JJ KO-ed

Week 7: Top 6 Results (Musicals Week) - 6 December 2020

As we spent all of our pro-dance capital last night, we're straight into the arrival of Tess and Claudia this evening. Daly Dresswatch: a strapless blousy black top such as you might see on a particularly sexy pirate, paired with black trousers. What Winkleman's Wearing: a black pleather top with a massive bow, and also black trousers. That's a lot of black, is what I'm saying.

There may be no pro dance tonight, but it is still Musicals Week, so before we get on with the business of sending one more couple home, it's time for a guest performance from the cast of one of the many West End musicals that had to shut up shop during the pandemic: & Juliet. Neither Tess nor Claudia explains that, despite the Shakespearean framing, this is a Max Martin jukebox musical, so I imagine many viewers were a bit perplexed by what follows. Still, at least we get William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway (Oliver Tompsett and Cassidy Janson!), of last night's Terms And Conditions fame, to do the set-up for us, explaining that this is a show that considers what might have happened if Juliet hadn't died at the end of Romeo And Juliet - and then we see Juliet singing 'Problem' by Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea, and Romeo singing 'Can't Feel My Face' by The Weeknd. I must admit I had no idea that either of those songs were Max Martin, so hurrah for the BBC's commitment to educating and informing the public.

Afterwards, Claudia returns and clarifies that all of the performers were tested for COVID in order to be here and perform the number. I did wonder exactly how they were getting around the social-distancing rules, I assumed the entire ensemble probably wasn't bubbling together. Tess reminds us that HRVY and Janette topped the leaderboard again last night, and the judges make their re-entrance and all three of them are in black too. Did I miss a memo or something?

Onward to the recap of Saturday night's performances, now with extra added Bruno. In terms of previously unseen content, Ranvir says that her performance felt great, and Giovanni agrees that it was beautiful. Karen says that Jamie always surprises her when they get out on the dance floor and gives it 150%. Bill is quite happy to take "phantasmagorical" as a compliment from Craig. Bruno chips in that JJ just wants to have fun, and that charleston was "a ride" (oh aye). JJ says that he gave everything he could, and it has been a tough week - Amy says he was fab-yew-lous. Maisie and Gorka are incredulous about getting another 10 from Shirley. [I mean, it's a 10 from Shirley, the only thing with less value are 10s from Bruno. And the Donny 10, obviously - Rad] Bruno says that HRVY took on the ultimate theatrical showstopper and won, while HRVY and Janette are shocked about their two tens. 

And so we come to Tess and her ever-shrinking collection of Cue Cards Of Doom. The first couple through to the semi final is HRVY and Janette, and the second couple through is Ranvir and Giovanni. The first couple in the dance-off is... Jamie and Karen. Huh, I guess not as many people were talking about Jamie as we were led to believe. Jamie says that everyone is so good, and he made mistakes in his routine, so it makes sense that he's in the dance-off - he's going to try to correct it second time around. Tess asks Motsi what Jamie should do to get through to the semi-final, and she counsels him to control his nerves better and enjoy the performance and generally burn the dance floor. But not literally, the insurance won't allow it.

Claudia notes that her chatterpillar is much smaller these days - "you could say it's an ant" - and HRVY and Janette are up first. Janette says that it's one thing to have the talent, but it's another thing to keep pushing yourself every week, which HRVY does. Then Claudia breaks the news that we all wanted to hear: we're finally getting a rumba next week! HRVY says that he knows the rumba is all about hips and waves his arms about in a vaguely rumba-ish way, and honestly at this point? I'll take it. Claudia sends them onwards, and Ranvir and Giovanni take their place - Ranvir remembers finding the launch show really hard, and now she's a semi-finalist. Giovanni tells her to feel proud of herself because she's started "from maybe less than zero" but she's growing every single week. Claudia moves the topic of conversation to Ranvir's son, who apparently now wants his ears pierced so he can be more like Giovanni. Hey, you just wait until he asks for that BORN TO WIN tattoo, that's when it's going to get really awkward.

