For the first time in three years, Strictly was back in the Blackpool ballroom with everything that comes with that - echoey vocals, additional dancers, fish and chips, rollercoasters, and everyone talking about how important the seaside town is to the world of ballroom dancing. Even though we’re all a bit cynical about just how much everyone bangs on about Blackpool, it’s still quite exciting to see how much they all love it and how much it means to them.

It’s Blackpool next week, in case you missed one of the hundred references to it in this week’s show. Time to get your drinking games on! Blackpool… DRINK! A fact I heard during the week on It Takes Two was that four of the six couples who have left the show so far have gone out on a Charleston, making it the danger dance of the series so far. Ellie’s on for the Charleston this week - uh oh - and she was first up on the dancefloor. Let’s go!

Strictly went back to normal this week, no theme, just songs and dances. I was ill, though, so didn’t watch it live. Instead I caught up later, and in a particularly grumpy mood, so who knows if I enjoyed the dances as much as I normally would have with a glass of wine. Claudia seemed to have rocked up in her pyjamas, but they were very snazzy so I was all for it.

We’re not quite back to normal with Strictly yet, after last week’s slightly bizarre and trying-too-hard 100 year birthday theme, this time it’s the more traditional Halloween. The costume, hair and make up teams really pulled out all the stops for this, it was clear as soon as the couples started descending the stairs. And the judges! They all looked incredible too, even if Anton spent most of the show doing battle with his curly wig.

We’ve got a bonus theme week this time round with the BBC celebrating 100 years and Strictly jumping right into the fun. When the list of songs and dances were revealed, it was quite eye-opening. Our stars would be dancing to a variety of BBC theme tunes and related songs and some of them looked like they would be more successful than others. I couldn’t see how the Grange Hill theme tune was going to work, and I couldn’t remember that Line of Duty had a theme tune anyway - but as always, judgement had to be withheld until we’d seen the performances on the dancefloor.

It felt like a bit of a comedown this week after the fun and games of movie week, but there were lots of tunes to behold this week and some great outfits… and also Ellie dressed like a bizarre Little Bo Peep. But I’m getting ahead of myself. During the intro, Anton brought out his NTA award for judging - Craig must be fuming, the guy’s only been doing it for about six months!

Movie week! I’m always surprised how quickly the first theme week rolls in but I was ready for it this time - bring on the costumes! The opening number from the professionals didn’t really get me in the mood, though, I have to say. I don’t know Encanto, it’s still on the ’to watch’ list, but it wasn’t a rip-roaring number which is a shame. However, the Anton glitterball heist made up for it, and led us straight into the dancing.

We had fun last week, but this was the real start of the competition where things hot up and someone has to go home. I managed to swot up via It Takes Two in a hurried fashion over just a couple of days, so I was ready to be super knowledgeable about everything. Except then you get to the live show and anything can happen! It felt like there were so many mistakes this week, right from the start… everyone’s forgotten how to do the live shows. But they’ve remembered how to dance and that’s all that matters.

I can’t decide whether it’s better or worse to have had the launch show only the day before the first live show. On the one hand, the launch show gets you all excited and you don’t have to wait long to see the amazing teams in action. On the other hand, it’s quite nice to have a bit of time to ponder how they’re going to do, to let those initial thoughts sink in and get some anticipation going for what to expect.

We’ve been delayed by a week but finally Strictly Come Dancing is up and running for 2022, and boy do we need a bit of sparkle in our lives right now, huh? If you take away the slightly dodgy overdubs where Tess had to reference ’tomorrow’ rather than ’next week’ it was the perfect show, proving as always that just because you only know one or two of the cast, you absolutely can’t judge what a year is going to be like based on their pictures alone.

I, like many other people, found myself crying for the full two hours of the Strictly final - for the second year in a row. But this year did feel different. The 2020 final was a celebration of joy and glitter and sparkles and fun after a dreadful year. We needed that release. This time, although we still need that in our lives, it was more about the couples taking part. If AJ had been able to participate, then all three would have been representing in their own way - powerful, talented black woman; inspirational and groundbreaking deaf woman, moving and strong same-sex couple.

Semi-finals!! Somehow it feels like it’s come round really quickly but at the same time, when you watch the opening credits featuring all the participants of 2021, some of them seem like such a long time ago! I really think this is one of the closest competitions we’ve had in a long time, every one of the semi finalists has topped the leaderboard, so how can we possibly predict? Anything can happen.

We were greeted with two group dances by the professional this week, one at the start of each day’s show, but I much preferred the first one. Oti and Graziano portrayed a great story, I love it when the dance is completely mesmorising and even more so when the leads hug at the end. Good to see all the judges back in action, a full house of our favourites, but just five couples to take to the floor!

