We’ve reached the quarter finals and it’s Musicals week, one of the best on the Strictly calendar - hooray! Kym & Graziano are back in action so it’s a full house… although there are only six couples remaining at this point, so it’s a slimmed down show that will see who gets through to the semi-finals.

The opening montage of various musicals was fantastic - Johannes as a Pink Lady is everything I never knew I needed. Love that Oti was back as choreographer, too. Anyway, on with the shows!

Molly & Carlos - Charleston (Chicago)

A great start to the dance, to be honest I loved the bit with Lauren and Molly dancing together and wanted more of that! It was a step forward from last week, not the long 90 seconds, so entertaining, but it wasn’t a full on FUN Charleston that we love so much. Great tricks though, and big scores as a result.

Hamza & Jowita - Samba (The Lion King)

I was nervous about this one because samba is a hard enough dance without taking the carnival vibe away, and this is a really tricky song - Jowita got emotional talking about the song let alone dancing it. It was technically great, although perhaps a bit jerky, the bounce was great but you could sort of see the mechanics of it. Still, this guy has the moves and deserves the final, no question.

Kym & Graziano - Cha Cha Cha (Fame)

Kym looks great, and it’s a wonderful energised song. Very brave to do the straight leg dance with leggings on to show off all the skills - but Kym pulled it off! I felt like it lagged a bit towards the end (maybe running out of energy due to flu?) but she worked really well with the extra cast, very stylish. What the judges are saying does not at all match what they are scoring, so weird.

Will & Nancy - Foxtrot (Miss Saigon)

This does make me think I need to actually watch this whole musical, as I know more songs than I have any right to. Foxtrot is the slowest dance on the roster this week, but it was a great capsule moment, stacked full of emotion and very smooth. Lovely. “A quiet wow,” Motsi says.

Helen & Gorka - Couple’s Choice (Cabaret)

Another great VT, I really love Helen. She couldn’t have done this dance in the early weeks, she says, and I can see why. It was INCREDIBLE. Nikita was up on the table at the end - next level standing ovation. “It was a memory I will treasure forever,” says Shirley. And oof, Craig has never been booed that badly before, has he? 39 out of 40 when it clearly deserved the full score.

Fleur & Vito - Quickstep (An American in Paris)

A fun dance, but in all honesty, the policeman who was part of the ensemble completely upstaged them all for me. There were a lot of different and changing timings in the dance, it looked very challenging, but somehow that also made it quite hard to watch too. A good job from Fleur though.

This time Will and Helen were at the top of the leaderboard, with Kym at the bottom, Hamza just above her. My instincts were that Kym was probably the weakest, but with Fleur and Molly in the middle of the leaderboard on equal points and their history of being in the bottom two, I predicted they might both feature there this weekend. (Who would the judges pick between them, I wonder?)

In the end, though, it was Molly again and Kym, with the judges saving Molly and bidding farewell to Kym. We’re down to five dancers now and the semi-finals are coming up which means two dances each next week. Normally I feel a bit sorry for the dancers at this point, but they do have extra days this week due to the confusing schedule changes, so that should help. I can’t wait!