Honestly, I love Strictly Come Dancing – why else would I devote about five hours a week to watching the main show, the results show, It Takes Two, rewatching my favourite dances from couples gone by on YouTube, and talking about it at my desk several times an hour? But I know when I’m being had, and I can’t sit through another week of Craig and Shirley declaring the “talent’s never been better” when I can see with my eyes that simply isn’t true.
Given the grim business in the months leading up to it, it’s a wonder this 20th series made it on air. I’m so relieved it did, and I am loving watching Tasha Ghouri and Chris McCausland especially, remind us how special Strictly can feel. But it has not otherwise been a standout year, there have not been anywhere near enough moments that make your hair stand on end, and the format’s getting samey.
Things have changed behind the scenes to secure Strictly’s survival, now they need to change on the dancefloor, too. Here’s how I think they can fix it – and they won’t make me popular.
Skip Blackpool
I wonder how many times I will have to be told about Blackpool Tower ballroom’s springy floor before it starts feeling important to me. Another 12 should do it. I get it: Blackpool is ballroom dancing’s mecca, and I’m all for any big TV production heading north of Borehamwood. But it’s been 20 years now and the truth is that most of us watching at home stopped listening to this history lesson in about 2008. It would be a lot more interesting for the competition’s halfway milestone to take us somewhere new and teach us something new about the world of dance rather than pretending to impart upon us a sense of prestige and heritage while soap stars lark around having donkey rides.
Bin the Couple’s Choice
Look, if I was interested in sob stories, I’d switch over to ITV. The Couple’s Choice was a nice idea when it was introduced in 2018 as a way of mixing up the format and letting the celebrities do something personal, but it’s become a bit of a crass bid to squeeze out an emotional response from the audience that feels borderline manipulative. And if it manages to swerve that, most of the numbers are a bit of a “GCSE dance” interpretive style that seldom puts the skills learned during the competition on display (Sarah Hadland’s “Padam Padam” number this weekend was great – but didn’t show off her dance talent).
We don’t need to force sentimentality on Strictly. By nature of its casting, it is an emotional programme – I can’t watch Chris McCausland dance without a feeling of awe that genuinely moves me every week. But that’s because what he’s doing really is inspiring – not because he’s purging his life story every week. Once in a blue moon the Couple’s Choice really stops you in your tracks – Rose Ayling-Ellis’s moment of silence in 2021 was electrifying – but I don’t know anyone who didn’t feel confused by the bafflingly overwrought Pete Wicks dance devoted to his late grandmother a few weeks ago. I don’t have a heart of stone, but it’s starting to feel inappropriate.
Introduce the Motown (and take some other tips from the Americans)
Unfortunately, everyone who competes on Strictly has it written into their contract that they must recite the following at some point during the course of the series: “I’ve been really looking forward to the waltz”, “the Charleston is a great opportunity to show off a different side of my personality”, “the samba is really hard because you spend so much time out of hold”. We know! We need some more dances!
The American version of Strictly, the inelegantly titled Dancing with the Stars, is beating us on this front. It has featured: lindy hop, mambo, Western swing, Motown, disco, burlesque, lambada and “rock ‘n’ roll” (heaven knows what this involves). Now, I know in Europe we have different dance traditions to the Americans – their cultural history is distinct from ours. But I think disco and swing, say, could be very fun additions to the repertoire that teach the dancers some skills they’re not learning elsewhere. We have the space – most viewers do not care about the difference between a tango and an Argentine tango, a waltz and a Viennese waltz. It would also offer a good chance to switch up the music – which brings me to my next point…
Hang the DJ
I love Dave Arch and his orchestra – they’re part of Strictly’s identity. But the music isn’t always well-matched to the singers, and it’s getting samey. I don’t need another quickstep to “Don’t Get Me Wrong”, I don’t need another tango to “When Doves Cry” (especially given nothing comes close to Kimberley and Pasha’s original in 2012). Do something new for a change – why haven’t we seen a foxtrot to Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck Babe!”?
There’s a surge of adrenaline you feel when a couple takes to the floor to a brand-new song – even an old song that’s never been choreographed on Strictly before. Remember Jay and Aliona’s Pulp Fiction jive in 2015? It makes each dance feel more exciting and a bit more imagination on this front (rather than on the staging and props, which make this feel more and more like a mini West End medley every week) would inject new life into Strictly – and probably lead to some of those viral moments they’re clearly chasing with the Couple’s Choice.
Put Anton on probation
Anton doesn’t do a lot of judging, he does a lot of standing up and effusively describing to several million people the exact hand and foot and head movements they’ve watched literally seconds earlier, broken up by the noise “phwoar” every couple of words. I know she was on the left of the dancefloor, Anton, and then went over to the right, because a) I watched it too and b) that is what dancing is. I won’t be popular if I say he’s got to go but if he could please start saying something intelligible I would be thrilled.
When he does – as he did to Jamie this weekend – it’s constructive and drawn from his own experience choreographing and competing each week. He’s been on the other side of that panel and knows exactly what the professionals are going through. It’s a shame he only volunteers that kind of insight about four times a series.
Sack Tess
I won’t concede on this one: it’s time to replace Tess Daly. Or at least swap her with Claudia. Claudia Winkleman is the finest presenting talent on British television: she’s sharp, unafraid to make fun of herself, naughty, empathetic, warm, maternal, a complete pro when it comes to winging it, brings her own personality to her work but never her own opinions, she’s got impeccable timing and reactivity on live broadcasts, and is basically one of the few people who makes something watchable simply because she is in it.
If she took the helm of Strictly instead of being relegated to what appears this year to be being called the “Clauditorium” (give me strength) to do post-match interviews while the dancers wear fake glasses and feather boas and gurn at the camera reminding viewers at home to vote (I’ve filed a cease and desist), things would get about three times more entertaining.
Tess is reliable, but is defaulting to a routine of two modes – “fake laughter linking to the next dancer” and “sad face if Craig says something negative”. Strictly Come Dancing spends an incredible amount of time trying to show us how playful and good fun everyone is and what a “family” they have all become, via the interminable pre-dance VTs. We wouldn’t need so much reassurance of its sense of fun and personality if the presenter taking the lead was capable of demonstrating either.
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