New York, New York: it’s the Week Two Latin round
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Strictly has two Natalies, two Craigs, two Rickys (and a Richard), a Joe and a Jo this year. And if you think that’s confusing now, just wait until next week when fourteen couples hit the dancefloor.
Really, we need to have a few weeks of double eliminations just to get them down to a manageable number. This is going to be a long review, so I’ll refrain from doing the blog equivalent of faffing about on the steps and move right along into hold…
Phil Tufnell and Katya Virshilas
Dance: cha-cha-cha
Music: Daddy (Della Reese)
After Phil’s unexpectedly good waltz last night, I thought we’d see even better from him in a dance which should have been tailor-made for his personality. Unfortunately the dishevelled-but-dapper ballroom dancer turned into something a bit cringey in the cha. Katya looked fetching in a fringey thing made out of Dougal from The Magic Roundabout, but Phil was a bit – well – mincey. His arms and hands weren’t good enough to deserve quite so many New Yorks (and there were a LOT of New Yorks), and the deft footwork of the waltz went all skippedy-skip. Not horrible, but a bit disappointing after the ballroom.
Craig Kelly and Flavia Cacace
Dance: rhumba
Music: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (the Amy Winehouse version)
I’m going to stop naming people as my dark horse, because so far my choices have been Richard Dunwoody and Craig Kelly, and it’s just not working out.
I absolutely hate this song at the best of times, and its whimsical, twee whininess doesn’t shout DANCE OF LOVE!!! so I watched this rhumba through clenched teeth and squinty eyes. Flavia’s hair made her look like she’d just got out of the shower (and her dress looked like she’d brought the shower curtain with her). Craig didn’t have an awful lot to do, and his aeroplane arms in the opening-outs were horrible, though he did a decent job of keeping his feet on the floor in his walks. Biggest disappointment? Halfway through I was convinced they were both going to do a Karate Kid crane-kick. Don’t tease so, Flavia.
Laila Rouass and Anton du Beke
Dance: cha-cha-cha
Music: Sway (Rosemary Clooney)
One thing I will say for Anton is that his music choices are pretty representative of what you hear in actual ballroom and Latin classes. Exactly why he thought it would be a good idea to take a really quite decent natural dancer like Laila and turn her cha-cha into a comedy routine is beyond me. It’s been said a thousand times before and I’m going to say it again: Anton’s Latin just isn’t very good, and as the competition progresses he will let his partner down. It’s fine to put basic steps into a routine if you’re going to do them perfectly, but Laila looked sloppy, and you have to wonder if that’s just the extent of the technique she’s been taught. It’s a shame because she looked cracking in her peacock-blue dress. If I were Matt Cutler, I’d be thinking very hard about slipping a dodgy pie into Anton’s dressing room buffet next week…
Zoe Lucker and James Jordan
Dance: rhumba
Music: Out of Reach (Gabrielle)
I was mean about James Jordan yesterday, so today I’m of a mind to be nice. I love the last couple of rhumbas he’s choreographed for his celebrities. Cherie Lunghi’s last year was exquisite and my favourite dance of the live tour (despite the aforementioned James traumatisation). I’m not sure why Len took a disliking to this one, because I didn’t think GET A ROOM! even once. Though perhaps I was distracted by yet another piece of the corpse of Emu, which was hanging off Zoe’s bottom. I do think rhumba is James’ best dance, and I really liked this one. I’m just not totally convinced that Zoe’s personality will get her enough votes when we get towards the sharp end of the competition. Oh, and I never get that thing when the man drags the lady across the floor as if she’s just been hit with a Full Body-Bind Curse.
Jo Wood and Brendan Cole
Dance: rhumba
Music: Fallen (Lauren Wood)
This was so destined to be a complete nightmare that I was almost disappointed when it wasn’t. Okay, Jo’s dress looked like something from 10,000 BC, and I’m fairly certain she’d had more than a few very large drinks before coming out, but it wasn’t terrible and I actually thought the judges were enormously patronising in praising her just for being there. I hope they stay in for a few weeks, partly because I think Jo could improve, and mostly because Brendan’s "Leave the sexy gramma alone!" schtick could lead to some amusing arguments with Craig.
