“MAKE YOUR OWN DINOSAUR-SHAPED SANDWICHES!”
“I CAN’T, I’M 20!”

Promise me you’ll read this recap as though Lauren is shouting it at you during a haphazardly executed Foxtrot.

This week’s Big Opening Group Dance was a tribute to Tina Turner with three special guest performers, 4 if you count the wig that was eating Lauren alive

they call it Nutbush, indeed. And before we get lost in the weeds of quite how much we should discourse about the wiggy happenings in this performance – the singers were great, Beverley Knight will always be world class and might be aging backwards? It would be nice if she left a little of the Fountain of Youth for the rest of us

and it was nice to see Fleur East getting a moment but you know, using the monkey’s paw to wish that she got to make more music obviously has to come with some consequences and I should have known that as well as a musical guest spot she would also end up making a Strictly Come Dancing version of the PokéRap

how many weeks until they quietly retire Fleur’s Wrap Up Rap (sponsored by Trojan™, Pleasure you want. Protection you trust) because there’s only so many times she can say “Rippon’s been rippin’ it up!” and rhyme “attitude” and “mood” while FLAGRANTLY lying

it might have been a bit rude to sing “Nikita stomped like an irate goose and Adam’s tango was Out of Use!” though.

And because I’ve mentioned the other two, for your consideration Laura Mvula

give her more things.

And before we get to the safe couples, we did of course have to have the pre-Fleur’s Rapping Wrap Up Wrap Party from Shirley, which truthfully nothing really interesting happens during because the show is never again going to give us the vaguest whiff of backstage nonsense, but I enjoyed the lack of context behind Bobby and Dianne just screaming at one another

“BOBBY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ‘I CAN’T IMAGINE HAVING A LADY ON MY BACK IN THIS POSITION’ ISN’T A GOOD INNUENDO! IT’S NOT EVEN AN INNUENDO! IT’S JUST ENDO!”

Now for the annual tradition started by Monkseal who used to write the best Strictly recaps but hung his recapping coat up in 2019 and is in no small way a huge influence on why I started recapping television (so you know who to blame) we take our first visit to the Monkseal Memorial Safety Sex Face Gallery

Karen hasn’t returned from her astrally projected vacation to Cuba where she’s now 5 mojitos to the wind and pointedly dancing a cha cha on the tables (that was her actual face THE ENTIRE TIME, she did not flinch)

and the first couple competing in the dance were (quite obviously…)

the advice to her is pretty much to just… improve the dance and mostly just hope the general public haven’t decided that Les Dennis is going to be the comedy duffer that gets dragged through more weeks than their muscular system can handle. (Spoiler alert, but that may have already happened.)

Up with the safe celebrities and we learn that Krishnan has finally baited his son into coming into the studio to watch him perform next week, which is hell of an agreement to make before knowing which Movie Week theme your father has been lumbered with. Although the gamble may have paid off because Krishnan scored the annual Cabaret number with a Money, Money charleston so the chances of a Onesie of Doom are slim but never say never with Strictly.
We also found out that Eddie and Karen will be doing a Men In Black themed Couple’s Choice so they are fully preparing to pack him up very soon, a cruel fate to befall the Boddie Bromance

I guess Strictly is going to be one computer game that Eddie doesn’t get to finish

Week 5 is the underwater level that Karen fully gives up during until she finds a cheat code for infinite breath. Yes, I am just projecting my 21 year old Commander Keen induced trauma.

Layton and Nikita like to be flexible in the morning

run with it blossoming fanfic writers, run free!

This week’s fourth special guest performer was Jorja Smith who was apparently not invited to the Tina Turner Tribute Sleepover

but she’s not taking it personally

I am not entirely familiar with who Jorja is because my exposure to new music these days is through Spotify and somewhere along the line the algorithm decided I only deserve to listen to early 2000s nu-metal bands who released 1 album and disappeared without a trace. I have terrible taste, you may throw tomatoes at me. But I did like her outfit that looked a bit like a bag of oranges dressed up as a black widow spider (but sexy) for Halloween.
Dancing alongside Jorja were Carlos and Nancy because Nancy deserved to remind us that she can actually dance pretty well when she’s not actively trying to dodge a man who has all the ergonomic grace of a pelican in an oil spill

I do feel like the special guest performances are getting more and more redundant, we’re basically watching the same vaguely rumba-shaped dance and distinctly Neil Jones street dances on repeat and it’s beginning to to feel like a begrudging formality that we all twiddle our thumbs through until they drop the annual balladeering Argentine Tango. But maybe I’m just grumpy.

