A Sky Full of 24s

Week 6: Top 7 Perform - 28 November 2020

Last week! A weird collective delusion that if you say BLACKPOOL enough times, you’ll actually be there, and an equally weird set of marks, plus another addition to the canon of weird Aljaž sambas.

Tonight! (Not)BLACKPOOL hangover week, always a highlight of any Strictly year (and always my turn to recap for some reason). [I swear I don't do this to you on purpose. - Steve] Plus! The return of Motsi!

Cue credits! Honestly, I think the main problem with Caroline was that she never quite lived up to the camp promise of that amazing credits pose.

Our hosts enter, and I’ll still never get used to them just walking on rather than coming down the stairs. Daly Dresswatch: purple and sparkly with a very weird split between the legs that looks like someone cut it wrong. What Winkleman’s wearing: black trousers and a cream pussy bow blouse, classic. Both have fab hair and make up tonight. They remind us that five different couples have topped the leaderboard (although HRVY managed it twice) so it’s anyone’s game. I look forward to a JJ victory tonight then.

The judges enter: Shirley’s in a pearly suit that looks like your nan’s handbag, Motsi’s in a dress made out of wallpaper. Nice wallpaper that you’d see in the boudoir of a Duke and Duchess or something, but wallpaper all the same. She’s also wearing elaborate door knockers as earrings which is commitment to a look, I grant you. Craig’s in all black, but with some sparkles on his lapels. For the first time this series, Craig wins, I think. Shirley also looks like she’s limping a bit, hope she’s OK. Motsi says she’s glad to be here rather than confined to watching from home, and I’m glad to see her too.

The couples arrive: Clara and Aljaž; JJ and Amy; Maisie and Gorka; Ranvir and Giovanni; Jamie and Karen; HRVY and Janette; Bill and Oti. Only a few of these people look good. The audience cheers really loud, and I do really appreciate that they’re trying to compensate for the lack of audience numbers but I hope there are enough Strepsils to sustain them through the evening or the final couple’s reaction will be a few pained croaks.

Clara and Aljaž

Last week, Aljaž killed samba a bit more than he already has and they plummeted to the bottom of the leaderboard. Still Clara seems more resolute than you might expect from how nervy she’s been at some points this series. Aljaz arranges a ‘surprise’ for her, which she hopes will be a call from Beyonce, but is actually a series of voice calls from Nick Grimshaw, Mollie King, Greg James and Greg James’s dog. [Greg James's dog probably being slightly more helpful on the subject of latin than Mollie King would have been. - Steve]

Their jive is to ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ and they look very mismatched in their outfits: Clara’s in a cute 60s-style get up: sparkly check shorts, a gold fringed top, a headband and wig with epic fringe and Aljaž is more like someone’s mum raided the cast-offs bin in the charity shop and ended up with a ‘50s-60s-70s-ish’ look involving black trousers with silver tiles stuck on and a brown velour top, with a humungous quiff. The routine starts well, all peppy and cute… and then about halfway through it falls completely to pieces. Clara seems to miss a step and you visibly see her confidence drop, then Aljaž is pushing her round and she’s struggling to remember what to do for the whole second half of the dance. I’m gutted for her. At the end she just sighs ‘Oh my God’ and shakes her head and I hope Aljaz gives her a big cuddle because she’s going to need a pick up. Where was a patented lovely Aljaž waltz when she needed one? (I know they’ve done a VW but JJ and Amy will have done both by tonight and we’ve only had two proper waltzes all series, plus there’s another jive on tonight’s roster).

