Saturday 14 April 2012

Strictly Come Dancing


In recent weeks I have been subject, from my prison cell, to inappropriately named television programmes including “I’m A Celebrity…” and “X-Factor”. I did not think that The Human could plummet to all new depths of televisual trauma. Then she discovered “Strictly Come Dancing”. Strictly has at least one thing in common with X-Factor, the two-part final. I hate to sound cynical, but is this break between the two parts merely to facilitate the National Lottery? Another money-making scam after weeks of having naïve humanbeans phone in for their favourite celebrities week after week?

I just am relieved that Edwina Currie was voted out so early on, I might have actually chewed my own paws off with rage had I been forced to watch her trip about dance floors as inelegantly as she tripped her political flaws. Unfortunately, it was not possible to vote off the other irritation perpetuated by the programme. This other annoyance bugs me, and I mean really annoys me, indeed, it vexes me to the degree that I pile all my kitty-litter in the centre of my cage before climb atop it and kicking it across the drawing room floor with my back paws. Bruce Forsyth. Or “Brucie” as the BBC calls him as they try to convince us that he is a national treasure and that we all love him. Just like they used to do with the Queen Mother, except they didn’t call her “Brucie” because that would have been weird…

Brucie Brucie Brucie Brucie (to the tune of “Ruby” by the Kaiser Chiefs)

This cage is full of toys and “boredom breakers” as one well known national pet shop chain refers to them, but it is still not enough to get me through an evening with Forsyth. It’s just the way he crops up on the screen for a quick one liner, which is supposed to be funny or witty or both, but fails miserably at all three. Seriously, Bruce, no one - repeat, NO ONE - wants to see or hear you. Get off. Retire. I would ask The Human to change the channel, but I know that she would only change it from this to some other ghastly reality television nightmare. In fairness, though, I suspect that the human beans feel the same about Sir Bruce of Forsyth as I do, given how many new swear words I have learned – and just from the final of Strictly Come Dancing – from them as they watch this. I deduce that they dislike him. He is Moriarty to my Holmes. That is how severe my dislike has become. I believe him to be plotting the demise of watchable television, when he appears on BBC4 then we know that civilisation is soon to be purged and we must man the guns.

Any Dream Will Do . . . unless it’s to win Strictly

Jason Donovan, you remember him? Had a lavish wedding on “Neighbours” to Kylie Minogue and a brief pop-career before getting a cocaine habit and then re-emerging in “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here…” He wasn’t the King of the Jungle and he’s not the king of the dance floor either, I suspect that this had nothing to do with his footwork either, but was because Christina (his partner) kept flashing her rudies and the Great British public got fed up with it.

Jason Donovan’s appearance on Strictly has been surrounded with controversy. Allegedly his wife tried to persuade him not to take part because of the supposed numbers of affairs that take place between dancers and their partners. Watching the programme, I empathise totally with Mrs Donovan, I wouldn't want that breast-rubbing specimen dancing with my husband either. In the first part of the final his score was poor, but I suspect he had probably scored quite enough anyway. As he bowed out of the competition, with the usual contrived good grace that celebrities exhibit on these occasions, Jason sensibly thanked his wife before gushing all over Christina.

I felt a need to take back all of my unkind comments about Donovan and partner when, in his last dance, I nearly expired with shock as she performed a dance that doesn't involve her thrusting her naughties in his face. Unfortunately, I had chirruped too soon, and there she was thrusting her rudies in his face much to the horror of my innocent caviomorph eyes. I struggle to believe that this is suitable viewing for human pups, if The Human had baby beans I would feel rather uncomfortable with them watching this sort of thing.

Judge not lest ye be judged

Do you recall all that fuss when Arlene Philips was given the boot, err, I mean dancing shoe, from the Strictly judging panel in favour of the youthful Alesha Dixon? This is all well and good, but what exactly are Alesha’s credentials? One of my favourite moments from the final – yes, I am being ironic, I don’t actually have any favourite moments unless you count the credits rolling at the end – was when she turned to one contestant and complimented them by calling them a “true dancer”. I would have felt happier about her saying this if I thought that her knowledge of dancing extended beyond her own victory on the show a few years ago. And on behalf of drummers everywhere, I would like to know what the implication of her saying to Harry McFly "Why have you been hiding behind the drums? You're so talented" was meant to be, because all I got from that was one popstar being bitchy towards one with more talent.

