pulled her hamstring this week and that’s a dancer’s injury. Anton says now she’s a dancer, she’ll get a ‘split end’ next week, oo-er missus etc. Scores: 3, 5, 6, 6 for a total of 20.

There’s no let up in the parade of duffers, as here come Simon and Karen! Their VT somehow seems to focus on the two vaguely good comments they got last week about being powerful rather than the car crash the performance actually was. This week, they’re dancing to ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ which is an excuse to talk about LIVERPOOL and go to ANFIELD and sport is bad enough when there’s an actual SPORTSMAN never mind a fan, so let’s not.

This is not a good choice for a waltz – it’s usually performed in 6/8 or 4/4 time depending on version and it doesn’t transpose well into 3/4 time however much the song-choice monkeys might wish it did. The singer struggles with this timing as well. As for the dancing – he is not as terrible in hold as last week, but he simply cannot cope with spinning her and literally throws her about with as much grace as Charlotte trying to cha cha. But it still gets pyrotechnics because LIVERPOOL. (And yes, it feels uncomfortable being snarky about Liverpool given the genuinely tragic circumstances associated with that song in particular but I really, really wish they hadn’t chosen this - especially for a duffer - because it feels quite crass and like something they’d do on The X Factor).

Tess tells Simon it must have meant a lot and he says ‘yes, and that’s the end of it’ and gives her a death glare. Bruno says it started well but then fell apart.  Craig says it’s a shame as it showed promise and he felt for him when it went wrong and that Simon was perhaps too focused on technique at the expense of performance.  Darcey says he had stature at the start and it’s hard to hold on to that and she could sense he was overcome by emotion.  Shirley says she’s not going to focus on technique and hugs him and cries because the song means LIVERPOOL.

Scores: 4, 4, 6, 5 for a total of 19 and Claudia says Liverpool are playing tomorrow ‘so good luck boys, grrr, or whatever it is’. Hee.

Coming up, Mollie getting into her inner Julia Roberts, tonight’s most unlikely sponsor.

In the audience, Tess is with Rochelle and Marvin Humes.  Tess says ‘Rochelle you’re backing Mollie because you’re a Saturday and Marvin you’re backing Aston because you’re JLS’ and they both say not really, they’re supporting Ruth because team ITV and Tess pulls a face – the reason for which appears to be that Eammon Holmes is lurking behind her, so who wouldn’t have that reaction.

Mollie and AJ now, who had a poor first week, but Jess Glynne appeals to her to ‘don’t be so hard on yourself no’ by the medium of VT backing music. [I found out from a friend this week that if you fly on Jet2 you have to listen to that wretched Jess Glynne song from the ad on a loop for about 20 minutes while boarding. And here we were thinking the conditions on board Ryanair were the worst. - Steve] AJ tells her she needs to get into character for the tango, but instead of getting in an acting coach, he’s given her a camera to record herself. I don’t know either. Maybe this storyline will get some sort of payoff in Halloween week via some found footage? Anyway, she invents the character of ‘Tallulah the Tango Queen’ who Mollie tells us is fierce but appears from training footage to still be incredibly posh and polite. Also: AJ’s hair is getting to a RIDICULOUS size can someone cut it please.

Their tango to the Tina Turner version of ‘Addicted to Love’ (me neither) opens with Mollie in greyscale save for her red dress and lippy, and her pretending to put lippy on then throwing it away like an unconvincing badass bitch. I wouldn’t say Tallulah is a fierce tango warrior, but she does have a haughty indifference that actually works with the staccato nature of the movements (and their complete lack of chemistry) – it’s a cool, rather than hot, tango, but it works.  It’s clumsy in places and not a showstopper, but much more promising than her jive, thank god. [I would say she was definitely channeling Emma Roberts more than Julia though. - Steve]

Craig points out that there was an illegal lift – so these are a thing again? He liked her attack, however. Darcey is impressed with her improvement. Shirley says it was the best tango so far – which is quite a backhanded compliment considering the field – and that she held her frame. Bruno tells her not to wobble when leaning into her partner and to demonstrate, leans into Shirley as the audience inhale and Tess gets ready to be very very sorry, but reaches past her and screeches ‘I didn’t touch anything!’

Scores: 4, 6, 8, 7 for a total of 25 and you guys, I love Shirley – I think she is the breath of fresh air this show needed and brings so much to proceedings… but her scoring completely and utterly baffles me (I think Craig’s 4 is also unjustified, to be fair).

Jonnie and Oti now and Tess attempts to make a joke about even the jive being a slow dance for Jonnie because he’s so fast and her eyes scream that she is dying inside at delivering that and if even Tess knows how bad her script is then the writers really need to up their game. The VT? Jonnie is fast and a SPORTSMAN. Yawn.