The show was only just over an hour this week, and it was really clear how few people are left when they were all waiting at the bottom of the stairs for the action to begin. Just six couples left and three spots in the final. Things are getting tough! Poor Motsi had to miss this show so we had the wonderful Cynthia Erivo back again, and it was very clear that she’d stepped right into Motsi’s shoes when it came to not putting up with any of Craig’s nonsense. The booing was a bit much this week though, even if he is sometimes overly grumpy, he’s usually got a point.

Musicals week has arrived, and it’s one of those that all the couples say they were desperate to participate in… but we’re getting to the sharp end now and the good have to be even greater to get through. Also, this is the first week in Strictly history that Craig Revel Horwood wasn’t on the judging panel, replaced by Cynthia Erivo. It was fitting, as she’s a superb theatre star with plenty to add on the couples performances. It was also fun for the women to outnumber the men on the judging panel, too - first time ever?

Just your regularly scheduled week this time, with plenty of excitement building up to musicals week next time out. My only thought from the intro sequence is to pity the colour balancing people, Motsi’s dress was something else entirely. On with the show, predictions this week have to return to Dan, unfortunately, and perhaps Tilly following last week. Talking of which, Tilly opened the show! Tilly & Nikita - Quickstep Nice concept, I thought the dance was a bit kicky, and I was really concerned that she was going to trip over her own or Nikita’s feet, which suggests it wasn’t as smooth as you might like. Good personality in it, though, almost like a Charleston. The judges liked it but they’re starting to get really picky now… and only medium scores for this one.

Much is made of us being at the halfway point of the series, presumably because they can’t make a big deal about going to Blackpool anymore. The montage of contestants talking about how much the series means to them at the start of the show was using footage from two weeks ago (I’m assuming so that no one was painted green) but it really confused me.

Woohoo, Halloween! Actually, if I’m honest, I’m not normally that bothered about Halloween week - the costumes are always exceptional but as a holiday, it’s not that interesting. The only prediction I had coming into this week was that someone would definitely be painted green. I wasn’t expecting that to happen right in the opening Pro number, but there it was! We also had someone painted red, but hey, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The drop out rate this week was somewhat reduced, but sadly Judi and Graziano weren’t able to perform due to testing positive for Covid. I’m sure it’s not outlandish to suggest they might have been in the bottom two this week after a couple of weeks in that position, so that left things a little bit more wide open in terms of who might perform well and who might be going home.

It was a bad week for Strictly drop outs leading up to Saturday’s show. First, Robert and Dianne had to withdraw, which was a shame but totally understandable - health comes first! I hadn’t realised Robert had been through the heart surgery two years ago, so definitely the right thing to do. And then Ugo had to take a week out (hopefully!) due to a back issue - I’m guessing that high jump into forward roll over Oti last week wasn’t such a good idea? Anyway, let’s take a look at those who did participate.

It always surprises me how quickly a theme week arrives but here we are with Movie Week, and boy it was such a colourful collection of characters that gathered at the bottom of the stairs as the show began. We were also treated to a gorgeous pro dance opening the show with the wonderful Johannes and Kai taking centre stage - it made me warm to Kai a little bit more.

Nerves ahoy as this is the first week when someone actually gets voted out. After last week’s incredible opener, where everyone put in a good show and we saw a minimum of mistakes, I think the nerves and the training schedules started to get the better of some people as there were a lot more wobbles during the evening. But let’s see how that played out, couple by couple.

Right, we’re in it now, aren’t we? The first proper week of people dancing and showing us what they’ve got. What an incredible show it was, a bonanza of lights and colour, banging tunes and of course buckets and buckets of glitter. I think we say this every year, but the standard seems so high? I don’t think there was a single dance that was cringey and unwatchable, and there’s usually always one. But let’s revisit dance by dance and see what predictions we can make.

In 2019, I wrote a quick post after every week of Strictly Come Dancing. Last year, I wrote absolutely nothing about the show, even though the fantastic Bill Bailey won it and I spent the entire two and a half hours of the final crying at everyone being so emotional. This year? Who knows, maybe something in between? It seems about time to dust off the glitterball on the blog though, and have my say over the launch show that took place this past weekend.

I picked up tickets for the Strictly Come Dancing live tour back in November, when Strictly fever was at its height - in my household anyway. We were heading rapidly towards the finale with a good few names still left with a chance of winning (even though we all knew it would be Kelvin). Fast-forward to the post-Christmas slump and the tickets didn’t really make sense anymore. The Strictly mood was long-since gone, we’re in the middle of January, a traditionally low month, and the glitter ball trophy and all those sequins couldn’t seem further away.

