Well this was a tough one, wasn’t it? The halfway point, hooray, the dancers are really starting to get it all together. But we had to wave goodbye to Will, which was very sad. And poor Neil also had to sit out another week and hand over the dance to a thankfully slightly more prepared Kevin.

Here are some thoughts as the whole thing unfolded.

Karim and Amy. “Not bad if you did the right steps,” she says in training. Encouraging! A great dance, I feel like he lost definition a couple of times but a really amazing job - energetic as always but seemed more in control this time. Epic scoring.

Michelle is staccato enough but is it mean enough? I thought she would have been able to sell it a bit better, but I’m not sure. Great outfits and a fab concept though, she really pulled it off. And she listens to the judges so well!

Emma and Aljiaz - looked lazy and messy, she was doing all the steps but it just didn’t quite work. There wasn’t the double bounce but the tricks they added were good. Found it hard to put into words why it didn’t quite work but the judges have no such problem.

Kelvin and Oti, looks amazing as always. The Viennese waltz can be a bit boring on occasion but they really made me care. I do think someone needs to throw up at some point, they keep chatting on about it. Bruno was well creepy in his comments.

Saffron and AJ did a much better job than I thought they would, although it was too fast for her to really show off the right body movements. Balance might have been off or something but I was distracted by the poor job the singers did.

Alex and Kevin, she has so much more confidence now!!! Good, sassy dance. It’s a bit awkward how much better chemistry they seem to have than her and Neil. Tess: “Well done Kev, you kept up this week.” Love to see what she could do with 45 minutes notice.

Chris and Karen, to PJ and Duncan. Street commercial was always bound to suit him much better, not needing a frame or anything. But actually, I really didn’t like it. Had to watch it back to see what we were missing, as everyone else seemed to love it. But no, still bad on a second viewing.

Emma and Anton’s rumba - she looks AMAZING. Good dance, not perfect, but great legs and lovely movement. I noticed some of it looked weird but couldn’t really tell why, the judges say it was the timing and if so, that’s a shame. She looked tearful after.

Oof Mike and Katya. It wasn’t the best, and given the character-driven side of the dance, it really should have been his best work. Quite a few mistakes, but there were some good lifts and he kept up to the end, so it could have been worse.

I’m ready for Mike and Katya to leave the competition at this point but I actually can’t argue that the wrong people went this week. Emma just had a really poor week, sometimes a dance just doesn’t suit you, and that’s all there is to it.

So… I heard the first reference to Blackpool in It Takes Two this week, so is now when it all kicks off? Can’t wait for the Blackpool drinking game. DRINK!