Interesting. With the exception of series 1 (small number of contestants) and 6 (outlier?), the figures almost look as if the producers were aiming to get as close to 40 as humanly possible...

Do you have precise numbers for 7 and 8? Because I'm thinking that they went "young" last year, and are going "old" this year, deliberately.


Fair enough. So I wonder what this age discrepancy means? Is it simply that the Beeb are going for more "established names", who are usually older?

Four of the twelve Dancing With The Stars contestants this season are over 50. They've also had people in their 70s and 80s on.

The ratio of people under 40 this series (to pick an arbitrary point of physical fitness to slice at) is 50%. The same as in Series 2, 5 and 6. Which were arguably the series with the highest standards. As I said they seem to have replaced out of shape middle-aged people with out of shape older people. No great shift.

Well, I wouldn't fall off my chair in shock to find out that the production team behind Strictly weren't exactly a well-oiled, coordinated, even Borg-like grouping.


Well, yes - with nearly half the dancers being somewhat mature, there's at least a chance that the final will be young / old... Wow, I just had an image of Widdecombe doing a show dance, I think I need to go wash my mind out now...

Not quite true - all the briefings about the new team deliberately mentioned fresher (read : younger) faces, so clearly there was an intention to sex up the dance team.

The trouble is, you now have a situation where it looks like half of the pros are dancing with their grannies / granddads.

My figures were more or less the same as yours (a few people one year or so either side), although Laila's actual age is a matter of dispute (and God that was a bit of conspiracy nonsense I'm glad I'd forgotten). Haven't added the Series 8 people yet. But yeah, I'd say generally they picked a range of people with 40 as a possibly sub-conscious mid-point.


No idea - they might be trying to counter ageism claims I guess by picking a few obviously really super old people. The oldest names do seem to be the ones they're pushing hardest, so they probably THINK they're the biggest draws so maybe there's something to that.

They obviously didn't want to fire every single one of the old guard, those were the two tokens chosen to stay. The rest have been replaced with younger dancers.

They're all cool. Perhaps with the exception of Paul Daniels. But he's so uncool he's almost looped back round to cool again. I think it's a really good line up this year. Might have been younger last year but I didn't care for any of them really. Pretty things from Hollyoaks - nice but dull. The Beeb seems to have gone more for personality this year, imo. And that's more than fine by me

C
http://frankieandcloverstrictly.blogspot.com/

100% agree, only let down was Daniels but hey he might surprise.

I wonder will the judges have learnt anything from the JS "problem" ...

I guess if you consider the natural career arc of a celeb, a lot of the time you can only get the ones on the way up (i.e. young) or on the way down (i.e. old).

The bonus of the on-the-way-down lot is that, whilst they're on the way down, they're still more established "names", if only because of career longevity. Paul Daniels is the obvious example of this.

I have a funny feeling that P Daniels will not invoke the same cuddly feeling that JS did , More a seething annoyance I think for PD .

As is the entire cast of Dancing With The Stars. Has-beens and gutter trash reality celebs, but because the has-beens have been around for ages for some reason people think the cast is full of glamour (you know, the type that only David Hasslehoff can provide)

Maybe for once we might see at least one person in the 40+ age group making the top five this year?

Interesting that the vast majority of celebs who are aware of the dance styles seem to be more keen on Latin than in previous years. The older contestants all seemed to focus on ballroom before. Now we only really have Anne who wants slow dances only.

It would be surprising if we didn't - they'd have to eliminate only the "oldies" almost every week to avoid that.

It's possible that the Beeb are planning for such encounters, and will push this "age vs beauty" message for this season.

Or, alternatively, the producers could simply be brain-addled Tristrams with no sense beyond that of a dead whelk.

Take your pick.

I think Felicity may have a chance of that.


Donny Osmond won his season of DWTS at 50 something (not sure exact age) i thought he was very good, did a very good Jive i remember.

To be honest NO ONE was actually fired. Some were told they would be dancing in the pro-dance troupe as opposed to having a celeb to haul round the floor, and chose not to accept.

As for Anton & Erin, they couldn't be part of the pro-dance troupe as they simply wouldn't be able to keep up with the others. Last year they even struggled with couple of the ballroom pro group dances, as for the Latin - forget it!

I think Felicity has a great chance of making the final. She's a good mover with natural grace and timing; she has a huge fan-base, male and female amongst middle-aged, middle England which is a key SCD demographic; she has Vincent who is the most gifted choreographer left, if a little ambitious at times; it's no secret in theatre circles that she's been seriously hitting the gym for some months now so she's obviously taking this seriously.

Agree, and given the number of times she was seen in the audience over the last couple of years she knows what she is in for.

The oldie I would cross an ocean to see is Jane Asher. Nil chance she will come on Strictly, the preserve of wannabes, has-beens, and washed-ups.

I'm not sure I want anybody who has a real job to waste their time on Strictly Come Dancing... even I have something better to do.

Hahaha. Nope.

I don't want to see old people dancing. I also don't care if thats not what old people don't want to hear.

You get rubbish young dancers, but a rubbish old dancer is worse to watch than a rubbish young dancer. In my opinion.

I am not looking forward to seeing Paul Daniels or Peter Shilton at all. I AM looking forward to Anne Widdecombe as I am hoping for a car crash as I think she's a vile human being.

Yes, I may be just as vile for wanting to see that, but hey, I'm vile enough to not listen to people telling me that.

Please get rid of them asap so they don't wreck the show by either a) pulling out early due to fitness issues, b) producing slow motion easy peasy dances week after week or c) getting weird sympathy scores and votes knocking out people who are good to watch.

I know it looks more SAGA Come Dancing this year but I feel I have to defend the oldies a bit.

Last series the injuries were Ali (2), Leila and Jade. They were youngsters.

Anyway, Paul Daniels isn't going to get injured. He's going to die.

That is a fair point, I take that on board.

However, were the injuries partly based on working harder or a consequence of working on more complicated dances? - - aka trying to entertain the viewers to the best of their (high) ability? I seem to remember at least 2 of the above were freak accidents.

Ali (allegedly) stubbed her toe on the sofa while being chased around his/her flat by Brian (bit freaky).

Jade was always going to get injured because Ian (bless him) has previous on that score. (AND subsequent cos Natalie had pull out of the Pro Tour with damaged something or others).

Not sure what Laila did but I BLAME ANTON.

Seriously though Part of me agrees with your main point. Part of me agrees with your view on AW. Probably what makes Strictly such compulsive viewing.