So, Anton du Beke has written a series of books, and would you believe it, they’re about old school ballroom dancing in a posh London hotel. It’s exactly what you would expect from Anton, really, the swoosh of proper ballroom dancers in the luxurious grandness of a swanky hotel in the pre-war era of misquiet and distrust.

Final thoughts! How can it be over already? I mean, I know it’s been weeks and we’ve all been on a journey and it’ll be quite nice to have my Saturday nights back but still… it’s all done! What a final show it was, kicking off with an incredible routine, and featuring Taylor Swift, plus all the old gang back for one more round including lovely Will!

Somehow we have whittled the contestants down to just four and it’s time to wave goodbye to the one who will miss out on the final. Somehow it feels so soon that we have reached this point, and yet when you watch the titles it’s like “oh yea, they were in it, that was so long ago!” Time is weird. Anyway, here’s how my thoughts flowed as the couples tried out two dances in one night.

Quarter finals, musicals week, the famous five, all the ingredients for a fun show. It’s amazing how short and sweet the broadcasts are now - just an hour of dancing and we’re done. But we’re getting close to the end now, who will miss out on the semi-final spot? Here’s my thoughts throughout the show. This is an opening. Anton and Kevin singing?? Craig? Bruno being under-utilised for a change? Too much!

Okay, people, things are getting serious. Partly because Saturday night was some of the first wine I’d had after being ill for a bit, and also because we’re edging closer to the part of the competition where all the episodes end in -final. Whoever gets through this is into the quarter-finals, Musicals week. Let’s go! Actually, before we start, just gotta say… Bruno sings?? AJ and Saffron up first and wow, the song is so slow. It drags the whole thing down, feels heavy. Samba is so hard but somehow she was making it look hard too. Good effort but not quite perfect.

Blackpool! That’s all we need to say about that. In other news, at this point, all the dancers left are really good and have earned their spot on the big ballroom floor, so I was looking forward to this show being of really high dance quality… and I wasn’t disappointed! Great opening number with all the professionals, celebrities, and the bonus Blackpool dancers. It was quite weird to see our contestants dancing with each other, ie. at one point I spotted Karim and Alex having a boogie. Very odd.

Is it Blackpool time?? Not quite yet but it is Blackpool drinking time. DRINK. I actually didn’t think the number of B word mentions was as high as it has been in the past, but maybe I was just mellow with a glass of wine in hand. It’s that point in the competition, unfortunately helped by Will’s early exit, that when the dancers gather on the floor at the beginning, it’s starting to look quite empty. They still know how to put on a good show though.

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.

Oh, Halloween week. And this time someone is dancing to the Backstreet Boys. Hooray! I’m surprised that we haven’t started hearing all about Blackpool yet, but perhaps that is the next milestone? Who will get there? Read on! Hope Will gets better soon, oof! And Neil! Although I have to say, Kevin, of course, fits Ghostbusters very well. Loving that the name patch clearly has space for four letters but has squeezed in Kev instead.

This week, guest judge Alfonso Ribeiro sat in for Bruno Tonioli. He did the same thing last year, but I wasn’t watching then, so it was the first time I’ve seen him in action. Such fun! It was actually quite nice to have a bit of a different line up, I wouldn’t want there to be guest judges every week, but it’s no bad thing to hear from different voices. Anyway, on with the notes as it happened:

It only took four weeks to get some Strictly Come controversy but I have to admit I was surprised by the bottom two and the subsequent decision by the judges. However, before we get there, here are some quick notes about the dances as they happened. Chris Ramsay went first, and I quite enjoyed the inside basketball included in the dance. It was good although I’m not totally sure I like the non-pointy-foot option. He is a funny one though, “let’s see that leaderboard!”

This week, I was not very well and had to watch Strictly without a glass of wine in hand which was a different experience. Although I was a bit delirious from the cold meds, so it probably added up to the same thing. It was movie week, of course, and full of drama during the week of build up and on the night itself. Craig and the teeth! Katya falling over many times! Dev covering everyone and everything in blue body paint!

When I go Strictly, I like to go all in and whilst I have drawn the line at listening to the podcast this year, I’m keen to keep up the It Takes Two habit. I only just managed to fit them all in with a couple of hours to spare before we set about watching week 2’s show, but it got done. And what did I make of week 2? Fun and fabulous, as always. Here are some notes I made along the way.