Their jive is to ‘Johnny B Goode’ (see what they did there etc) and it’s sloppy, raucous and so much fun. The setting is a wild west saloon and it certainly has the vibe of someone who’s had a few and thinks they are invincible in that it’s dancing on the edge of disaster much of the time – he frequently looks like he might drop her; his long hair is down and flapping everywhere (note, as a fan of gents with shaggy long blonde hair this is not a criticism) [can I also just add PHWOAR - Steve]; there’s a clumsy somersault, there’s no sharpness in the technique, especially with his arms that just swing about all over the place – but it’s fast, it’s bouncy, it’s full of gusto and it’s danced with massive grins on their faces that are infectious. Forget Brian, that is how to use performance to hide problems in technique.

Tess says he got a new blade for this dance – how’s that for commitment – and asks him how it was.  He says 'tough'. I love him.

Darcey says she loved his energy, even if his arms were all over the place.  Shirley loved his kicks and flicks and the speed with which he manoeuvred.  Bruno says if it looks and feels good then it’s good – and he’s goooood. Craig says there were a couple of moments of hesitation which was probably him getting used to the new blade, and that his arms need as much work as his legs, but it was brilliant overall. Scores: 6 (and it’s testament to how great the standard has been tonight that this gets huge cheers), 7, 8, 8 for a total of 29 and everyone is very happy about that. It was probably overmarked but nonetheless a real boost to proceedings.

It’s usually at this point in time when I tell myself I just have two people left to watch – Davood and Alexandra – and then get a rude awakening when someone I’ve forgotten turns up, so I must stop myself getting too excited that the end is sight. You think you’ve been waiting days for this recap?  Imagine writing it. WHEN ILL. #wrongshow (do they still do sob stories on TXF? I’ve stopped watching it altogether). [Oh yes. - Steve, Who Is Somehow Still Watching]

And… I CAN’T BELIEVE I FORGOT DEBBIE AND GIOVANNI HOLY (STEP) MOTHER PLEASE FORGIVE ME.

Last week they did an amazing mega-ringer paso made of pure filth and got huge scores and Debbie is all nonchalant about this as if we couldn’t love her more.  This week they have the Viennesse Waltz and on ITT she basically called the dance out for being super easy and dismissed the usual ‘but it makes you sick it’s so EXTREME’ storyline the show usually pulls.  Because it’s a piece of cake, they have more time for comedy VTs and whilst I may not always like these, I do when they involve this pair. If you thought it couldn’t get more ‘likely to turn into porn at any moment’ than last week’s bondage extravaganza, then think again. Catering for a different niche, but nevertheless a FILTHY one, they are playing the roles of rich old lady with a boat and handsome young gigolo who comes to steal her heart, her loins and her riches, the cad.

As if to make it better, Debbie’s boat is actually called ‘The Lovely Debbie McGee’. It’s not a Howards Way-style power yacht, or even a Bullseye-style speedboat, but a tiny riverboat, which makes me love it even more. Giovanni says he’s excited ‘because maybe Debbie will let me sell the boat’ – and you might think it’s just his accent and he was trying to say ‘sail’ but that’s just what he wants you to think, the CAD. Debbie says Giovanni LOVED being the captain, they get drunk, the camera cuts off because we’re pre-watershed. Next week! Giovanni comes round to fix her washing machine etc.

Their Viennese Waltz is to ‘She’s Always a Woman to Me’ and it’s camply, ridiculously, over-the-top sickly sweet and pretty and Giovanni looks the happiest I have ever seen him and when it ends Debbie looks right down the camera with a smile and a steely stare to let us all know that mega-ringer domination is so ON. Amazing.

Tess says ‘oh yes, Debbie’ in a way that suggests she’s got a certain something out of this pairing too. Shirley says you can tell that Giovanni has such respect for Debbie and calls Debbie a ‘beautiful English rose’ (mm-hmmm). Bruno praises the fluidity of her body (perv), Craig gives an ‘uh-may-zing’ for the biggest cheer of the night, and Darcey says she makes it look effortless. Well yeah, that’s not surprising seeing as she spent the week calling it a piece of piss. Scores: 8, 9, 9, 8 for a total of 34, which Giovanni calls beautiful. Well, it's either the score or Debbie, anyway.

And now for the show’s beta sexy couple, Davood (whose name Dragon already knows on my second recap of the year, despite it never learning Aljaž’s across lots of mentions over two years and is also refusing to learn the name Katya) and Nadiya. Nadiya says their dance is set in a library, where the storyline is that they bump into each other in the library and fun sexy dance times ensue. To get into the mood, they go to a library - which looks like it might be in part of the British Library (although not a part I recognise particularly) after closing hours and run around playing pranks with whoopee cushions and suchlike. Such LARKS!

