Deep male cleavage, Brucie's gagstipation – and no real drama. It's business as usual on Strictly
I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose control, and I think I like it … Not me, no; I'd say I feel indifferent at best. That's the song – you know, by the Pointer Sisters – the contestants are emerging to at the start of this *Strictly Come Dancing* (BBC1, Saturday) opener. With a lot of pops and flashes and resultant fug. So much fug! Perhaps they're fumigating them, too, on the sly, because there's a Hairy Biker among this year's batch, and no one wants to catch anything off him.
Who else? More of the usual TV folk, mostly. Corrie, Hollyoaks, Casualty, Waterloo Road, Countdown, BBC Breakfast, The Vanessa Show (ha, remember?) all represented. And a lady Dragon, hoping to show a more fun side, she says. It couldn't be a less fun than the one she normally shows, to be honest. Then there's a former Bond girl, a current Wag'n'model, a fashion designer, a hot rugby player, an old golfer and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who's mainly there so Brucie can do a joke about Murder on the Dancefloor, which he duly does.
Brucie's gagstipation is getting worse, I'm afraid; he sweats and strains and pushes for ages and ages until eventually out they come with a little plop and a big sigh. Still, at his age, what do you expect? And they're not written down; I know he's got those cue cards with him, which he glances down at often, but – and I've been told this by an insider – all they've got on them are his own name and the name of the show he's appearing on.
Tess, meanwhile, remains beautiful, blond and bland. There are the same pantomime judges, trying to be nastier than they really are. And there's some fresh, firm-fleshed, deep-cleavaged (the men, mostly) talent in from eastern Europe for Bruce to mispronounce comedically, to keep our slebs literally on their toes, and to keep the totty levels, and resultant viewing figures, topped up. "See, Mr Farage," they mutter through their perfect rictus grins. "We are a good thing for this country, no?" And it's hard to disagree, though there is something a bit seedy about some fat old British geezer getting paired up with a Russian lovely half his age, then leading her upstairs with a big grin on his face. No? Less so when the genders are reversed perhaps. It's Peter Crouch, in the audience, I feel most sorry for, as his missus wraps herself around a prime hunk of Slovenian beef called Aljaz. Robot dance not looking so clever now, is it Pete? It is all about sex really, isn't it, this show? Sex disguised as Saturday-evening family entertainment…
Jessie J, with new hair, sings a song. Rod Stewart, too, with the same hair he's had for ever. Why, on a programme about dancing? I don't know. Actually I do. Because there's 80 minutes of television to fill, and very little to fill it with. No actual drama. Introductions, a new set, Tess's lovely smile, Brucie's groansome little splashes: they are simply not enough. They make a big song and dance of the pairing-offs, who's going to go off and make chachacha with whom – drum rolls, big pauses for extra tension … But for the average viewer, it makes not a jot of difference whether Chalky from Waterloo Road dances with Iveta or Anya; Countdown's Rachel with Artem or Pascha, Mr Kovalovalova here … stop it! I caught it off you, Bruce.
Which makes the whole of this launch show, a couple of weeks before the action proper, a bit of a waste of time. The only fun bit comes right at the very end, with our celebrities' first attempt at a dance. The boys pedal their fists out of sync on the stairs; Lady Dragon wanders around looking lost. I'm out, she's thinking, but there's no pile of cash to hide behind on this show; Ellis-Bextor is lifted in the air, like a caber; Mr MacFashion jumps up and down enthusiastically; Hairy Biker makes like a motorbike in the air, Golfer jabs a finger. And some of them actually look at as if they've done this before. Not Vanessa, though, who is carried around on her back in the air. A bit like a coffin.
And now they all go away again, until 27 September, when they'll have learned to do it better. I'm hoping for more twerking this year, obviously. Mainly from … well, all of them, really. I'll leave you with the image. Reported by guardian.co.uk 20 hours ago.
I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose control, and I think I like it … Not me, no; I'd say I feel indifferent at best. That's the song – you know, by the Pointer Sisters – the contestants are emerging to at the start of this *Strictly Come Dancing* (BBC1, Saturday) opener. With a lot of pops and flashes and resultant fug. So much fug! Perhaps they're fumigating them, too, on the sly, because there's a Hairy Biker among this year's batch, and no one wants to catch anything off him.
Who else? More of the usual TV folk, mostly. Corrie, Hollyoaks, Casualty, Waterloo Road, Countdown, BBC Breakfast, The Vanessa Show (ha, remember?) all represented. And a lady Dragon, hoping to show a more fun side, she says. It couldn't be a less fun than the one she normally shows, to be honest. Then there's a former Bond girl, a current Wag'n'model, a fashion designer, a hot rugby player, an old golfer and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who's mainly there so Brucie can do a joke about Murder on the Dancefloor, which he duly does.
Brucie's gagstipation is getting worse, I'm afraid; he sweats and strains and pushes for ages and ages until eventually out they come with a little plop and a big sigh. Still, at his age, what do you expect? And they're not written down; I know he's got those cue cards with him, which he glances down at often, but – and I've been told this by an insider – all they've got on them are his own name and the name of the show he's appearing on.
Tess, meanwhile, remains beautiful, blond and bland. There are the same pantomime judges, trying to be nastier than they really are. And there's some fresh, firm-fleshed, deep-cleavaged (the men, mostly) talent in from eastern Europe for Bruce to mispronounce comedically, to keep our slebs literally on their toes, and to keep the totty levels, and resultant viewing figures, topped up. "See, Mr Farage," they mutter through their perfect rictus grins. "We are a good thing for this country, no?" And it's hard to disagree, though there is something a bit seedy about some fat old British geezer getting paired up with a Russian lovely half his age, then leading her upstairs with a big grin on his face. No? Less so when the genders are reversed perhaps. It's Peter Crouch, in the audience, I feel most sorry for, as his missus wraps herself around a prime hunk of Slovenian beef called Aljaz. Robot dance not looking so clever now, is it Pete? It is all about sex really, isn't it, this show? Sex disguised as Saturday-evening family entertainment…
Jessie J, with new hair, sings a song. Rod Stewart, too, with the same hair he's had for ever. Why, on a programme about dancing? I don't know. Actually I do. Because there's 80 minutes of television to fill, and very little to fill it with. No actual drama. Introductions, a new set, Tess's lovely smile, Brucie's groansome little splashes: they are simply not enough. They make a big song and dance of the pairing-offs, who's going to go off and make chachacha with whom – drum rolls, big pauses for extra tension … But for the average viewer, it makes not a jot of difference whether Chalky from Waterloo Road dances with Iveta or Anya; Countdown's Rachel with Artem or Pascha, Mr Kovalovalova here … stop it! I caught it off you, Bruce.
Which makes the whole of this launch show, a couple of weeks before the action proper, a bit of a waste of time. The only fun bit comes right at the very end, with our celebrities' first attempt at a dance. The boys pedal their fists out of sync on the stairs; Lady Dragon wanders around looking lost. I'm out, she's thinking, but there's no pile of cash to hide behind on this show; Ellis-Bextor is lifted in the air, like a caber; Mr MacFashion jumps up and down enthusiastically; Hairy Biker makes like a motorbike in the air, Golfer jabs a finger. And some of them actually look at as if they've done this before. Not Vanessa, though, who is carried around on her back in the air. A bit like a coffin.
And now they all go away again, until 27 September, when they'll have learned to do it better. I'm hoping for more twerking this year, obviously. Mainly from … well, all of them, really. I'll leave you with the image. Reported by guardian.co.uk 20 hours ago.