So, we’ve all seen the first episode of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing competition and what an extravaganza it was. Immediately, I have to go back on two things I said in my previous post: That I didn’t know any of the contestants this year and was more likely to want to get on with my life than get to know them. But no, no, one show in and I was obsessed. My concerns about Motsi. I still stand by the feeling that the BBC have put themselves in a difficult position having sisters as judge and competitor, but I can see why they’ve taken the risk. Motsi is properly brilliant. So, having clarified that I loved it, here’s a stream of consciousness as I watched.

If I’m being honest with myself, I’ve already drifted away from Strictly Come Dancing. There was a time where I would blog about my thoughts several times through each series – at one point the BBC included a link to one of my posts on their website. That saw views skyrocketing, let me tell you. But last year, I didn’t watch the show at all. None of the celebrities particularly grabbed my attention, and boy that show eats up a lot of your time if you get invested properly.

This coming weekend is the final of Strictly Come Dancing’s 2016 competition, and it’s been an epic run to the finish. I used to write about this show all the time but haven’t shared my thoughts since 2012. It must be a good series this year to get me back behind the keyboard! Rather than prattle on endlessly, I’ll just share five thoughts about the 2016 batch of amateur dancers:

There have been lots of rumours about who would be participating in Strictly Come Dancing this year, and all I’ve heard for ages is people saying other people would like to do it. The best example was everyone’s favourite Master Baker Paul Hollywood pausing at all the “wrong” moments in conversation with Chris Evans. It was a fine example of the art of misdirection, which only became apparent yesterday when the celebrities were revealed.

I had intended to write a wrap up of the 2011 Strictly Come Dancing competition, but sort of didn’t and then it was too late. However, by popular demand, and given that Strictly is in the news today, it seems worthwhile finishing up the batch of posts with a belated summary. In my half time report, I predicted the finalists as Chelsee, Jason and Alex. Two out of three isn’t bad but of course, it was Harry that made it in instead of Alex. She and Holly were knocked out in the semi-final, and that was probably the right result in the end. I was disappointed that Holly couldn’t push herself further but there always seemed to be something holding her back. She seems to have done quite well out of the deal now, though, becoming the face of the Euro Millions lottery.

I think the Beeb would say the halfway point was a week or so ago, but I’m working on the fact that 14 dancers started the competition and only seven remain. Several will make it into the final, but here’s my thoughts on the dancing so far. Those that have been knocked out Edwina Currie I sort of missed her big outburst during the show itself, but wasn’t particularly sad to see her go either. It’s always hard to be the first one to leave the competition, and it’s not always clear whether the right person has gone or not, but I think it would have been hard to keep on watching the show with so many Ann Widdecombe comparisons.

Before Strictly Come Dancing began proper, I chose my picks for good times ahead. That was before we had seen anyone dance, of course, although I had been to the Beeb’s website and seen some of their “web exclusive” training diaries. Well, we’re two shows in now. We’ve seen the contestants dance not once, but twice, and we’ve finally voted someone off. It may just be me, but it seems like forever since Strictly first returned, particularly as we had the whole partnering up extravaganza as well.

I don’t watch that much reality TV. At the moment, I’m favouring The Great British Bake-Off, which is hard to class as reality TV because everyone involved is so nice and friendly, and it’s just like a giant tea party every week. Strictly Come Dancing returns tonight, and that is a show I do watch. I can’t stand Tess or Bruce, I don’t like the pointless results show, I think the singing is atrocious, and the judging can be embarrassing. One of the best bits about the actual format of the show itself was Claudia on It Takes Two, and she’s not even doing that this year.

The judges on Strictly Come Dancing Champion of Champions saying that they wanted Denise & Ian to win when we could all see that Jill & Darren were the best by miles. Harry Potter VI topping the best-sellers chart when it’s not even out for another seven months. I’m looking forward to it too, but I’m not that crazy. That having got bored of the Christmas songs we were allowed to play this week, people have brought in their own CDs such as Dido, Dire Straits, Meatloaf, Buddy Holly, Dido (again), Shania Twain, and Jon Bon Jovi. They’re played low so they don’t disturb anyone, but it sure as hell disturbs me that I can hear them, but not loud enough so I can figure out what song is playing. The little “Singing Scottie” that sits on a colleague’s desk and sings “Oh, Christmas Tree”. As cute and funny as it is, it’s really loud and makes it impossible and embarrassing to talk on the phone.

I’m not watching X Factor anymore, due to its descent from a decent talent contest into what is essentially a forum for Sharon Osbourne and Simon Cowell to bicker with each other. Not good television. And Kate Thornton is just too strict, making sure everyone is in their place - sometimes with live TV, you just have to just go with the flow - take a leaf out of Davina’s book, okay?