The Strictly Sweep – Week 8
My apologies everyone, but you see owing to a very important appointment in Coventry I never got to see the Saturday spectacular from Wembley until last night. And it would be remiss of me to try and comment on the events without having first seen them. I mean, were I to do that you’d probably run after me with flaming sticks. But anyway, I have now seen Saturday, and what an event it was. And that may well be the problem. For the kind of event it was, Wembley Arena was simply too big. I mean, the floor was five times the size of the floor in the studio at the concrete doughnut, which meant that the dancers were simply lost out there in the wide expanse of space. If you were seated at the very back, then watching something like Chelsee doing her solo samba spot must have required a pair of extremely powerful Austrian binoculars. But that’s beside the point. Or is it? Note clearly the absence of 10s this week, as well as mistakes all around – perhaps the most obvious of these was from Jason, who completely lost his place about 2/3 the way through his jive routine. Did you notice though the way he handled that? Rather than trying to catch up, instead he simply stopped, mainted his bounce and started up again with Kristina from a few steps further on. Evidently Jason is enough of a pro to know not to panic, something that less experienced people might not have done. He got through it, and gained a decent score into the bargain. The surprise though was Alex & James topping the leaderboard (albeit jointly with Chelsee & Pasha) for the first time. James admitted that during the first few days of their training, after he had gone home, he had actually shed tears of frustration at how bad Alex actually was. Of course, better weeping at that than at the Antiques Roadshow. Could Alex be this year’s dark horse? The one that nobody notices until all of a sudden she’s in the semi-final? That was certainly the case with Chris Hollins and, to a lesser extent, Christine Bleakley. So who knows? The other thing of note is that now we’re getting to the latter stages, the fewer poor to middling dancers are left to be in the bottom two, meaning that now the competition is really going to get serious. For the first time one of the real contenders came at the bottom end of the public vote in the form of Holly & Artem (who was thankfully returned to harness following his back injury). Although they may have survived this time, they, along with Jason & Kristina, Chelsee & Pasha and Harry & Aliona, will have to get used to it over the next couple of weeks. Of course, as they survived, their opponents in the final two must have fallen by the wayside, and (somewhat surprisingly) that ended up being Russell & Flavia. Not even being shot out of a cannon could seemingly save Russell, although, in all fairness, their jive routine was less inspired than some of their others, bearing in mind that Russell isn’t really built for the jive. I guess Judge Craig was right when he said right at the beginning that he was disappointed he wouldn’t get to see Flavia dance the argentine tango. Still, it would have been interesting to see that. Alas, ’twas not to be. And so, if you had Russell & Flavia in the sweep, we must bid you so long.
Moving to the league tables, we see Chelsee & Pasha retaining top spot, and increasing their lead to eight points over Harry & Aliona, who have pushed Jason & Kristina down to third place – they now only have a two point advantage over fourth placed Alex & James. The lack of ballroom this week (only two couples performed a ballroom routine) means it’s as you were with the top two in the ballroom table, with Jason & Kristina maintaining a ten point advantage over Chelsee & Pasha. Alex & James are the big movers, jumping from seventh to third. The same is true in the latin table, with Harry & Aliona retaining top spot over Anita & Robin, while Chelsee & Pasha are in third.
In the minor competitions, we find Jason & Kristina still leading the highest weekly score with their 33 from week 2, owing to the fact that Alex & James and Chelsee & Pasha tied for top spot this week. Harry & Aliona still lead the number of tens competition with their total of four. Jason & Kristina also lead the average score competition on 32.75, which is just 0.125 of a point clear of both Chelsee & Pasha and Harry & Aliona.
Something you may have noticed was that it was Children in Need last week (the Wembley shindig raising over £100,000 for it). You may also remember that I mentioned that the BBC Newsreaders annual CiN danceathon would be based around Strictly. Well, it was, and it took the form of a group dance involving Sian Williams, Susanna Reid, Emily Maitlis and Sophie Raworth, each of whom was paired with a male professional (Vincent, Robin, Pasha and Ian Waite), which was then rated by the judges. In the past I have handed out prizes for Strictly’s appearence on Children in Need, and this year will be no exception. As it was Susanna & Robin who emerged the winners, then whoever drew Robin in the main series sweep can expect a little chocolatey bonus prize.
There’s just four weeks left now. We’re getting really serious as, for the first time, they’ll have to learn two dances in one week, with both their main individual routines and a group swingathon to get their heads around. This is where it gets really exciting.
Chairman Pip’s Railway Thoughts Strictly League 2011
| Dancers | Points |
| Chelsee/Pasha | 531 |
| Harry/Aliona | 523 |
| Jason/Kristina | 507 |
| Alex/James | 505 |
| Holly/Artem | 496 |
| Anita/Robin | 482 |
| Robbie/Ola | 462 |
| Russell/Flavia | 429 |
| Lulu/Brendan | 361 |
| Audley/Natalie | 351 |
| Rory/Erin | 298 |
| Nancy/Anton | 214 |
| Dan/Katya | 199 |
| Edwina/Vincent | 126 |
For the ballroom and latin leagues, the tables look like this: Celebrations Ballroom League
| Jason/Kristina | 141 |
| Chelsee/Pasha | 131 |
| Alex/James | 127 |
| Holly/Artem | 126 |
| Robbie/Ola | 119 |
| Audley/Natalie | 101 |
| Harry/Aliona | 96 |
| Anita/Robin | 91 |
| Russell/Flavia | 83 |
| Rory/Erin | 73 |
| Lulu/Brendan | 57 |
| Dan/Katya | 53 |
| Nancy/Anton | 42 |
| Edwina/Vincent | 24 |
Roses Latin League
| Harry/Aliona | 195 |
| Anita/Robin | 186 |
| Chelsee/Pasha | 175 |
| Jason/Kristina | 161 |
| Russell/Flavia | 156 |
| Holly/Artem | 151 |
| Alex/James | 149 |
| Lulu/Brendan | 139 |
| Robbie/Ola | 138 |
| Audley/Natalie | 83 |
| Rory/Erin | 66 |
| Nancy/Anton | 66 |
| Dan/Katya | 61 |
| Edwina/Vincent | 52 |
