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It’s been a troublesome week for Strictly Come Dancing. After two professionals’ exits solid a shadow over the beginning of the sequence, Wynne Evans and Katya Jones discovered themselves on the centre of a recent controversy surrounding two brief clips from final week’s reside present. Within the coming days, they rushed to apologise and insisted they had been joking round, with Jones labelling the saga “absurd”.
Nonetheless, loads of viewers had questioned if it might be talked about on this weekend’s reside present. Ultimately, identical to the pre-series drama, it went unaddressed (until you rely Evans sheepishly remarking “I do love comedy” whereas being interviewed by Claudia Winkleman).
Its omission didn’t matter in any respect, although, and shortly turned a footnote of the episode. This week’s Strictly Come Dancing as an alternative celebrated two of the issues that make it so nice; its variety and inclusivity.
Having supplied loads of laughs, swipes at Craig Revel Horwood and a few of the most spectacular lifts of the sequence to this point, Chris McCausland this week put his severe hat on for a Waltz to the anthemic “You’ll By no means Stroll Alone”. The comic, a Liverpool supporter from town, was clearly determined to get this one proper. And it couldn’t have gone a lot better.
McCausland misplaced his sight when he was 22 and whereas the judges are dedicated to critiquing him precisely as they do the others, his achievements are undoubtedly extra important given the challenges he overcomes in coaching. His skilled companion Dianne Buswell can’t present him the strikes, and he can’t swot up on YouTube or watch performances again.
In a single notably poignant second on Saturday, McCausland was left to bop below the highlight alone. Because the digital camera panned out, Buswell got here into view and he confidently but gracefully strode alone in direction of her. It was a second steeped in emotion, heightened even additional by the gravity of what McCausland is attaining on the present. If I wasn’t already in tears from the routine, then listening to him ask Buswell if he “did okay” as they embraced afterwards would have tipped me over the sting.
The second of tonight’s highlights got here courtesy of Montell Douglas and Johannes Radebe, as they danced a Carnival-inspired Couple’s Selection. The routine celebrated each Douglas’s Caribbean roots and her companion’s upbringing in South Africa.
Of their VT, Douglas defined the dance was additionally a homage to her late grandmother, who gave her “the spirit of dance, love and motion”. The efficiency (full with outfit reveals) was joyous and uplifting, with Douglas correctly shining on the dancefloor for the primary time this sequence.
“All I can say is Nana is trying down on you and she or he has sprinkled her magic mud on you since you had been distinctive,” Shirley Ballas instructed the Gladiators star.
The present is at its finest when celebrations of variety and inclusivity are entrance and centre. Doing so is nothing new for Strictly both.
In 2022, Hamza Yassin celebrated Afrobeats with a dance that noticed him grow to be a severe contender (he went on to win). Rose Aying-Ellis, who lifted the Glitterball trophy in 2021, invited viewers to be taught what dancing is like whereas deaf because the ballroom fell silent throughout hers. Two years earlier, Will Bayley — who was born with arthrogryposis, a situation affecting his joints — danced a routine which instructed his story of spending prolonged durations in hospital as a toddler. And simply weeks in the past, Punam Krishan made historical past with a Bollywood dance.
These moments, not the controversies, are what Strictly is all about.
