Both R'n'R routines looked laboured and badly choreographed IMO. Where as all three of the Charleston routines were fun and crowd pleasing. So It was no suprise that both R'n'R routines were in the dance off. So did Ricky/Natalie & Vincent/Natalie draw the short straw?
And can someone ITK explain to me how a Rock'n'Roll routine differs from a jive?

I would agree with this part of the post and say this was the reason, more so than the charleston being a better dance to dance 'by default'. There's no way you can say that R'n'R routines don't have the potential to be fun and crowd pleasing. - they were just the weakest two dances.

Would rather watch a great R n R routine than a charleston one. As you say neither were up to much

Ricky's RnR was a great deal better in the DO (apparently with good reason) and would have been quite competitive I think against the Charlestons....so to have any credibility at all your 'stood no chance' theory has to explain that convincingly.

'stood no chance' as in all 3 Charlestons were crowd pleasing and fun, Even Ricky's DO routine was a bit laboured(albeit without the mistakes) Both R'n'R routines had no flow or movement, and just looked liked a series of stunts losely joined together. They would've have both been better just doing an ad hoc jive, with no technical constraints.

Just because the two rock'n'rolls weren't up to much on Saturday doesn't mean it was the short straw. It has its roots in the jive which, as a rule, is one of the most crowd pleasing dances on Strictly when done well. I bet the likes of Jill, Alesha and Austin could have come up with a great performance. Problem is, none of the jives on Strictly this year have been up to much so the rock'n'roll was always likely to be a damp squib.

The short straw then

The choreographers couldn't escape one inescapable fact. Neither of the women partners were light enough for their partner to do the fast lifts, rolls, and drops that make for a spectacular rock n roll. Watch a video and see how carefully Natalie L descends from most of their lifts before they re-start.

For Natalie C it was quite simply, as Len would say "not really her dance". Vincent might have been able to help the choreographers out if he had more experience with the dance, but in the circumstances, their car-crash performance was as inevitable as a Greek (Italian?) tragedy.

Natalie C and Ricky W were stitched up.

Natalie may well have been given the RnR on purpose. Thank heavens someone behind the scenes showed sense!

Whether Ricky was stitched up or not - you'd better ask the local constabulary.

I've posted similar elsewhere so apols but Ricky & Natalie were told by the head choreographer (2 hours before the main show) to tone down their attack in the dance as it was too wild and Rock'n'Roll should be cool.

Alesha commented that the dance was "too cool for school" and the other judges criticised the lack of attack.

Some wires got crossed here - either the judges do not know the criteria for judging rock 'n' roll or the head choreographer is at fault.

Ricky & Natalie performed the dance off as they'd been practising all week (before the "advice") and Craig told them it was the best they'd danced the whole series.

Strange days indeed!

Yeah - maybe in terms of the series but only cos this lot aren't much cop at the jive. Not the dance's fault - theirs.

I thought Chris and Ola's charleston was really good. The R & R dances were disappointing.

I thoroughly enjoyed all three Charlestons but didn't enjoy either of the rock 'n' roll numbers. I've never been a fan of rock n roll but the Charleston is such fun and all the celebs doing the Charleston looked like they were really enjoying it in contrast to Ricky and Natalie for whom it looked like hard work

Just about sums it up...If Ricky had been paired with Ola he`d have bee able to throw her around with a bit more zest than he was able to do with the slightly heavier Natalie......Vincent had no chance with Nat C......The Blackpool day trip was the best show this year closely followed by last Saturdays Charleston/R+R themed night.