I noticed how much better they looked in rehearsal for the live show in a small clip on ITT last night. For whatever reason, Ali doesn't do the best she is capable of when the show goes out live.

I think there are some excellent points on this thread. For me, all of the actors with the possible exception of Laila have struggled with selling the dance and projecting the appropiate emotion. I know that the judges were always telling Natalie C that she really sold the performance, but in truth she had two modes, open-mouthed enthusiasm or (to use another Friends-ism)smell-the-fart with your head at an awkward angle.

Actors do employ acting coaches all the time, especially if they are changing media. Ali could also do with some hypnotherapy for her nerves. The point about her Charleston and the expert coaches was a good one, too. I also found her performance that week interesting for a couple of other reasons; she couldn't rely on Brian in quite the same way as the dance was new to him as well. This meant that, rather than being more nervous (if that's possible), she stepped up to the plate.

The other point about that dance was she was given a clear character to play and a story to follow - a 'script', if you like. That must've put her back into her comfort zone, she wasn't Ali living out her life in front of the cameras, she was Josephine Baker or Roxy Hart and she could lose herself in that.

Who was the celeb in a previous series who pulled out a suprisingly good VW after being told to think of it as Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy? When they have a character and a story to convey, it helps them to overcome their self-consciousness.

You're thinking of Jodie and Ian's waltz. I loved that dance not the best technically but lovely.

Heather Small actually always said she got nervous before performing even when in her comfort zone of singing so I don't think that's Brian's fault.

I agree with what Darcey said on ITT last night, Brian should add a bit more fun into the choreography so that Ali can come out of her shell more.

Does anyone know how much (if any) stage acting Ali's done? As has already been pointed out, live performances are a completely different story to filmed scenes.

I'm sure I've heard tell of even the most respected actors who, having come from stage to screen, had to learn to tone their performance down to about 10% of what they were used to doing. It must be similar but in reverse for a live performance.

That's the one. Thank you

It is. TV and film actors do huge amounts of work with the face, especially the eyes. Stage actors use body language.

The live point is important and she's used to cameras pointing where they are meant to to make the point not switching on randomly as in SCD. You had the opposite in the ALW musical shows where the people trained to look right from row X looked OTT with a camera focused on them from a few feet away.

I am amazed they havn't done for Ali what they did for anyone else with similar issues - send for acting coaches or Latin dancers and people to deal with nerves. Its not a level playing field if they work off the assumption that actors can act in the right way even at something new - you don't not have advice acting any other role . The same applies to Ricky.

Brian's choregraphy has stressed technique and beauty and even dramatic lifts have looked beautiful but the jury is out on whether he was given music that led that way or picked it or just doesn't have a reservoir of more dynamic tunes that would strike him as appropriate. Rachel should have won the series and romped the tour with two good tunes and enough work on getting her character right to act them - its a question why Ali is still getting nice music and what she might do with a similarly great piece of music.

Brian has definately had his head in the the sand........he has got the best dancer technically (probably) on the show she is fab at ballroom.......every single latin dance she has been told she isnt fiery enough. Her Paso was really really bland and dont think it would have been much better if she hadnt hurt her foot. She just cannot act passion or sexy and Brian should have grasped this from about week 4, but instead he has been saying my Ali is perfect leave her alone when he should have got tough and got an acting coach in and then she would have been a fantastic all rounder but instead he coreographs a Samba that was more ballroom than latin.

It's Brian's fault that she's nervous and can't act? How?

With stage-fright you just have to get over it, use it to inspire you. Or just not do very well.....

Brian is a bit "gushy" for my taste. He soft-soaped Heather and he treats Ali like a kid. Sometimes you have to be a bit more open and honest. But it must be very hard to tell her she's a cr@p actress!

But the bottom line is that reasonably competent actors who are properly trained do all three in this country - stage, tv and film. The technique varies according to medium but an actor is an actor, and one who can't project emotion in a live medium is a poor actor.

Before is the operative word there! To be honest I'd be more surprised if she wasn't nervous before going on stage. I can remember reading an interview with Keith Richards; when asked what he thought about before going on stage. His reply was "I don't think about it, because if I do I wouldn't go on"!

My point is that both Heather and Ali should have advantages which could have been built on but, for some reason they both look like a bag of nerves. Ali's samba last week was in parts up there with some of the SCD best moves I've seen on SCD but, other times she looked like a rabbit trapped in a headlight.

It's not Brian's fault that these problems exist.