Next up is West End star Marisha Wallace singing 'Climb Every Mountain'. Nothing against Marisha or her performance of the song, but hearing it in isolation like this makes me realise how much of the song's effectiveness is due to its placement in the narrative of The Sound Of Music. Here, it just feels a bit plodding and dirgey and also uncannily like 'You'll Never Walk Alone' as well? [The sound mixing seemed fucked, too, I could barely hear her for the first half - Rad] Again, though, nothing against Marisha: I saw her in Waitress and she was great and I even got her autograph at the stage door afterwards. Anton and Dianne dance in front of Marisha, and I bet Neil, Graziano, Nancy and Nadiya are so happy they went to all the trouble of forming a bubble only to be cast aside as soon as some members of the A-team were freed up.

Onward to Dance Debrief, and first Bruno is asked to talk about HRVY, where he once again says that HRVY took on one of the most iconic showstoppers in musical theatre, and he won. He goes on to quote the "you've either got it or you ain't" line from Gypsy and confirms that HRVY is definitely in the former category. Bruno also picks up on Craig's comment about how looking at HRVY is like looking in the mirror, and informs Craig that his mirror is cracked. Wow, I didn't even know the library was open tonight. Shirley is asked to expand on her comments about JJ's opposite arm and leg movement, which she does, mostly through the medium of movement. Motsi talks a bit more about Ranvir and how moving and #relatable her performance was. Claudia points out that Craig has given Bill an 8 for six weeks in a row and asks what he needs to do to get a 9. The answer, unsurprisingly, is "get your technique right". Craig loves that Bill has his own style of dancing, but as a judge he needs to judge from a technical capacity. He is, however, desperate to get his 9 out for Bill. We close with a moment of Bruno holding a tissue over his face and pretending to be the Phantom of the Opera. Well, lockdown has been hard on all of us.

So, who else is safe and back next week? According to Tess and her Cue Cards Of Doom, Bill and Oti are. So that leaves Maisie and Gorka and JJ and Amy waiting to hear which of them is in the dance-off. The couple in the bottom two is... JJ and Amy, and Maisie and Gorka look very relieved because I think they were both mentally preparing themselves to have to do that jive again. Maisie and Gorka shuffle out as JJ and Amy head on over to Tess. Tess asks what's going through JJ's mind, and he says mostly the fact that he made it this far at all, but also that this was an amazing routine and he's going to go out there and give it his best crack. Well, that gets my vote. Tess asks Shirley to give him some pointers, and Shirley says she's not worried about JJ because he's a military man who knows how to get the job done. Sure, the armed forces, light entertainment, those are the same thing.

Tess throws over to Claudia and the diminishing chatterpillar, where Maisie and Gorka are up first. Claudia notes that Maisie looked like she was resigned to yet another dance-off, and Maisie says that this is a scary point in the competition because it could be anyone, but she's very glad it wasn't her this week. Claudia notes that in order to take part in this series, Maisie has been living by herself for the very first time, and politely asks what kind of state Maisie's pad is in seven weeks in; Maisie says that she came into this thinking she would be fine and that she could clean and cook, but has since discovered that she can do neither of those things and frankly it's a blessing on all of us that she's the only person allowed in there. This coming week she has four full days of filming at EastEnders plus learning two dances, and Maisie admits that they haven't fully worked out the schedule yet but there may well be some 11pm finishes in there.

The chatterpillar ends with Bill and Oti, and Bill says he hasn't been this tense since he was getting his O Level results. He goes on to describe how his middle toes seem to decline to take part in the Strictly process, and they like to go and have a nap while the others take up the slack. This coming week, he and Oti will be dancing a tango to 'Enter Sandman' by Metallica, and I don't know about the rest of you but I cannot wait.

Following our inevitable reminder that Strictly remains available on many other formats including It Takes Two, the podcast, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, Nokia NGage, Atari Jaguar and PC Engine. Oh, and that Drag Queens thing on BBC3 is still happening as well. (I watched this shortly after having seen God Shave The Queens, in which Blu Hydrangea's main storyline was trying to perform in a show while having the squits, so now I can't quite look at this segment in the same way any more.)

