Rumour has it that Gemma Collins is doomed to haunt the ice rink forever.

It’s time for the second batch of celebrities to take to the ice and it’s as mixed a bag as the previous week – although you wouldn’t know it from the judges’ scores!

This week instead of opening up with a pandemic of spontaneous Bolero-ing we cut right to the chase with a Disco Number from the ice skating professionals and an abundance of glitterballs

You’d think they would really try and avoid the Strictly iconography wouldn’t you? Especially with a cast of which a quarter are former Strictly finalists.

There aren’t quite as many stunts in it this week, certainly no headbangers and I think it’s because many of the pros seem to be relegated to vamping in the tunnel

It’s the only real give away that this isn’t the exact same routine as last week repackaged into a new glittery box.
The whole thing ends with Brendyn(?) being made airborne and I am at least 60% sure it goes mildly wrong

It would have at least made whoever filled out the health and safety forms sweat a bit.

And because The Daily Mail kicked up such a fuss about Holly Willoughy apparently inappropriate outfit last week (how dare a woman bare her décolletage before 9pm!) ITV have implimented a Censorship Seagull to cover her up at all times

I fully expect Holly’s boobs will have a column in the Telegraph later this week complaining that they are being silenced.

Colin Jackson and Klabera Komini
Tutti Frutti – Little Richard

Get ready for a long and drawn out faux rivalry between Colin Jackson and Graham Bell as they compete for King Olympian of the Ice. I only say “faux rivalry” because I don’t for a second believe that Graham really cares, Colin however is desperate for any sort of trophy, crown, sash, commemorative plate or certificate he can get hands on ever since he WUZZ ROBBED in 2006.

He has a little bit of experience on ice which you would only guess from because of his knack for not falling over but he does also spend a considerable amount of his training time just pretending to be and aeroplane

Klabena is clearly no Erin Boag when it comes to disciplinary actions.

Their routine is good, we obviously know he has a musicality to him but he is very confident on the ice – there are moments when he looks a little panicked but it’s mainly during their stunts and I imagine it’s hard not to look a bit like you’re about to get run over by a speeding truck

It’s a great first routine and you’d never guess what it scores…

Judges’ Scores:
Ashley: 6.0
BARROWMAN!: 6.0
Jayne: 6.5
Christopher: 6.5
Total: 25 (this becomes a theme)

Billie Shepherd and Mark Hanretty
Spice Up Your Life – The Spice Girls

My favourite thing when any celebrity competition show casts someone from the likes of TOWIE or Made In Chelsea is the heavy lifting they do to make sure we know they aren’t purely famous for being quite wealthy people with overly involved social circles and Billie is a prime example of this. SHE’S DEFINITELY A BUSINESS WOMAN GUYS, LOOK SHE SITS AT A DESK

But that’s not all, she’s going in HARD on Mum Wars – she and Rebekah Vardy are going to be formidable foes – forget whatever rivalry Colin and Graham have brewing.

She’s one of the more nervous on the ice, she spends a considerable amount of her Torvil and Dean Masterclass skating around the edge avoiding eye contact with them like she’s just spotted her ex in Waitrose. Her nerves only increase when she takes a bit of a tumble

SHE CRIED FOR 30 WHOLE MINUTES

And I’m not trying to diminish her pain or the fact her fall was bad but I would be VERY surprised if everyone hadn’t fallen on their coccyx within the first 3 weeks of their training.

You can also clearly see the effect the fall had on her because she is very nervous and spends the entirety of the routine (once it gets going after 25 seconds of her standing in the same spot) with a rictus grin stapled onto her face and eyes screaming for the sweet release of death

And I honestly thought she had taken another fall during this move

But it turns out it just looks very messy on purpose. However the biggest crime of the whole routine (other than 27% of being spent entirely stationary) is the fact she was dancing to a Spice Girls song and was not dressed as one of the Spice Girls

Are they not paying Vicky Gill enough?

Judges’ Scores:
Ashley: 6.5
BARROWMAN!: 6.5
Jayne: 6.0
Christopher: 6.0
Total: 25
Ok, one of the judges is going to have to start being The Bad Guy (duh!) because this was WOEFULLY overmarked. Even Rufus Hound doing a roly poly dressed as off brand Mario was better!