Of the judges that do know something about dancing, Degu HQ loves Bruno Tunioli with his soliloquies and rhetoric so reminiscent of the epic poetry of Homer. Yus! Bruno acts as a reminder that the programme is supposed to be fun and light-hearted. All of his hard work was blown out of the water, however, when Len started comparing dancers’ struggles to overcome their numerous left feet – two was just not enough in some cases – with actual military battles where people actually died defending their country and your liberty. I cannot conceive of a culture where it is acceptable to compare a fight for freedom, for equality, with a dance-off. Good grief.

The reality of life beyond the school gates

A common theme in reality television is the carefully deployed sob story. The sob story has to be unleashed at just the right moment to guarantee full effectiveness. It will usually consist of the loss of a partner or a very ill parent and it is designed to elicit sympathy and therefore votes. I like Chelsee Waterloo-Road for all the same reasons that I liked Stacey Solomon on “I’m A Celebrity” last year, she is genuine and kind, you can tell that she is there to learn to dance – whatever her agent’s publicity machinations may have been. For these reasons, it upsets me that it was Chelsee who filled the sadness quota on this year’s Strictly. The moment that she uttered the words, “Knowing that people actually like me means a great deal to me” should have brought a tear to my eye, a lump to my throat, anything rather than my nails scratching at the door of my cage for escape from the cliché fuelled drivel.

We are used to seeing Chelsee as the bumbling, ineffective, nosey and gossiping school secretary in “Waterloo Road”, so to see her doing something as well as she took to the dance floor actually made this programme enjoyable for a few brief moments. I particularly enjoyed the moment in the final when she and her partner, Pasha, quite literally, made it a pantomime by dressing up as Shrek and Princess Fiona. It was one of the costumes she wore that did not seem built to sabotage her performance; after the week where her heal got caught in her hem and then, this week, when she wore a dress that had what appeared to be looroll flowing merrily from the shoulder.

I have to say, however, that the very worst thing about watching Chelsee dance was the moment that the galumphing blob that is The Human said that it made her want to take up ballroom dancing again. She would be better off in a ball pool than a ball room, except with all those brightly coloured spheres haning about we might not be able to locate her, such would the camouflage be. As my cynical soulmate and Strictly judge, Craig Revel-Horwood would say, that would be dizz-arh-struhss, dahhling.

A festive tale involving no ghosts but definitely a Scrooge

No newspaper, online or otherwise, is anything without its editor. The editor is like the captain of a ship, we need him for direction and for his superior wisdom. At this juncture I would like to pay homage to my editor here at the Gazette, who asked me to review “Strictly Come Dancing”, a programme so dire that even The Human does not usually watch it. A programme so dire that even The Human wants to pick up my cage and hurl it out of the velux in a fit of intellectual depression. I pointed this out to Ebeneditor Scrooge, who admitted that he himself would not be watching the show – by which I mean he would not be watching Strictly not that he would not be standing outside Degu HQ to observe it rain degu cages from above. I ask you, where is the support? If I was him I would be constantly on the lookout for the imminent arrival of three knowledgeable ghouls, frankly. His only response, the old soak, was to ask me “Whose chube to you have to shred around here to get a dry martini?”

I’d like to be a McFly on that wall

Jason Donovan is not a one man show when it comes to taking over the world of reality television, McFly – a band, apparently, minstrels of some class or persuasion – are also going down a storm at the moment. First, Dougie in “I’m A Celebrity” and now Harry has won “Strictly Come Dancing”. At least the latter took some level of talent, I suppose. Interestingly, he was more humble than his bandmate at his victory in the battlefield of dance – cripes, I’m turning into Len Goodman. He looked so pleased to be praised for something. Still, I would like to have been a fly on the wall in the meeting where their “people” cooked up this plan for press coverage…is that the pitter-patter of tiny album-shaped feet I hear on the far off horizon?

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