I've just realised that our bottom two for this week are the couple that opened the show and the couple that closed it. That's novel. JJ and Amy reprise their charleston first, and it's still pleasantly springy but still suffers the same pacing problems as before (not that I can really think how I expected JJ and Amy to fix that in a matter of hours). Also there's a section towards the end that I'm pretty sure goes wrong because they don't appear to be moving in harmony at all, but overall it's a solid attempt at making a case for them to get another week, since I can't help thinking that whoever survives this one is pretty much guaranteed to go home in the semis anyway. [I enjoyed this more on a second viewing, I was maybe a bit harsh on it first time round - Rad]

Following them, Jamie and Karen reprise their jive, and are still not in drag. I'd vote to send them home just for that! Jamie has upped the energy level for this second outing, largely at the expense of the technique as far as I can tell, as his legs seem to have lost all sense of direction at certain moments. I suspect I know who's going (JJ), but I think there's a case to be made either way here, so it'll be interesting to see who the judges favour. [I think they know Jamie has no public vote (except for me) and is therefore no threat, whereas JJ could rebound and end up in the final, so it's pretty obvious - Rad]

With the dancing done and dusted, it's over to the judges to cast their votes. Craig thinks both couples "danced to the best of their abilities" (miaow), but the couple that he would like to see go through to the semi-final is Jamie and Karen. Motsi thinks we saw two different dancing styles with their own qualities, but she saw a little hiccup with one dance, so she votes to save JJ and Amy. So once again, Shirley gets the deciding vote - she adored both performances, but thought both couples made small mistakes. However, on grounds of difficulty of choreography and sheer determination, she votes to save Jamie, so JJ and Amy are out.

JJ tells Tess he never thought he would make it this far, and he thinks he might have got half-decent at something he used to have no clue about. He thinks it's a privilege to be here, particularly at this stage, with such tough competition. We look at his best bits montage, which mostly consist of him being sweet, genial and competent with occasional bouts of absolute mercenary levels of pandering to the military and/or Scottish votes. He feels like the sort of contestant we don't really get that much of any more - the one who is neither brilliant nor terrible, but tries hard and makes it close to the end without ever really emerging as a serious threat for the title. The Carol Smillie type. I've enjoyed his journey, anyway, and frankly it's just been nice to see Amy having such a lovely time too. [They were the most 'wholesome' couple, which is no bad thing - Rad] JJ adds that the whole thing has been well outside his comfort zone, and he can't express what Amy means to him - she's lived through a lot in her own right (and if you were clueless on this front as I was until this weekend, Amy has Crohn's disease and is therefore more vulnerable than average in the current pandemic) and has lived in fear that she would get ill and let him down. He assures her that she could never let him down, and given that it's Musicals Week I almost expect him to burst into 'You Could Never Shame Me' from Kiss Of The Spider Woman. (Hey, when is someone going to do that for Musicals Week? You could do a samba to 'Gimme Love', or an American smooth to 'She's A Woman', and I reckon the title track would make a decent paso with the right choreography behind it.) Amy tells JJ that it's been an honour to be his partner and also his friend, and she thinks that working with him has made her a better person. She says she is very proud of every single step he has taken on the dance floor, and this has made her fall more in love with Strictly when she didn't think she could.

JJ says that the silver lining in all of this is that he gets to go home and see his family, which is fair enough. Tess dispatches him and Amy to take their last dance, and Claudia tells us that Little Mix will be performing on the results show next week. Aw, that'll be nice for them: appearing on a BBC1 reality show that can actually crack over a million viewers. JJ and Amy have a very jolly final dance to 'Thank You For The Music', and we're out. Join Rad next week for Two Dance Week [Whyyyyyyy is it always me that does two dance week? - Rad] and our first (and presumably also last) rumba of 2020!