Tess welcomes the singers (we can see them all tonight: Hayley, Jamie, Andrea and Tommy), Dave Arch and the orchestra and then says last week Shirley thought she would pick herself up – did she? Note to cue card writers – maybe don’t just go with what you pre-scripted before the dance but respond to what’s actually happened. Shirley pauses for a second and then says well done for opening the show and tells her ‘the parts that you did were good’ (oooof) but there were so many mistakes. However, she commends her for picking herself up and carrying on through. Motsi says it’s true that there were mistakes but she had goosebumps when Clara let go and picked herself up from the mistakes. She says it started well and she needs to remember that she picked it up. Craig says he thinks she lost her balance early on which set off the chain reaction, then lists a lot of the mistakes, as if we couldn’t see them, but he thought she did better than last week (?!) and that ‘last week wasn’t your dance, this week it was your dance but it all went horribly wrong’ (?!?!?!). [Yeah, the comments on this were very odd. I get that they didn't want to kick her while she was already down, but I'm not sure how useful any of that would have been? - Steve]

They slope off to the Clauditorium and she seems so deflated, it’s just sad. Claudia says she can see she’s upset. Clara says she doesn’t know what happened but the rehearsal went well and she still had a lot of fun.

Scores: 6, 6, 7 for a total of 19. I mean, that’s overmarked but at this stage of the series when it’s likely everyone else will score highly, it’s probably a kindness. [Also, by the general standards of this series, not really overmarked at all - it seemed fair in comparison to everyone else, to me at least. - Steve]

Jermaine Jenas opens the vote and seems the most composed of the guests so far. 

Jamie and Karen

In the slot o’ death it’s last week’s leaderboard toppers. This week they have the tango, so the VT is about trying to get Jamie to be SRS but more importantly it features them sitting on the most amazing comfy looking chairs and rehearsing in a room with a Primal Scream poster in and I’m just uber curious about where it is they’re training.

They’re dancing to ‘Tanguera’ and it starts with them playing chess, very on-trend with The Queen’s Gambit. I don’t know if their chess is any good though, I watched the whole of that show and never once got to grips with the actual chess strategy (I haven’t played it in years but I rarely ever won). [I used to be quite good at chess when I was young, but I tried playing it online recently and I was absolutely hopeless. - Steve] Anyway, after some dramatic faffin abaht, they get into hold. They both look great tonight, by the way, Karen’s in a femme fatale corseted dress and Jamie’s in a black suit with villainous eyeliner (although his tan is maybe a bit OTT), it’s the kind of campery that might have suited Johannes and Caroline rather than some of the choices they made. Anyway, the routine is a lot better than I expected it would be. Jamie’s frame looks good and his tango face is so adorably melodramatic. His footwork is lacking in a little precision and Karen seems to occasionally be forcing him into place but given all the hints on ITT this week implied a mess was coming, this was a nice surprise. At the end he hollers ‘come on’ and they both seem surprised, and the rest of the cast screech. It seems an over the top reaction until Tess says ‘well, that went better than the dress run!’. I hope we get to see said dress run on ITT this week, sounds like it might have been a car crash for the ages given everyone’s reaction to this performance of it.

Motsi says he is so infectious and this showed a real contrast to last week. She loved that his shoulder line has improved – he was a little late with transferring the weight on his feet but overall the attack was great. Craig said it could have done with more drive and the ‘lead was questionable’, which I assume means he saw Karen leading? But he loved the sharp staccato moments. Shirley praises the drama, tension and storytelling and she can see his technique improving but he now needs to listen to the music more to define the ‘slow’ and the ‘quick quick’.

In the Clauditorium Jamie says he doesn’t understand the mentality of whoever invented the tango but he enjoyed it a lot. Scores: 8, 8, 8 for a total of 24. Claudia says she loved that his reaction to the 8s (well, the Craig 8) was as good as his response to the 10 and she’d like to see him get a 4. Erm, his week 1 cha cha, Claud? Jamie says anything over a 3 is good. Don’t tempt Craig, Jamie. 

HRVY and Janette

Oh hooray it’s couple’s choice what a treat. Their super special inspirational VT involves HRVY as a kid playing with a Disney princess wand and charging his parents to come to gigs in the living room, then singing on YouTube as a teenager which went viral and got him a record deal at 14. He loves his parents, too, and his nanny Joyce who is excited each week about which dance he’s going to do. Except this week probably because it’s Couple’s Choice.