But it may well be his fault that nothing appears to have been done about it.

Certainly, it seemed to be Camilla (for example) who decided to do something about Gethin's inability to "let go". I should have thought it was in Brian's capacity to at least attempt something similar for Ali. It may not have worked but you don't know until you try.

I think the problem is that it hasn't been seen as enough of a weakness. Yes, Ali has been criticised for not selling the Latin or not quite getting to grips with the performance but while her scores are still bobbing along nicely in the mid thirties and she's still happily sitting in the upper reaches of the leaderboard, it's quite easy to sweep the difficulty aside and think - oh she might crack this soon. It's only as we've reached the final stages and Ali's lack of Latin flair may cost her that it starts to look like a really bum decision on someone's (Brian's) part.

Gethin showed the value of an acting coach. Gethin of course also had more experience than almost anyone at live TV work on Blue Peter. Tom showed that he had had a long interest in old dance-movies and you wonder which courses he had done before. It looks as if they need to work out what everyone has done and to fill in the gaps - the question is who would do that? On X factor and the ALW shows it basically doesn't seem to get done, on Fame Academy you would see the coaches working on weaknesses. On SCD who is meant to be doing it and suggesting ideas - the pro or someone else?

Brian isn't as effusive a performer as some. If Cola hadn't struck up such a strong friendship and evidently have lots of fun the BriAli combo would not perhaps look quite so...well, dull.

With a suitably nice pink flamingo outfit. You have to go back and ask the question though who picked the music, and when. They obviously have the music worked out well in advance of the choregraphy so when and who decided that a beautiful samba was the way to go? With that music what she did fitted perfectly - it just wasn't what would have given her higher marks still with judges or a winning wow vote. Is it a choice to secure 8s and 9s and not risk lower marks or is it a msijudgement or is it just what they were given or is it the music they wanted but arranged in a style that they wouldn't want?

If she was auditioning for the lead in Hedda Gabler I might agree with you. As it is, all she's trying to do is inject a bit of oomph into her Latin.

Some of the pairings haven't been hugely successful.

Ricky would have done way better with someone else rather than Natalie IMO. Erin?
Darren might have done well with Natalie.
Brian is too nicey-nicey for Ali. Maybe Brendan would have put a bomb under her.
Flavia with Craig was a nonsense.

Maybe nobody can predict these things but there do seem to have been some odd partnerships this series.

Matt Cutler and Hingis? Another weird one.

But it would be a very strange acting job that she turned up for that didn't have some director telling her to look different, speak differently or hold a pose longer.

Maybe Brian is picking the music to create an atmosphere Ali is happy with? He has said lots of times that he chooses the music (or, as we saw on ITT, the pros submit a list of tracks they'd like to use), so isn't it possible that he knows she can't/won't do a full-on samba (based on her performances in the other latin dances) so goes with what she can do?

Regardless of who actually chooses the "tunes", when discussing the music choices I think Brian may have nicked a trick from James who always seems to choreograph slower versions of dances. I think in the short term it does help build up the celebs confidence in remembering the steps but, when it tranfers onto the my TV screen it always seems to lack something and I end up feeling a little let down.

I think its a problem that the people with most experience how to get to the final can't be seen to get there every year. I don't think its coincidence that Brendan got Jo after Lisa and Vincent got Nat after Rachel. Once you balance heights and spread the better prospects to different people than had one last year, you can't do much better at making the teams optimal. Leila and Zoe both end up with hills to climb, Ricky has someone new and Ali has someone very compatible rather than someone who can bring her opposites into play. Ola who had experience keeping Kenny in past his ability gets someone with more potential and can move on accordingly.

There's a mystery there because there's a short filler programme on BBC radio 7 where someone from the musical side of the early SCD series explains how the producers selected tunes and then sent them to someone to arrange into 90 second pieces for use. Not clear if things have changed and the contestants actually have more control now?.

On Fame Academy they used to ask for arrangements and then had to change them again and again for the better singers who knew what they wanted - each change took days . There doesn't seem time for this in the SCD process unless they are working on the next week's music the week before. It looks a very truncated process of get the music, spend half a day at most deciding what to do and then do it?

A visit from a retired dancer could work - dancey acting rather than acty acting - Shirley Ballas would be fab

I really don't think her obvious nervousness should be underestimated either. According to Darcy Bussell on ITT last night, she was trembling through the Tango.

Must admit, find it interesting that out of the contestants - and 'nerves' have featured highly this year most of the afflicted are from the acting side of things.