Graham Bell and Yebin Mok Karina Manta
Pop Looks Bach – Sam Fonteyn

As we all know Graham was initially meant to be partnered with Yebin but unfortunately she had a really bad incident, which turns out happened entirely off camera and I am absolutely choosing to treat as some sort of Cluedo Murder Mystery. It was Graham on the Ice Rink with a Candelabra! Although who are we kidding, Denise is the most likely to have been the attacker.
This does of course mean he has had to be re-partnered with Karina but Yebin isn’t completely down and out and insists on watching all of their training routines looking like the thirdest of wheels

Graham does have experience skating and has done speed skating in the past, however he can absolutely not dance to save his life

So that’s him confirmed as Oti’s partner in Strictly this year – she’s not getting that third win guys.
And it’s quite telling that by the time he hits the ice for his routine there isn’t really a lot of dancing, he mostly just skates around the ice showboating, which I am all for if it means we keep this sort of thing to a minimum

Also can you imagine the incredibly small and slight Yebin being absolutely swamped in that golden tracksuit that looks like the halfway house of something an extra in an Eastenders market scene and an overly wealthy Instagram models wears?

Judges’ Scores:
Ashley: 6.0
BARROWMAN!: 6.0
Jayne: 7.0
Christopher: 7.0
Total: 26

Those 6s are stingy as all hell! BARROWMAN! claims Graham didn’t look excited or joyful enough, but you know, Billie looking like she was going through her own personal horror movie was worth a 6.5.

Sonny Jay and Angela Egan
Hold Me While You Wait – Lewis Capaldi

Big fan of them showing Sonny Jay getting introduced to his partner and his utter lack of excitement

it’s quite the contrast to Clara Amfo being introduced to Aljaz and freaking out. I really am sorry to keep bringing up Strictly but this show does rather bring it upon itself.

Sonny is the only male contestant of the night who isn’t some sort of former athlete and they very much go out of their way to tell us this

So poor Sonny who struggled to pick up the bag is promptly sent off to the gym for 1 (one) whole gym sessions and comes back fighting fit and ready to throw some traffic cones around

I’m sure there must have been at least one better stand-in for Angela guys.

They’re doing a vacation themed routine which starts with Sonny Jay looking up at a departures board

It’s a little bit rude both in terms of the fact he faces potential elimination tonight and the whole PANDEMIC THING.

Out of everyone this evening he definitely was the most effortless on the ice, he was a real grace to his skating style

which does surprise me a little bit given that he seems like the human embodiment of a golden retriever.

Judges’ Scores:
Ashley: 6.5
BARROWMAN!: 7.0
Jayne: 6.5
Christopher: 6.5
Total: 26.5

BARROWMAN! delivering his score bys saying “Definitely tuned in – 7.0!” and sounding deliciously spiteful while doing it – is our Bad Guy (duh!) emerging?

Myleene Klass and Łukasz Różycki
Blinding Lights – The Weeknd

Well we should have seen where this evening was heading the moment Myleene managed to fall over while both stationary, on normal ground and holding onto the wall of the ice rink

And if we thought Billie and Rebekah were going to be the enemies of Mum Wars we were wrong because a third competitor has entered the fray as Myleene is doing this competition for her girls who both love to ice skate

I imagine the Klass household was a little sombre on Sunday night.
I did very much feel for Myleene as the horror slowly sunk into her as she watched everyone else performing last week

because I do think it probably psyched her out and that she is perhaps a better skater than this evening showed as she clung to Lukasz the moment she was released from her safe space: the bin bag piano

crumpled up tulle does not a set piece make.
But despite her tentativeness she manages to have some moments of fun, I honestly think this was my favourite nonsense move of the evening

But it was no real surprise when the judges suddenly decided that scores below 6 existed

Judges’ Scores:
Ashley: 5.5
BARROWMAN!: 5.5
Jayne: 5.5
Christopher: 5.5
Total: 22

Faye Brookes and Hamish Gaman
Lover – Taylor Swift

I suppose having a father who was a speedskater and a childhood spent skating is the closest this show could ever get to having a ringer? And Hamish probably deserves it after the whole Caprice Debacle last year.

