Originally Posted by Monkseal:
“I actually think Ali & Brian's dance had the better choreography technically speaking - they had more of a storyline which is historically what the audience engages with. Chris & Ola on the other hand had a more populist, engaging, music choice.
I think saying that Ali & Brian's routine was technically perfect but nothing else is entirely inaccurate. She performed out of her skin.”
Quite.
I've been thinking today about
why I thought Chris and Ola's charleston was the weakest. I think it boils down to having no narrative drive, where both Ali and Brian and Laila and Anton
did. In comparison, Chris' felt more like a series of crowd pleasing moments sewn together into a "charleston".
Ali and Brian's broken doll routine was well thought out (with her getting "stuck" at the beginning as well as the end), and performed with considerable aplomb - far better than we'd seen of her previously. Anton's wooing of Laila, too, had a strong and obvious story, and again was performed far more convincingly than Laila had managed beforehand. Chris and Ola's was certainly entertaining, but it had no storyline. That is not to say that it necessarily
needed one, but I would have preferred something to tie those crowd-pleasing elements together.
Having said that, of course, all three charlestons were very good, even if I prefer some to others.