Nobodies and fading stars about to make a huge mistake
Yes, she’ll be watching but JAN MOIR’S heart sinks at the way Strictly’s now scraping the bottom of the barrel
Somewhere inside a ballroom within a television studio, an orchestra is warming up. Backstage, hamstrings are twanging like the strings on a double bass while in her dressing room, host Claudia winkleman is sinking into a bath of teakcoloured Cuprinol.
And for the celebrity dancers corralled onto this year’s team, it’s time to buckle up their pumps and put their best hoof forward — yes, the curtain is about to rise on a new series of Strictly Come Dancing.
Last year, 12million viewers tuned in each week to revel in one of the BBC’s most successful shows of all time. Since it was launched in 2004, Strictly has become a solid family favourite; a glittering fiesta of sequins and twinkletoes which brings a spark of joy and much fun from now until Christmas.
As usual, it will be a bewitching spectacle strung out over peaktime weekend schedules.
And as usual, we will all be watching — as thrilled by every rumba fumble as each jiving triumph.
And yet, as we gaze upon these newly released photographs of the Class of 2016 in their sparkling finery, does the heart not sink slightly?
For what do we see in front of us? Glamour, gorgeousness and oodles of style? or a bunch of glitteredup nobodies and starspangled desperadoes, each of them seeking one last lunge at the limelight before their careers fizzle out for ever?
For a start, many of us will have no idea who half of them are. A reality show ‘spin off’ presenter called Laura whitmore; a hollyoaks actor called Danny mac; an eastenders actress called Tameka empson; a BBC sports presenter called ore oduba; a DJ called melvin odoom and a Commonwealth gymnast called Claudia Fragapane? who, who and who again? Search me, guv.
PerhApS what is even worse are those quasifamous faces who have signed up for a season of varicose veins covered by stage makeup and abject humiliation, all in a bid to keep their profiles high and their jive kicks higher. In this they couldn’t, I’m afraid, be more mistaken. For Strictly Come Dancing isn’t a career fillip, it is a reputation slayer. Strictly is not a new beginning for them, it is the beginning of the end, the end of hope that anyone will ever take them seriously again.
Into this category we can put the former Labour politician ed Balls, alongside 70yearold Birds of A Feather actress Lesley Joseph, singer will Young and olympian Greg rutherford.
ed! what is he even doing here? mr Balls was once a serious politician, a shadow chancellor of the exchequer, a pointy head and sometime economics wonk who — only six years ago! — put his name forward as a contender to lead the Labour party. Now he is daddancing in a chiffon shirt in front of millions, hoping that his inclusion in the show will shift a few more copies of his memoir. who says today’s political classes are shallow careerists? Absolutely everyone.
And what of long jump medallist Greg rutherford, who has gone from leaping over sandpits in his boyhood milton Keynes back garden to winning medals for his country in London (gold) and rio (bronze)?
he’s a respected track and field athlete, and one might have hoped that a life more dignified awaited Greg than the shallows of reality television, but he has been off his blocks like a greyhound doing the samba.
Being one of the token athletes on Strictly is the final indignity after a couple of game shows and a turn in the tent on a special edition of celebrity Bake off. he is now beyond all help.
And Lesley Joseph — where on earth to begin? She appears in this year’s show as the game old trouper who is up for a laugh and wants everyone to know it.
Already the irrepressible thesp has appeared in the kind of plungefront, thighhigh frocks that a woman a quarter of her age — and beyond — would baulk at.
one has to salute her derringdo. And applaud everyone else for daring to expose themselves in a show with such a high embarrassment factor.
Yet while Strictly is often strictly wonderful, it is also rather sad. For under the whirling glitter balls and coloured spotlights, it is the place where dreams — and reputations — go to die.
only the evereager dancers don’t realise it until it’s all over. In more ways than one.