Richard Dunwoody and Lilia Kopylova
Dance: cha-cha-cha
Music: I’m Your Man (Wham)
When you have a celebrity who’s clearly a bit awkward and self-conscious, it’s a good idea to choose music and choreography that won’t make them feel even more embarrassed. So what was Lilia thinking? (Well, probably that camp and entertaining worked for Ricky Groves last week). Lovely Richard put on his best display of dad-dancing, sported a very fine sequinned shirt and pointed at the audience quite a bit. I found him thoroughly endearing and voted four times. What were the rest of you doing, huh? HUH? (Please refer to yesterday’s blog post regarding my blatant bias and favouritism).
Ricky Whittle and Natalie Lowe
Dance: rhumba
Music: Stepping Stone (Duffy)
Yes, it was good, and yes, Ricky probably has the most potential of anyone this year based on what we’ve seen so far. That said, Len was spot on with his critique (for once) and it was all a bit sharp and spiky for my taste. And hey, why did no one mention the ILLEGAL LIFT! Hmph.
Natalie is really very good – if perhaps just the teeniest bit steely-eyed-gritted-teeth-full-on-intense – and if I were Erin Boag I’d be quietly gnawing on my own liver right now, because I have the feeling that she’d about to lose her long-undisputed crown as Ballroom Queen. Please God let both couples do a quickstep next week…
Natalie Cassidy and Vincent Simone
Dance: cha-cha-cha
Music: Bang Bang (David Sanborn)
I’m probably going to start most of my reviews of Natalie’s dances with "the girl has front", because for me that’s the most striking thing about her routines. Going out on a circuit of the dance floor without Vincent was a brave thing to do, especially as we saw afterwards how nervous she was. But I have this nagging feeling that Natalie thinks she’s better than she actually is. She ran out of steam in the middle part with all the New Yorks (New Yorks? In a cha-cha on Strictly? Noooo!) and then for some reason we got a lot of salsa-ish arm stuff that reminded me of an horrific ceroc class I once witnessed. I don’t know if the finesse will ever quite get there with this one…
The padding
This week’s time-killing didn’t seem so bad as last – perhaps because it wasn’t 1.30am, or because I was feverishly hitting redial to vote for Richard Dunwoody – and we got some excellent pro dances.
Darren/Lilia, Matt/Aliona, James/Ola and Brendan/Katya did a watchable paso (about a 7 on the scale of Strictly pro dances for me, and not in the league of the Paint It Black Cutlers/Ian’n'Camilla one from two years ago). Though to be fair a rare sighting of the Mattoo would have made it watchable even if they’d been shuffling around on their bums.
NATALIE (and Ian and VinceFlav and AntonErin) turned the quickstep up to eleven. I wouldn’t have been surprised if there’d been a sonic boom at some point. Almost my favourite moment, though, was right at the beginning when Natalie smacked Ian right in the face with the mutilated remains of Basil Brush. Seriously, what is it with the ’80s puppets they’ve been murdering and affixing to the costumes this year? Mark my words – come samba week, Orville the Duck is going to be strapped to someone’s arse. Probably Ola’s. Anyway, Vincent and Flavia also looked excellent, albeit as compact and dark counterpoints to huge and blonde NATALIE (and Ian). For my money, Anton and Erin didn’t sparkle against the other two couples, but we did at least get the three best ballroom couples doing the ballroom demo, and we were spared the sight of both Anton’s hairy chest and Ian’s Cuprinolled bald one.
By dint of elimination that meant Brian and Kristina for the dance to Jamie Cullum, and for once the producer mostly kept to shots of the dancing. I’m not surprised, though, because the foxtrot Smooth they put on was pitch-perfect – pure Hollywood glamour, bright and uplifting. I only feared for Kristina for a moment when Brian, spinning her in circles, looked like he might be intending to bash her into the piano (maybe he doesn’t like jazz?) but it all ended happily.
Well, it would have except for the stupid dance-off.
It’s quite rare for the final three to actually be the bottom three, but as soon as Jo Wood was put through to next week I realised my redialling had been in vain. I almost refused to watch the dance-off in a fit of pique, because I really didn’t want to lose Craig or Richard. Especially as Richard actually danced his cha-cha much better, and didn’t go wrong where he had earlier. Even I reluctantly have to admit that the judges kept the right man in, though, and Len’s consolation after-the-fact vote was a nice touch. So was the genuine affection I detected from the other celebs and dancers when they came out to commiserate with Richard and Lilia. In a way, it’s a relief, a bit like the relief I felt two years ago when Penny was voted out. When something’s both painful and inevitable, perhaps it’s best to just get it over with.
Next week – all fourteen couples! In one show! Dancing the quickstep or the paso! It’s the biggest Strictly ever!
It’s going to be a long winter….