The calm before the Strictly storm

Saturday, 20 June 2009

We’re aliiiive… Yes, really, we’re still here, still posting new events – there just aren’t many new ones to post this end of the year! There was the small affair of the first Strictly Dancers event at Ditton on 5 June. It went rather well. We’d like to do another one before too long, but as always, we’re constrained by the schedules of the pro dancers, so watch this space.

We’re fast getting to the point where the Strictly lot will be back training this year’s crop of retired sportsmen, pop starlets looking to relaunch their careers and TV has-beens with nothing better to do. Oh, I jest, of course! No doubt this year’s celebrity line-up will be crammed with the cream of the A-list…Richard and Judy ARE A-list, aren’t they? Sharon Osborne? That bird off Crimewatch? The CHEEKY GIRLS, for heaven’s sake?

I, for one, couldn’t be more excited.

The news (rumour? gossip? bald-faced tabloid lie?) that Arlene is to be axed from the Strictly judging panel broke this week, in tandem with the suggestion that 2007 champ Alesha Dixon could be drafted in to replace her. Surely not? We all love Alesha (it’s Strictly sacrilege not to, innit?) but would she really have what it took to replace Arlene? That’s to say, could she pre-script cringeworthy alliterative comments, lust after young men half her age – oh yeah, and have any sort of authority about dance choreography and performance? Probably not. The jury is out…