Forget Brexit and the election, Strictly is the real voting controversy: JAN MOIR fears decisions on hit BBC show are becoming too 'erratic'
You can always depend on Tess Daly to embrace the spirit of Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1). To somehow put her manicured finger on the issue at the heart of every star-spangled show, to encompass the vibe we are all feeling at home.
She did it again on Saturday night as the parade of hopeful contestants thumped across the ballroom like potatoes tumbling out of a sack.
‘Sick bucket at the ready,’ she cried, speaking for us all.
Tess was actually referring to contestant Kelvin Fletcher suffering from dizziness during his Viennese waltz, which was not helped by the fact he performed it wearing the tightest top ever seen on British television, making his burly upper torso look like a compression of shrink-wrapped hams lurking under Lurex. But who is complaining about that? Not me.
However, Tess’s sick bucket could have come in just as handy when the result of the dance-off was announced last night.
Once again, BBC Breakfast sports presenter Mike Bushell (pictured with dance partner Katya Jones) was saved from the chop – while the Viscountess Weymouth was sent packing back to Longleat with her dance shoes
For, once again, crinkle-toed BBC Breakfast sports presenter Mike Bushell was saved from the chop – while Emma Thynn, the Viscountess Weymouth, was sent packing back to Longleat with her dance shoes under her arm.
So what, you might think. But only if you were blissfully unaware of the raging passions of the average Strictly superfan. Forget Brexit and the upcoming election, this is where the real voting controversy is erupting.
We are exactly half way through this series and a great number of viewers are furious about Bushell’s continued presence on their favourite show. The poor bloke has now been in the bottom pair and the dance-off three times.
Many feel that because he works for the BBC he is being given special treatment, and that somehow a heinous fix is afoot. Yet let us think that one through.
Would the BBC’s fortunes or reputation really improve if some guy from breakfast television somehow staggered through to the final?
How many pensioners, for example, would say to themselves: ‘How marvellous that Bushell is through! Do you know, suddenly I don’t mind paying my licence fee after all.’
Many rushed on to social media and newspaper websites to vent their feelings, for people still care passionately about Strictly in a way they don’t care about other reality shows – or even politics – any more.
We are exactly half way through this series and a great number of viewers are furious about Bushell’s continued presence on their favourite show. Pictured are Viscountess Emma Weymouth and her dance partner Alijaz Skorjanec
Perhaps some of them even care too much, but the question is, do they have a case?
Despite the fact Bushell stumbled through his charleston – by far the easiest of all the Strictly dances – like a man running for his life through a storm drain with a wall of water at his heels, he somehow survived.
The judges unanimously voted for him to stay and Lady Weymouth to go.
You could clearly see this narrative developing on Saturday night. Emma was told she ‘lacked tone’ and had a tendency to ‘go a bit jelly-like’ as she danced her samba, while Bushell was wildly praised by the normally acid-tongued Craig Revel Horwood for being ‘cheeky and funny’. This was despite the fact that Bushell made several mistakes and almost dropped his partner Katya Jones on her head.
‘At the beginning you stood up really straight,’ judge Motsi Mabuse complimented him, in all seriousness. Next thing you know, he’ll be tying his shoelaces all by himself.
In this series there seems to be a trend, perhaps even a crusade, for judges to prioritise flat-out hopeless contestants who show incremental improvements over superior dancers who are simply having a bad week. That is what seemed to happen with actress Catherine Tyldesley, who was a nice dancer with much potential but was sent home last week.
The judges unanimously voted for Mike Bushell to stay and Lady Weymouth to go. Pictured are Viscountess Emma Weymouth and her dance partner Alijaz Skorjanec
In the same vein, Radio 1 DJ Dev Griffin was the third celebrity to be eliminated after a dull cha-cha-cha but an electrifying run. Both contestants seemed to have so much more to offer Strictly audiences than clodhoppers such as Bushell, even though the judges keep insisting he has improved.
Maybe so, but it is hard to see how he could become any worse. There is a place for the waltzing behemoth on Strictly, but he is not even funny to watch, unlike former contestants John Sergeant and Ann Widdecombe.
Bushell is to dancing what a squid is to sprinting, but, to be honest, Emma was not much better. Although she is super-fit and certainly looked the part, she dances like an untethered balloon – a fizzing bath bomb skittering across the surface and always slightly behind the beat. Her samba was perhaps technically superior to Bushell’s charleston, but only in the way that a half-cooked omelette might be preferable to a broken egg. To his credit, Bushell at least has a basic grasp of rhythm and syncopation.
No, stop it. Of course he is not a natural dancer in any way, shape or form.
He has short, bandy legs and an unyielding body, but you have to admit he has given it his all. He wore a pair of furry rabbit ears to do the tango on Halloween. A set of sequinned braces to jive to a Beatles song.
He even climbed aboard a pair of embroidered chaps to transform himself into a rhinestone cowboy to dance an American smooth that was anything but.
Sometimes you have to turn dance detective to figure out what the hell it is he is trying to do out there. And while I don’t think for one minute that Bushell has stayed in the show because of some misplaced BBC favouritism, there is certainly an uncomfortable sense of preordained destiny about this series.
More so than in the past, the judging is erratic and occasionally doesn’t make any sense at all. That is not to say Craig, Motsi, Shirley Ballas and Bruno Tonioli are some kind of a duplicitous quartet trying to bamboozle us with gnomic statements and confusing paddle boards. More that they are simply four professionals trying to keep the showbiz pot boiling.
Perhaps Bushell should have been voted out ages ago, along with early no-hopers such as James Cracknell and Anneka Rice.
Yet underneath his broken puppet dance moves and his shambolic hip rolls, he does have a virtue all of his own.
For every week there is something quite heroic about his little-legged assault upon another classic dance form. He is the underdog, and dancers such as he are still vital to Strictly Come Dancing’s appeal.
So keeeeep dancing, Mike! But only till next week, please.
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