They’re dancing a contempowaft/street fusion to ‘Sky Full of Stars’ and they’re both wearing what look to be pyjamas made of a combination of brown silk and tie-dye. They’re among the ugliest outfits on offer tonight. It’s a well-danced routine that plays directly into his dirty ringah status because it looks a lot like pop video choreography, and it does nothing to dispel the notion that Couple’s Choice is just Showdance with another name. Our thoughts on CC have been well documented lately so I won’t repeat the points we’ve made before, but Chris did make an interesting observation the other day that perhaps the reason why CC has been very samey this year (despite protestations it could ‘be anything’) and the fact we’ve had very few Charlestons and salsas (and, by extension, ATs) could be to do with there being limited access to guest choreographers given “the situation” this year. Doesn’t explain the lack of waltzes or FILTHY DIRTY RUMBAS though, does it?

Tess says it looked like a pop video. Well, duh. But I imagine he’s not going to get as much flack for that as he would if he was a woman. Craig calls it ‘G.O.A.T. Goat.’ And sits back and waits for a response, whilst HRVY and Janette just look baffled. Hee, I knew what he meant, but like Craig I am deeply old and uncool. [Hee, I got it too, we're both old farts. - Steve] Craig says ‘obviously no-one’s down with the teens, it usually stands for ‘greatest of all time’’, at which HRVY and Janette collapse with the knowledge that he’s getting his 10 out. This is more embarrassing than when he prostrated himself before Debbeh, go back to the old Craig that just does a ‘fab.u.lous’ when you’re going to 10 something. Shirley says it was a difficult routine and praises Janette for the choreography even though she probably didn’t have much to do with it. She praises HRVY’s timing and lifts and he is oh so ‘umble and loves his family. The naughty camera cuts to Maisie and Gorka at this point, and Gorka eyerolls. Motsi says she felt the music through him and there were so many good things they can’t explain tonight (?) but we felt what he felt tonight, aka standard contempowaft commentary.

In the Clauditorium, Janette cries and we’re reminded HRVY loves his family and we get a video call with them and HRVY cries. HRVY seems lovely but god his storyline is BRNG. Scores: 10, 10, 10 for a total of 30. So our first perfect score of the series is Couple’s Choice. Mm-hmm. Claudia says they’ve made Strictly history for being the first couple to get a perfect score in week 6 which: yes, but it’s week 6 out of 9, which would be closer to week 10 out of 13 than the other earliest perfect scorers week 7 out of 13 (Debbie’s 40) or week 8 out of 14 (Ali’s 40). So it’s basically around the time in the run that a perfect score usually arrives, rather than anything special. Now what *would* be special would be getting 40 for a rumba. It’s also Janette’s first perfect score and Claudia is impressed that they achieved it ‘in those outfits’. Heh.

A trailer for what’s coming, including Ranvir and Giovanni telling a story about a lovely married couple. Sounds the antithesis of the smutfest last week I am not here for that. Also JJ in a kilt for his Viennese Waltz which is giving me Mull of Kintyre flashbacks, do not want.

Ranvir and Giovanni

Last week, they got 10, this week Anton’s off-duty so good luck repeating that. In training, Ranvir is finding lifts awkward and not allowing herself to relax into them, so let’s see if she’s become more comfortable.

Their American Smooth is to ‘I Say A Little Prayer’ and it feels very chaste and polite in comparison to last week’s raunch – which is OK in itself, but it lacks any sense of drama or theatricality to distinguish it from a regular foxtrot. The lifts are quite uncommital – the one where you just lift someone up a bit by the waist and the one where the man gets his hand under both knees like he’s rescuing her – they’re just not very exciting. [At one point I said out loud 'well THAT was a waste of a lift' and I don't even care about lifts that much anyway? - Steve] Also make-up have dome something weird so that when the light hits Ranvir there’s an odd white casting over her eyes – wrong concealer tone compared to foundation perhaps? It ends and Giovanni pronounces it ‘beautiful’ repeatedly.

