At the very start of the show, Claudia introduced the contestants about to come out, telling the live audience that they were bound to be super nervous and needed big cheers as they descended the stairs. Well, when they came out, not a single one of them looked nervous! They were all dancing and jigging about and looked like they were having a great time. Long may it continue!

No one gets sent home this week, which took the pressure off a bit, but it’s still the first time we get to see the couples out on the dance floor for real… and what a ride it was!

Nick & Luba - Jive

Kicks off the series in his fetching glitterbal high-vis jacket. It was better than I was expecting, mostly on time and no mistakes. A good effort but you could definitely tell he was concentrating. He looked super happy though, the grin on that man! Feet need a lot of work.

Sam & Nikita - Foxtrot

Pretty good character, for a sportsperson not an actor. Medium good dancing, not sure about the footwork but no expert. Quite boring overall dance but they had good chemistry together.

Shayne & Nancy - Samba

Loving the rivalry with Wynne. Quite a hard song to do a samba too, I think, and it was okay but oof, not a fan of this guy. Too competitive from the launch show as well.

Toyah & Neil - Tango

Toyah has bundles of energy but seemed like terrible posture. It started out okay, but lost a lot of rhythm and stature midway through. Good intensity, although occasional glimpses of smiles. Neil kind of throwing her around a bit, and that head spinning thing made me dizzy. Surely Shirley has never given a 2 before??

Tasha & Aljaž - Cha Cha

Really good. The training montage did feel a bit like ‘we are doing good things, honest’ with Aljaž making sure she was super comfortable and whether there was anything else he could do for. He is obviously a darling though, so maybe that’s just how it was. Great dance, good in and out of hold, bit spiky in places but it is the Cha Cha so it has to be. Janette cheering on in the audience… gonna be awkward on It Takes Two!

JB & Amy - Waltz

Bonus Marvin from Hit List in the pre-dance video. This looked pretty good, I don’t care for waltzes and it was lovely and watchable. He put so much effort into making sure his thumb was down but then it was under the ruffle of Amy’s dress anyway! Overall a cute dance.

Pete & Jowita - Paso Doble

“You’re going to be blown away. Or disgusted.” He’s funny. For someone who has no rhythm and struggles finding the beat, he did well. Probably quite a good dance to start with, took the stompy walking a bit too far. But fab intensity and they loved dancing with each other.

Sarah & Vito - Quickstep

Bellography! Good tune, lots of fun, bit dainty in places, but no mistakes. Super energy and pace. Great partnership. Love these two.

Tom & Nadiya - Tango

Not a lot of personality in this, and not sure how much connection there was between them. The steps seemed okay, no major mistakes, quite a lot of concentrating to get there though.

Punam & Gorka - Cha Cha

Good energy and character, must be way out of her comfrot zone. Concentrating a bit too much, maybe not as much straight leg as you’d want. But no complaints from me, very impressed. Can’t imagine my GP getting up and doing this.

Paul & Karen - American Smooth

There were a couple of small moments in this dance that looked okay, I was surprised to see any choreography at all. But mostly I just felt like Karen must be thinking ‘what has happened to my life?’ Absolute madness. Love Wynne having a go. “I’ve been sharing a dressing room with him for two weeks, he still thinks my name is Gwynne. How she taught him anything is beyond me.”

Jamie & Michelle - Viennese Waltz

Along with the samba, this feels like a hard dance to kick off with. I reckon this is the partnership that I care about the least. Alright dancing, though, plenty to improve upon but potential for good things.

Chris & Dianne - Cha Cha

Have seen a few TikToks from these two and they are building a great relationship and seem to be having a lot of fun. No one really knew what to expect here and it was very impressive. The shoulders and posture weren’t great, Craig is right, but wow. It was really interesting to see how Dianne adjusted as well, keeping in contact a lot. Chris’ thoughts on the Cha Cha: “It’s absolute nonsense. It’s like someone sucked all the fun out of dancing and replaced it with terms and conditions.”

Was a surprise to realise they never say the total of the scores out loud, just each individual one!

Montell & Johannes - Foxtrot

Quite entertaining for a foxtrot, very watchable partnership and she had great personality on display. Not sure it had the full technical detail but want to see more from this duo.

Wynne & Katya - Samba

Not a great one to end the show on and really not a good dance, but he’s so awesome! And Katya is such a genius.

JB, Tasha and Sarah were at the top of the leaderboard - which gets carried over to next week. That seems pretty sensible to me. At the other end, Nick, Pete, Paul and Toyah (just 12 points!) have a bit of work to do next week. If you were to push me, I’d predict next week’s bottom two to be Toyah and Pete.

Picking winners at this point is pretty difficult, but Sarah and Montell look like they will do really well, and Jamie has a lot of potential that really didn’t show this week. JB might be in the mix too, although we all know what happened to Aston! Roll on next week where we will get some more clues and wave goodbye to the first contestant!