Strictly Come Dancing - Live from Blackpool Tower Ballroom

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Strictly Come Dancing - Live from Blackpool Tower Ballroom

November 21, 2016 - 21:15
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It’s The Big One in the Strictly calendar, as the remaining couples decamp to the world famous Blackpool Tower Ballroom. For the celebrities and their professional dancers, this is what they have been aiming for.

Strictly in Blackpool

By Matthew Gormley @MatthewPGormley

It’s The Big One in the Strictly calendar, as the remaining couples decamp to the world famous Blackpool Tower Ballroom. For the celebrities and their professional dancers, this is what they have been aiming for.

This weekend saw Strictly take its annual trip to the seaside, as the show was broadcast live from the Blackpool Tower Ballroom. The prestigious ballroom is the world’s most famous dance hall, with its stunning interior and captivating crystal chandeliers which hang delicately from the ornate ceiling. Blackpool is, to professional dancers, what Wimbledon is to tennis pro, what Wembley Stadium is to a Premier League football player; it’s hallowed ground, and to perform there is an incredible privilege.

An iconic building with such rich history makes it the perfect place for Strictly to go live to the nation on a Saturday night, and the ballroom has played host to the show on numerous occasions. This weekend saw the seven remaining couples up the ante to impress the judges and the viewers, having talked endlessly about how much they wanted to make it to this particular round.

Saturday night’s show opened in style, with the entire cast of professional dancers and the remaining celebrity contestants dressed in top hat and tails and showgirl feather plumes. It was a stunning performance that oozed sophistication, complete with all the glitz and glamour of the West End, and provided a joyful throwback to Saturday nights of old, when television was awash with tap dancing, twinkle-toed performers. Many of the celebrities blended in with the professional dancers with ease. Greg Rutherford was the first one to make his entrance, exuding charm amongst the professional females dressed in white, whilst Danny Mac was barely distinguishable from the male dancers during a kick-and-flick cane routine. Thankfully, Ed Balls remained stationary on a revolving chair.

The performances are always turned up a notch for the Blackpool special, and this year was no exception. Frontrunner Danny Mac and his partner Oti Mabuse scored the first perfect 40 of the series. With four weeks to go before the Grand Final, it’s still quite premature for all four judges to be lifting their 10 paddles, but this was thoroughly deserved, as Danny and Oti delivered an impeccable Charleston to the Irving Berlin classic ‘Puttin’ On The Ritz’. Danny channelled Fred Astaire with his breathtaking footwork, coupled with Oti’s charismatic choreography. Head judge Len described the routine as ‘choreography overload’, but this was entirely complementary and was credit to Danny for carrying off such an incredibly energetic and complex routine. Like a stick of Blackpool rock, it seems as though he’s got the dancing bug running through his veins.

Other highlights of the Blackpool bonanza included a fierce, theatrical Paso Doble from Louise Redknapp and partner Kevin Clifton, and an elegantly exquisite Viennese Waltz from Ore Oduba and Joanne Clifton. Ore has emerged as the dark horse of this year’s competition and, whilst we saw him struggling with all the twisting and turning in training, his hard work paid off, as he effortlessly executed the longest fleckerl ever witnessed in Strictly history, featuring a mammoth 14 consecutive rotations.

Not for the first time, the Blackpool broadcast was ruined by the presence of backing dancers during all the routines. Whilst we expect Strictly to go large in Blackpool to mark the special occasion, there is simply no need to have anything else going on around the couples whilst they are performing. It’s distracting and makes the large sprung floor seem overcrowded. The focus is pulled away from the celebrities’ dancing talents and the routines look over-produced. It’s a real shame, as it mars an otherwise spectacular show and is a classic example of the producers trying too hard. It wasn’t always this way. The backing dancers first appeared when Strictly went supersize at Wembley Arena for the equivalent of this week back in 2012. With a vast space holding 6,000 audience members and a dance floor so big it could have doubled up as a warehouse, it made sense to enhance the production with supporting performers to avoid the couples becoming microscopic dots in the middle of a vast open space. But the Tower Ballroom is as far removed from Wembley as it’s possible to be; its elegant ambience is in stark contrast to the wild and savage Wembley Arena.

Sunday night’s dance off saw the two Team GB athletes go head-to-head, as Greg Rutherford, and partner Natalie, and Claudia Fragapane, with partner AJ, were forced to perform again. It was Greg and Natalie who the judges unanimously voted to send home, which was fair enough given that Claudia and AJ’s performance was more intricate and cleanly polished, but hideously unjust given that the atrocious Ed Balls sailed through yet again. With just four weeks left in the ballroom battle, it’s a travesty that this year’s token jester is still going strong.

Greg may have danced his way to the end of the pier, but for the six remaining couples, the Glitterball trophy is within touching distance. With a ‘Cha-Cha-Challenge’ adding an extra dynamic next week, will Danny & Oti continue to tower above their ballroom counterparts?

Strictly Come Dancing continues on Saturday and Sunday nights on BBC One. The Grand Final is on Saturday 17 December 2016.

There is 1 Comment

Ahoyhoy's picture

They always big themselves up about going to Blackpool, but we all know that they're only there because they've been bumped out of their normal studio by Children In Need.