Faye is obviously very confident on the ice from the get-go, so much so I did think they had put her in front of a giant sign that read “COCKY”

Bit rude.
The scene with her skating with her dad was very cute and while the sentiment of “while I’m skating tonight I will be thinking of my dad” is very sweet and lovely, it becomes a bit weird when you find out they’re dancing to Lover by Taylor Swift.

The routine is utterly delightful, full of grace and poise which is enough to perhaps forgive them for the outfit they’ve cruelly made Hamish wear

Vicky Gill, an untucked silken pink pyjama shirt and shiny maroon lycra trousers are not an acceptable outfit. Are you ok? Is this a cry for help? Put him in green next week if it is.
Although I imagine the silk shirt at least helped with this move

It turns out this is also Holly’s favourite move because she “likes it when he wears her like a scarf” – keep your private life to yourself Holly! The Daily Mail has enough column inches dedicated to your cleavage, this’ll give them an aneurysm!

The ease of her skating was certainly reflected in the scoring

Judges’ Scores:
Ashley: 7.5
BARROWMAN!: 8.0
Jayne: 8.0
Christopher: 8.0
Total: 31.5

Hamish deserves this.

The Golden Ticket

Of course we’re still doing the Golden Ticket thing with each judge getting a vote. It’s not quite as unanimous a decision as last week with Ashley voting for Colin while everyone else goes for Sonny Jay

(almost entirely because he was the only one to mention the golden ticket during his VT.)
Sonny Jay doesn’t get very much of an interview, both because they’ve still got to do a dance off, a pro dance and another group dance but also because I imagine they don’t want another person to fire a shot at the government on live television – COWARDS.

A Ritz-y Blitz

What absolute delightful carnage – both in the practice and the final result. The practice is just a series of slips and scrapes because someone thought it would be a great idea if we put kitchen chairs on ice

And then of course there’s the fact Denise aggravates her shoulder injury and can’t really perform but will still take part by having Matt push her around the ice like she’s a fine dining Dalek

I will be fully ok if Denise has to the rest of the competition sitting down in a chair – it’ll be just like her West End career!
She’s not the only one down and out though as Rufus Hound is forced to self-isolate because of a Covid case AND ABSOLUTELY NOT BECAUSE HE CALLED THE GOVERNMENT OUT.

The general chaos continues into the performance with Jason being immediately drenched in champagne

God I hope whatever they payed him was worth then having to skate around the place looking like he had wet himself.
Out of everyone Lady Leshurr gets off the lightest, mostly by just looking drop dead gorgeous

Red is definitely her colour.
Rebekah and Joe-Warren don’t get done too badly either. Joe-Warren obviously comes with the baggage of fearing he’s going to fall over again and with Rebekah it’s hard to tell how much of this was playful and how much of this was a genuine near miss casualty

and the whole thing ends, as most things should, with a pie to the face

God bless Denise.

The Bottom Two

And inevitably come to the sadder portion of the evening and find out who must face off against Lady Leshurr in the first of the Skate Offs. but first, who is safe?

The Monkseal Memorial Safety Sex Face Gallery

This obviously means that our bottom 2 are none other than Myleene and Lukasz

She looks distraught.

Lady Leshurr is the first one to get back on the idea and she’s skating to Confident by Demi Lovato – I hadn’t realised that they had to do an entirely new routine for their Save Me Skates, when did they learn them? Isn’t this a tad unfair on Myleene? Although not for a second do I think this would have gone any other way because Lady Leshurr is just that much more comfortable on the ice than Myleene who they seem to be outright mocking when they start their routine by pretending to play the piano

They have the advantage right from the off given their routine is a much more uptempo number but there is what looks like a bit of a slip when Brendyn fumbles her

but any points that might have been knocked off were surely regained when Brendyn decided to wear Leshurr like a propeller hat

Myleene on the other hand had none of the confidence and was skating to everyone’s favourite muddling ballad: Nothing’s Real But Love by Rebecca Ferguson. It’s sedate and serene enough but it unfortunately pales into nothing compared to Brendyn spinning Leshurr around on his head like he’s a circus seal.

And so despite Myleene being a Megalithic Headline Grabber on an ITV reality show, she is the first to be chopped

I’m sure she’ll crop up on Strictly very soon – she’s exhausted every other possible celebrity competition series.

And so 11 skaters remain…