Shirley says the fact that Giovanni gave her a solo piece at the start says it all, and her feet are great – she has the best female frame so far, and each week there’s improvement in different parts of her technique each week, but next week is the ‘quarter-final’ so she needs to demonstrate multi-tasking, which Shirley thinks she will. Motsi praises their pairing and lack of gapping and says she can see that Ranvir owns the dance floor and feels at home but she’d like some more surprises in the routines. Craig says he would have liked more interesting lifts – they could do something spectacular in this dance but they chose to play it safe. He says her arms could be doing a lot more as one of them landed like a lead weight on Giovanni’s back, but he loved the body contact and her acting. Giovanni says ‘well done’ but sounds a bit miffed.

As they bounce upstairs, Ranvir says ‘sorry about my arm’ and Giovanni says ‘it’s fine’. We learn that they played characters, ‘Paula’ and ‘Patrick’ this week, based on some real people they met. Also we’re reminded that Ranvir has never danced before and she says the weird thing about ballroom is that the more romantic it is, the less you look at each other. Scores: 8, 8, 8 for a total of 24. Giovanni gives slightly pissy ‘thangyews’ to each 8, but they’re not Gorka levels of pissy yet, work harder.

Claudia says JJ and Amy are coming up and she wants to go to Scotland for a dirty weekend, and Tess says Vernon’s away (in that other show) so she’s in. But not really, don’t call PHE and Ofcom.

Bill and Oti

This week sees more of Bill trying to describe the origin of dances to Oti, and they then do a vintage newsreel piece about the origin of jive. I know Bill is the public favo and I do like him a lot, but there’s a fine line between ‘novice gets geekily into dance history’ and ‘mansplaining nightmare’ and I don’t know that he’s falling on the right side of that line.

They’re jiving to ‘One Way or Another’ and there’s some sort of story about Oti being a Picasso painting and then they’re both in leather dancing and at the end the magic of dance turns a quirky character into a generic bland portrait which is maybe meant to be a metaphor for Bill’s journey going from scrappy outsider to perfect specimen but just reads as going from interesting to boring, and no idea what the leather outfits have to do with the painting. [Yeah, apologies for sounding like a fuddy-duddy but this really made me miss the days when you could just do a dance without it needing to have a capital-c Concept. - Steve] The dance itself is very ‘eh, whatever, mid-table jive’. He has good rhythm and energy but it’s heavy-footed and some of the shaping is quite awkward, the transitions are a bit ugly, there are a couple that go a bit wrong, and he doesn’t seem to be enjoying it as much as the quickstep or couple’s choice. I don’t see this one getting any 10s, put it that way.

Motsi says it was ‘one tempo jive’ and I don’t know if that’s shade or not. She says you can see his rhythm and focus but there was a mistake. Craig says it was a bit stompy and there’s a little boo. Craig says ‘was that Anton booing from the cheap seats, darling, sorry Anton, but you’re no longer up here’. Ha! Craig says Bill has his own style and he adores it so to continue to ‘bend it like Bill’. Shirley says ‘having never made any mistakes during the series’ (???) there were some mistakes in that, but his stamina ‘for your age’ is off the charts.

In the Clauditorium, Bill says the comments were fair and he knows that there were mistakes but he got through it. Scores: 8, 8, 8 for a total of 24. So we have a great 3-way pile up on 24 at the moment, which is really underscoring the issue with 3 judges, much as I don’t echo the calls to make Anton the fourth judge. I’m also not sure that was better than Jamie or Ranvir, both of which felt more ‘8’ than this one.

