Presented by Graham Norton on BBC1 on Saturday evenings. (And comments on the BBC3 follow-up) We’re nearing the finals now. And I’m going to see them dancing live on Wednesday!!
I didn’t watch this program last year, but I wish I had because I’m really enjoying it. I hadn’t realised before that they have to learn completely different dance styles each week, so it does actually keep your interest the whole time and means it probably appeals to a bigger audience. They should probably do the same on Strictly Come Dancing as well because the celebrities just aren’t interesting enough for me to watch Latin and Ballroom the whole time.
The format of the show is virtually a complete copy, but with the audition process of ordinary people, making it more like the X Factor or something. There’s a panel of 4 judges: Arlene Phillips, Wayne Sleep, Stacey Haynes and Ben Richards, and they rip apart the dances performed by each couple each week and give their scores. The public vote as well and each week one couple is eliminated from the show.
I’m not sure how well this works with dancing. I can understand why the public vote is important in shows like the X Factor because it’s the public who will be buying the records of the winner so they have to like him or her. But (and I’m going to be very judgemental and typify here) the people who can afford to go to west end musicals (the winner gets a contract at one) are probably out there doing just that on a Saturday evening and the people like me who are at home watching the telly are probably never going to see the winners ever again. So what it should come down to entirely is the talent of the dancers and not how popular they are. But on the other hand I can understand why a program entirely about dancing, a subject that’s not going to bring in the ratings by itself, needs viewer participation.
My big complaint is the absolutely terrible program that is Strictly Dance Fever on Three. It comes on BBC3 straight after the BBC1 program and honestly I’ve never watched a more crap follow-up thing on a sky channel. It’s presented by June Sarpong, which doesn’t help because she is just soooo annoying! I can’t stand it every time she speaks. However I think she’s very very pretty and should keep her mouth closed and model instead.
I’m getting off the point. The program is so badly prepared. They have some west end guy on giving his opinion which is never anything original because we’ve heard all there is to say from the judges already. We have to sit through yet more clips from the dances they’ve just done. It was only 5 minutes ago – our memories aren’t that flipping bad!! This week loads of the program was filled up with some not-really-famous comedian learning to dance. Then they had three celebrities on who seemed like they actually had something interesting to say and June had to cut each of them off mid sentences because she ran out of time.
The only thing good about this program is the interview with Graham each week as it reminds you that he’s actually quite funny and a nice guy when what he’s saying isn’t scripted. But come on BBC3 Think about your audience!!! Either they are going to be fiends for reality TV or they are going to be very interested in dancing. Concentrate on the first and you’ve got hours and hours of footage of the dancers in the mansion. Or concentrate on the second and you’ve got an opportunity to give more information about the dancing and show more of their dance lessons. I know for a fact that proffessional dancers were brought in and filmed demonstrating a dance (my dance teacher was one of them) so they could show that! It’s obvious! We don’t want to see repeats of the program we’ve only seen minutes before! Sort it out for next year please!
