At this point, Strictly Come Dancing cannot be allowed to fail. When we’re all living off our Wes Streeting-mandated prepper rations, it’s the only thing that will keep us going, linking us to a time when joy, sparkle and diversity brought the nation together. Enshittification stalks the show – it has long felt too repetitive, its celeb lineups seem to get feebler each year, and the departure of longstanding presenters Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman threatened to be a lethal blow – so there’s a lot riding on this new series.
On early impressions, it just might be. The new presenters Emma Willis, Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe look not a little terrified, but the vibe they’re going for is can’t-quite-believe-we-got-the-gig humility combined with superfan credentials, which is absolutely the right note. In all the shots of them watching the action – the pro dancers’ routine, the return of last year’s winner, former footballer Karen Carney – they look so thrilled it’s endearing.
It’s an “honour”, coos Willis, who also says she feels as if she should be curtsying when the judges enter. Radebe, until now one of the show’s professional dancers, brings some elegant restraint. He may not have their presenting experience, but he’s not as dazzled by the glitter as his co-hosts.
The launch show is always tedious – not much dancing, not much from the judges and gnawing irritation at all the “celebrities” you’ve never heard of – but you get the sense they’re all giving it everything. Everyone laughs a bit too hard, previous series are heavily referenced, and the word “journey” is mentioned more times than I care to hear it. Not much can be done at this stage, barring some minor injuries, about this year’s pitiful celebrity lineup – a fact that will, unfortunately, become even more dazzling when the BBC’s new favourite show, Celebrity Traitors, starts again in a few weeks – though at least, unlike the year before last, there’s nobody who is famous for being in an advert.
The pro dancers must now be better-known than some of their celebrity partners, including a hairdresser to the stars (Chris Appleton), a TV presenter (Will Best from Big Brother, but not even the good Channel 4 version) and more than a few others to which the response can only be “no, me neither”. There are some gems, among them Dame Sarah Storey, Britain’s most successful Paralympian, former footballer Shaun Wright-Phillips and actor Jaime Winstone. Still, Strictly has always been greater than the sum of its stars, and so it keeps hoofing along.
It’s been rocked by affairs and accusations of bullying, but it’s also been a rare refuge of joy and progress. Actor Bethany Antonia – familiar to anyone who watches HBO’s House of the Dragon – grew up with Strictly, now in its 22nd year, and tells her fellow contestants that watching boxer Nicola Adams dance with Katya Jones in the show’s first same-sex pairing in 2020 “was such a big part of my coming out journey”, encouraged, she says, by watching the positive reaction of her family every Saturday night. Antonia gets to dance with Nancy Xu, and they both look ecstatic to have been given each other, though this is also the default setting of every pairing.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