JJ and Amy

This week, they’re reminding us that JJ is SCOTTISH and setting their routine in SCOTLAND and he’s wearing a kilt which is helping with his homesickness. We get footage of his adorable children in case he hasn’t fired enough emotional salvos these last few weeks.

They’re dancing the Viennesse Waltz to ‘Rescue’ which is a song I’m not familiar with, nor are the singers from the sounds of it, as the mics are so muted its lyrics just sound like ‘mumble mumble mumble’. It’s one of those VWs where they flood the stage with dry ice so you can’t really tell if the footwork is any good or not, though his performance seems nice and his upper body is keeping its frame. It’s all perfectly fine, but it’s my least favourite dance genre and there’s nothing much here to change my mind – there are mercifully few endless fleckerls to trigger motion sickness, but it’s all a bit dull and simple, technique-wise.

Craig calls it ‘charming, elegant, gorgeous’. Shirley calls it understated and calm. Motsi says ‘you guys bring us down’ (ulp), ‘but in a good way’ whatever that means, but she praises his standing leg and says he has a lovely aura.

In the Clauditorium we get to see his daughter dancing along to last week’s show. Hilariously she isn’t looking at JJ at all, bless her. JJ says he thought he’d come here and learn some steps but never thought he’d have such an emotional connection. Scores: 8, 9, 8 for a total of 25. On the one hand, no way that’s a 9. On the other, at least there aren’t four couples on 24. [I've been trying to work out if things would have gone differently had Bruno been around, but I'm not sure they would have done? I think this is just an unfortunate byproduct of the show trying to provide relentless positivity in the year of the Rona. - Steve]

Maisie and Gorka

So now these two are in the pimp slot after being death slotted and dutifully dance-offed last week. I don’t know what the show’s doing with their edit at all. Their VT focuses on them making each other laugh in training but Jamie and Karen already have that storyline. Gorka says she’s had a lot of negativity so they’re going to cheer her up and get her old school to record messages to her.

They’re dancing a quickstep to ‘When You’re Smiling’ and she looks gorgeous in a feathery pink dress, except for one thing: whatever the hell is going on with her under eye make-up. It appears to have a bunch of spaced out silver jewels or something, which looks space-age when her whole outfit is Classic Hollywood. It is completely distracting and off-putting, a poor choice for a triumphant comeback routine – which this is, in every other way. It’s very light, cheeky and charming with some pretty complex moments, including a great dual cartwheel at the end that they make look effortless. Gorka gives good quickstep, doesn’t he? There’s a slight slip up when she tries to get off a bench but otherwise this is probably my favourite dance tonight – although it’s the kind of dance that would have looked even better with a big BLACKPOOL style production. Overall, quickstep is one of the few genres that’s coming off well this series.

Shirley praises how natural it looks and says the work on the bench is much harder than it looks and there were some beautiful feminine sensibilities to the routine. Motsi says she didn’t sit down throughout, and the quickstep is all about the music for her, and it had all the elements: swing, steps, charisma, performance. Craig says she missed a left foot swivel on the bench but, that aside, it was absolutely incredible.

In the Clauditorium we’re reminded that Maisie’s working really hard and it’s been tough being in the dance-off. Her granddad sends a video message saying he’s proud of her, especially for dancing in high heels when she usually wears trainers. Scores: 9, 10, 10 for a total of 29 and the revelation that this is her first 10, meaning Ranvir, Bill, Jamie and Clara all 10ed before Maisie, what is this series?

Leaderboard

1. HRVY and Janette - 30

2. Maisie and Gorka - 29

3. JJ and Amy - 25

4=. Bill and Oti - 24

4=. Jamie and Karen - 24

4=. Ranvir and Giovanni - 24

7. Clara and Aljaz - 19

So that’s quite the pile-up. I would hope Maisie’s not in the dance-off again, but it’s possible anyone could be. My guess would be Clara vs Jamie, but I could be very wrong. Whatever happens, we’ll have to endure a Gary Barlow performance first, so join me then!