They are dancing the quickstep to ‘Last Nite’, which is such an obvious quickstep song choice that I am completely shocked it hasn’t been chosen before. Especially when ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ has been used approximately 80 billion times. At this point I want to give a shout out to the stage team who have assembled a full bookcase of books as part of the set for this dance-to be used precisely once. The story is that they are both geeks (you can tell because they are wearing glasses and Davood wearing braces - of the clothing variety, not the teeth variety) who meet after bumping into each other in the library and are transformed by the power of dance into attractive rebels-there’s even the Plain Jane Super Brain feel of removing the glasses and shaking out the hair from Nadiya, and an unbuttoning of the shirt from Davood. Transformed, they jump on to the desk and get into shagging  position. The end. Still got nothing on Debbie and Giovanni though. It’s incredibly cute, very fast, very fun and has really cool (but naughty) lift where she jumps into one of his arms exactly in time with the accented beat. The footwork is a bit sloppy and he goes out of time at one point, and shaking off their geek gear takes too long, but still enjoyable to watch.

Tess says it’s the noisiest library she’s ever been in, and I never had Tess down for being much of a library user how judgemental of me. Bruno is, of course, hot under the collar and says it was steamy and a race to the bedroom and the audience act mildly outraged and he goes on about the hot rough sex they’re having and how the dance was also a bit like that and it’s very much like when Bake Off went from a few cheeky innuendos to focusing on people wanking off dough for ages going LOOK HERE. But, you know, Bruno. Craig says it was a little rough and there was an illegal lift they didn’t need but he liked the energy. Darcey adored the energy and lightness. Shirley decides to be all rules lawyer and criticises the illegal lift and faffing about. Craig pulls a ‘and yet you gave Simon a hug, tears and a 6 for LIVERPOOL’ face down the camera which is quite fun.

In the Clauditorium we are given the message that Davood has no dance experience unlike these other ringers in case you need an underdog narrative to buy into.  Scores: 6, 7, 7, 7 for a total of 27.

And we’re here! The pimp slot with Alexandra and Gorka. She talks about remembering her mum in the dance last week without us yet having had the fact her mum recently died made explicit. As we said previously, it’s great they’re not being mawkish but it may also confuse people who don’t follow celebrity news. Sad moment over, they have a comedy VT involving Alexandra riding a mechanical bull to prepare for the paso and she could probably do with a laugh, so OK.

They’re dancing to what seems to be a Spanish-language version of ‘On the Floor’ aka 'JLo does the Macarena' and Alexandra looks like a particularly mercenary seaside psychic, all bejewelled teal headband and grimacing, but that aside, she really attacks this one. The caping with her skirt is dynamic, she gives fantastic kicks with her long legs and you can really feel the emotion throughout – it looks almost quite cathartic for her. With Giovanni last week and Gorka this, Kevin better watch out – there are some real contenders for his paso crown.  I loved that. 

Tess says Darcey, Shirley and Bruno gave it a standing ovation, but what about Craig?  In response, he stands, claps and punches the air and Alexandra full on hyperventilates and grabs Tess’s hand so hard it looks like she might break it, which is quite a feat giving how Tess is usually the one doing claw hands. Darcey is overcome, loving the light and shade in it and the fan kicks. They go to Shirley whom Alex is clearly in awe of, especially after last week. Shirley praises the technique and Bruno says she blew him away. He really has had a special time tonight. Alexandra pulls Gorka in for a big squeeze, as any reasonable person would.

In the Clauditorium, Claudia reminds us Alexandra had only a week of training which makes Joe’s sob story earlier in the show look a bit pathetic, poor Joe.  Scores: 9, 9, 9, 9 for a total of 36 and triple the score of Charlotte and Brendan, what a crazy night.

Shall we have a combined leaderboard for last week and this?  Why yes, especially when you see who’s sitting at the top:

Debbie and Giovanni 30+34 = 64

Aston and Janette 31+32=63

Alexandra and Gorka 24+36=60

Davood and Nadiya 27+27=54

Joe and Katya 29+22=51

Jonnie and Oti 20+29 = 49

Mollie and AJ 23+25=48

Gemma and Aljaž 20+26 = 46

Susan and Kevin 20+22=42

Chizzy and Pasha 21+16=37

Ruth and Anton 16+20=36

Simon and Karen 17+19=36

Brian and Amy 16+19=35

Charlotte and Brendan 22+12=34

Richard and Dianne 17+17=34

I’d say pretty much anyone in the lower half could be in danger. I guess we’ll see which out of Brian, Richard, Susan and Chizzy are picking up the ENTERTAINING votes, whether or not playing the "I hope the whole of Liverpool votes for you" card has worked for Simon or the doing it for the middle aged vote has worked for Ruth.  I’d call Charlotte a very likely contender for bottom two but maybe people will recall how surprisingly good she was last week and throw her some votes out of sympathy.  

Before we learn who’ll be first boot, we’ll have a whole heap of filler to get through, including Emily Sunday because it’s apparently five years ago. Join me tomorrow for the results!