I did forget that the judges have their little debrief with Claudia, which apparently Motsi had also forgotten about and committed the rookie error of not bothering to check how high the slits on her Beetlejuice athleisurewear go when she sits down because she planned to be behind a desk the entire night

the biggest talking point was the reveal of what Lauren was honking at Krishnan the entire way through their dance, the highlights being “YOU’RE CUTE!” and her calling him “Ballroom boy” in a way that sounded like a 6 year old’s idea of an insult

but Shirley also wanted to commend Ellie’s heel turns and give a masterclass that involved treating Anton like the pair of tiny shoes she keeps behind her desk because she has no time or respect for Joanne Clifton’s It Takes Two Demo Times

and she’s right for it.

And now for the second round of the Monkseal Memorial Safety Sex Gallery

meaning it came down to either being Jody or Les in the dance off and apparently we’re getting a year off from the comedy duffer

which is probably a mercy killing because by this point in actual time it was, what? 10pm and Les looked liked they’d just found him trying to nap in the broom cupboard

she just meant the Dance Off, Les.
But before the inevitable could happen, although Shirley has been known to have some truly WILD Dance Off opinions, (remember last year when if it came down to her Fleur would have gone home second instead of Richie?) we get to hear from the second batch of celebrities, although most of it is actually just Claudia Winkleman singing Do-Re-Mi like your Guinness loving uncle singing Auld Lang Syne 3 beats behind and 6 times louder than everyone else at New Year

unsurprisingly it’s The Rippon getting the Julie Andrews number because they really are just throwing all the classics and the Frank Sinatra sink at her because they’re forever indebted to her services – to quote the philosopher, Kristen McMenamy

Tess Daly was but a rhinestone in her eye.

Other routine theme reveals include Adam and Luba doing The Super Mario Bros movie and I assume when Luba was told she was delighted because she’d make a great a Princess Peach but then at some point someone had to tell her that no… Honey, you’re going to be Luigi – obviously she was thrilled

*Nadiya cackles in the distance*

In order to make her feel better about the fact she’s probably going to have a fake moustache fall off her face halfway through a Jive, they made sure to play a Movie Week trailer spotlighting many of the past horror shows

Minion Stacey Dooley should absolutely come with a trigger warning – that “BANANA!” scream is trauma. At least they’ve retired the splotchy grease paint makeup – although the true test will be how far they go with Zara and Graziano’s Puss in Boots outfits

I still haven’t quite recovered from finding out the piece of music they’re dancing to is called “The Puss Suite” AT 7PM ON A SATURDAY? I also need to know if the person who fed this line to Bobby knew that “To be or not to be” isn’t a quote from Romeo and Juliet

literally Hamlet, babe. Although, if they want to delve into the untapped pool that is the cinematic universe of Kenneth Branagh’s Own Hubris I’m all game, there are some wacky routines to be syphoned from Love’s Labour’s Lost alone.

At last we get to the dance off and I am not sure it has ever been more obvious that two people are dancing at 10pm on a Saturday night to an audience of people who are actively making plans for how they’re going to get home afterwards – there is a whole section in the middle of Nikita’s charleston where she just fully vacates her own body and is screaming at her flailing limbs from the rafters as she briefly experiences a taste of death

I mean, she didn’t have to be good to survive this particular dance off but… there was a twinge of concern that she would forever be the person who fully lost a dance competition to Les Dennis who was himself on the verge of respiratory failure after having to dismount an all too man-sized anchor for the second time in one night

and we can chalk him up as the third man that Nancy has ground to dust through the medium of Latin dance

when will her reign of tyranny end!?

As for the judges’ decision, it was a cleansweep to save Nikita and Gorka but the look on Gorka’s face as Motsi left this statement hanging in the air for a moment of suspense was PRICELESS

I love that Gorka makes no attempt to hide any thought that enters his brain – that is a man contemplating the projectile speed of a fake rolex watch, the maths of which will remain to be calculated because Gorka lives to probably get eliminated next week (I do not see a Bottom 2 Bounce for a Nikita Kanda Jive…) but for now it’s goodbye to Les Dennis with some extremely pointed exit music

get the man a Horlicks and a 15 tog duvet.

And that’s it for Week 2 and our first elimination!

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DANCE OFF

And if you’ve enjoyed this recap and would like to support the blog, you can leave a small donation via my Ko-fi HERE.