Is Strictly’s Darcey out of step with Shirley?
Shirley Ballas is making her mark as the new head judge following frosty exchanges with Darcey Bussell and a feud with ‘the bad boy of ballroom’
ORDINARILY it is sexual chemistry – or a comedic lack of it – that starts to ramp up the entertainment quota as Strictly Come Dancing gets into full flow. But this year there is a chill swirling around the glitterball that is threatening to taint the friendly image of the Strictly family and it is emanating from the programme’s new head judge Shirley Ballas.
During last Saturday’s show it all got tetchy when the “Queen of Latin” told dancer Brendan Cole and his newsreader partner Charlotte Hawkins that their Top Gun-inspired tango was way off the mark. “She was a little bit better this week,” said Shirley. “Only a bit?” Brendan hissed back, eyebrows raised, an incredulous smirk at his lips.
Dubbed “the bad boy of ballroom” he isn’t one for taking it on the chin.
“Yes, unfortunately only a bit, Brendan,” Shirley retorted, fixing him with a steely glare before telling him: “There’s no rise and fall in tango.”
“There was no rise and fall in that whatsoever,” Brendan countered before Shirley hit back with: “There was, Brendan. You should play it back and see.”
“I will do that, dear,” he retorted, prompting judge Bruno Tonioli to suggest that he respect Shirley’s critique. Ouch.
But Strictly’s more eagle-eyed viewers had already earmarked Shirley as a potential troublemaker in week one when tensions first began to simmer between her and fellow judge Darcey Bussell. When Shirley mistakenly called Holby City actress Chizzy Akudolu the more conventional name of Lizzy, Darcey let out a laugh then put her head in her hands.
Then when Darcey offered advice to actor Joe McFadden’s footwork Shirley seized her opportunity for payback. “I have to slightly disagree with my learned friend,” she said, much to Darcey’s stony-faced disapproval.
Meanwhile the body language between the two is so frosty it is Baltic. Although they sit next to each other, book-ended by Bruno and Craig Revel Horwood, with each show the pair lean further apart.
And when Shirley used Darcey to demonstrate an upper-body dance technique from behind the judges’ desk, Darcey turned her eyes to camera, her face contorted in a teeth-baring grimace, suggesting she was far from comfortable.
Indeed one member of the audience during week two noted that the tension was as obvious as the dancers’ fake tans: “I began noticing a coolness between the two of them halfway through the filming of the live show. It was the second live show of the season and the first from which someone was booted off,” she reveals.
“I was looking at the judges while Claudia Winkleman was interviewing the couple who had danced last, mainly to see if the judges discussed their scores with each other and they don’t seem to. The two women never said a word to each other. Darcey speaks to Craig and Shirley always speaks to Bruno. Never to each other. It’s obvious they don’t get along.
“The only time I saw them talk was immediately after the show had wrapped up.
“During their discussion there was no smiling to each other or any sense of camaraderie although to be fair none of the judges seemed to smile except when they were on camera.”
The two women come from different backgrounds and it is difficult to imagine them having much in common.
In the blue corner we have Darcey, 48, a former Royal Ballet prima ballerina who retired in 2007. During a privileged childhood – her mother was a model, her father a fashion designer – she attended a musical theatre school in London before becoming the darling of British ballet.
She has been married to banker Angus Forbes for 20 years and they have two daughters Phoebe, 15, and Zoe, 12.
In the red corner is 57-year-old Shirley, a brash working-class girl born in the Wirral, with a reputation for having a fiery temper.
She started dancing aged seven and won world titles in Latin and ballroom. Divorced twice, she has a 31-year-old son Mark, also a professional dancer, and a penchant for younger men. Her most recent boyfriend was 26 years her junior.
THEN there is the elephant in the room: the issue of who earns what. According to figures released by the BBC, after five years’ service on Strictly, Darcey is paid between £150,000 and £199,000 a year.
Meanwhile Shirley has waltzed in to replace Len Goodman, lured from her home in LA by a salary of between £200,000 and £249,000.
Now it seems the Strictly PR machine is hard at work, desperate to sequin over the cracks that are appearing.
On Sunday Shirley re-tweeted pictures of her and Darcey cuddling, saying: “Yep, I love Darcy [sic].”
But not everyone is convinced. One audience member said: “Either they have had a frank discussion and patched things up or they are trying to pull the wool over our eyes.”