It isn’t all High Culture chez Logic Matters. Oh no. Perish the thought. For a start, from September to December we are devotees of Strictly.
That’s Strictly Come Dancing (the original, BBC, version of Dancing with the Stars, Ballando con Le Stelle, and over forty other versions). So it is all glamour and glitter, sequins and sexy outfits, fake tans and gallons of hair products, tears and tantrums. And that’s just the guys.
Each season we start watching with the same amused detachment. We tell ourselves that this year we won’t get hooked, this year the quarter-celebrities (most of whom we’ve never heard of) are an uninteresting/unattractive bunch, this year the silliness of the whole palaver is just too much …
And yet …
Like millions others, we find ourselves tuning in every Saturday. And as the no-hopers and the joke participants are voted off the show, we get more enthused. We start watching It Takes Two — the admirably warm and amusing weekday programmes interviewing participants, explaining the finer points of choreography, and generally having fun. Which can reveal that an impossibly glamorous pro dancer has a very sharp self-deprecating wit and is endearingly happy to send herself up, while a seemingly equally glamorous member of a boy band is self-doubting and charming. And that this soap actor is as two-dimensional as his character, but that that footballer’s wife is plainly a sweet girl who is delightfully surprised to find that she can dance. You get engaged with the contestants (and indeed with some of the pro dancers), with the ‘journeys’, with the increasingly terrific dances. Fellow devotees will know how it goes …
… And if you don’t, well, here for your holiday delight is the very final dance of the series. Down to the last three couples, the final contestants can choose their favourite dance to perform again. Here Simon Webbe and Kristina Rihanoff reprise their Argentine tango. They didn’t win Strictly 2014. But this was the dance of the series, from a man who three months before seemingly had two left feet and zero confidence. Who has come so far. And the result is really rather moving … Enjoy!
And Happy New Year!
Our analogous addiction has been “So You Think You Can Dance”. One of the endearing things about it is that the judges (except for the occasional guest judge) both know and care.
Thanks for this refreshing little break.
I too very much enjoyed this dance. (Perhaps my favourite of the series, I’d go as far as to say.) Not to stir up controversy, but Simon very much appeared to me the most technically accomplished and versatile of all the dancers – my personal favourite, at the least. And as you say, seeing him transform from a near-bumbling beginner to the confident and stylish dancer of the final was certainly a delight. Nonetheless, it’s hard to argue Caroline wasn’t a deserved winner; her sheer ebullience, coupled with no shortage of skill and a flair for the more extroverted numbers, meant she always had an edge in the popularity contest.
Now, back to the cold hard world of mathematics for me…
Oh, and a happy new year to you likewise!