Culture

Strictly’s movie week was its biggest blockbuster yet – here’s why

By Matt Moore

8th October 2018

YouTube

“For me, it was just camp mincing around.”

I’ve been watching Strictly for a considerable number of years now, and like many I think Movie Week is one of the best nights of the whole competition. The only downside is where it’s so early in the show, there are always a couple of duds to put a dampener on things.

But despite there being a couple of weak performances this year, the celebs really put the bar high, and at the end of the show I couldn’t decide what my favourite moment was… Okay, that’s a lie. Like everyone else my favourite moment was the bitchfest that Craig and Bruno had with each other. With acid tongues like theirs, they need their own dedicated show together.

Last week, there were some amazing routines from the likes of Ashley Roberts, Kate Silverton and Joe Sugg, and in our poll, at the time of writing, both Joe and Kate were the favourites, both with 25% of the vote. Faye Tozer’s Viennese waltz and Lauren Steadman’s charleston also entertained you, as they both received 11% of the vote.

And although Susannah Constantine picked up 3% of the vote, she went up against Lee Ryan in the dance off, and was unsurprisingly eliminated from the competition.

But the biggest headline from last week’s Strictly was the breath-taking pro routine at the start of the results show. And what made it even better was that for the final part all of the Strictly pros were in same-sex couples. Craig Revel Horwood has said how “easy” it would be for the BBC to have same-sex couples, and after watching that routine we have to agree with him, as the pros made it look spectacular. Special credit goes to Gorka and AJ who stole the show with their chemistry and their lifts.

And the pro routine that opened Saturday night’s show was magical as well, although for an entirely different host of reasons. Danced to a medley of classic Harry Potter songs and scenes it was impossible to take your eyes off and got the whole show off to the best start possible.

And Vick Hope’s salsa only added to the magic. She moved seamlessly, and the storytelling was the best from any routine this week. She might have suffered with the jive in week one, but if this routine is reflective of the Latin that she can do in the future, she might have just become a frontrunner again.

Sadly, Dr. Ranj Singh and Lee Ryan weren’t able to keep the magic up. Dr. Ranj’s quickstep really lacked the quick aspect and as a result was just dull to watch, and Lee looked unsteady all throughout his cha-cha-cha and ended up at the bottom of the leaderboard. At least Dr. Ranj was able to deliver one of the highlights of the night as Bruno fell off his chair in disagreement with Craig.

However, Kate Silverton soon brought the atmosphere back up with the most seductive and sultry foxtrot I’ve ever witnessed. And despite a little stumble down the stairs, she danced the rest of her foxtrot beautifully, and had it not been for the stumble it could have been one of the performances of the night.

Stacey Dooley’s jive was up next, and as a pair of minions she and Kevin smashed their performance. Do I feel like it was a 32? No, probably not, but I can’t deny that the routine was full of infectiousness happiness and I could comfortably watch it again. I can’t really say the same for Joe Sugg’s American smooth. He certainly did a good job, but his “tiny bottom” did create a massive talking point among the judges, and it did let his posture down. But at least he got some nice comments from Craig on it.

I wasn’t looking forward to Graeme Swann’s charleston. Throughout the week he was saying how great it looked when he got it right, but I still had plenty of doubts. However, I was completely wrong, he was able to keep up his energy throughout the routine, he actually managed to get the technique right and overall delivered a solid performance. Like with Stacey, didn’t think it was a 31, but it deserved to be high up on the leaderboard.

And o.m.g, so did Ashley and her salsa. Like most, as much as I watched and enjoyed the routine, I was waiting for the Dirty Dancing lift, and to watch her nail it brought me to the edge of my seat. Strictly is full of ambitious routines, but doing something that spectacular in Week 3, no less, was nothing short of incredible. And plus, it brought us the aforementioned Craig and Bruno bitchfest.

So following that routine, it would have been impossible for Katie Piper to deliver a performance equal to that. But to her credit, her foxtrot had everything I want from a foxtrot, she looked so confident and she was one of my secret favourites of the night. And I was then expecting Seann Walsh’s paso doble to go horribly wrong like last week, but much like Graeme he delivered an incredible routine that was far more than what I ever expected of him.

Unfortunately, Lauren Steadman and Charles Venn couldn’t keep the performance up. Lauren’s cha-cha-cha was incredibly lacklustre and dull to watch, and although some of the lifts that Charles did still stay with me, especially that final one, the rest of the performance was pretty forgettable.

Faye Tozer’s on the other was definitely not. Like Ashley and Danny, I was expecting a lot from Faye based on previous ‘experience’, and although she had captivated me in previous weeks, she hadn’t yet wowed me. Well, this was the week that changed that as she wowed me all throughout her quickstep, and in a week full of star-filled, spectacular, jaw-dropping routines, Faye deserved to at the top of the leaderboard.

It’s a shame then that the final performance wasn’t as star-filled, spectacular or jaw-dropping. Danny John-Jules certainly delivered a confident paso doble, and the song choice was apt, as this certainly was The Greatest Show of the night, but the performance on the whole was nothing special.

But as this show was quite genuinely The Greatest Show, it did make voting incredibly hard. Faye and Ashley deserve a lot of votes based on how spectacular their routines were. But similarly, Graeme, Seann and Katie all deserve to go through to next week as they all delivered far more than what I was expecting. As a result, I decided that I would vote for Katie and Gorka as their performance was so much improved on anything else she had done, and I do hope she’s there next week.

And as all the performances were so spectacular it’s an impossible task choosing which two routines to showcase here. So enjoy the two performances that topped the leaderboard, Faye’s quickstep and Ashley’s salsa.

But as I said back at the launchshow, watch my predictions be wrong. In earlier sections, I said Lee and Dr. Ranj would be people to keep eyes on, and now Lee has gone home, and Dr. Ranj was perilously close to competing in the dance off. Meanwhile, I highlighted Seann and Graeme as some of the early ones to be eliminated, and yet both of them have broken the 30 barrier. Who genuinely thought that Seann would deliver a higher-marked paso doble than Danny?

It was an interesting dance-off, it was almost a given that Lee that would end up there following his being there last week and him being bottom of the leaderboard. But if I’m honest, I thought that it was going to be Lauren who would be joining him, as her dance lacked performance. That said, Charles’s American smooth wasn’t anything special on the night, and was for the most part forgettable, so it wasn’t a surprise to see him there. And although Lee did a better dance in the dance-off, it was the right decision to send him home.

Out of the many of the show-stopping performances of the night, what was your favourite? Let us know by voting in our poll below.