but yet again the judges give rave reviews. Her timing was off, and she dances like a docker on stilts. She may have the facial expressions but her dancing is woeful.Her legs are often bent and she rarely points her toes. The 'Jen's Lens' highlighted it well.
And I wish Alesha would stop saying she's an inspiration; my mum is 65 but crippled with arthritis. Anita is LUCKY to be 63 and healthy, it's not something she's acheived. It is not something we can all aspire to, mores the pity.

Well I thought she was great.

I don't vote for her, and haven't liked any of the previous dances. But last night's charleston was her best performance yet I thought.

I thought she did a good job and one of her best weeks... hardly 'terrible'.

She's had a couple of iffy weeks but I thought the Charleston was Anita's strongest dance so far.

She transported me to the roaring twenties. I really enjoyed it.

I thought she was great and it was her best performance so far. Anita and Chelsee doing their Charlestons were the two top dances for me this week.

I disagree, I've just watched it again and her timing was fine, there were lots of steps and she demonstrated the cheekiness of the Charleston. After the marks given to Lulu then there wasn't much they could do other than give her the same/better ones as she was far better.

As I've said before, it's where they place them on the leader board which matters not what score they get on the paddles. Her place on the board was right.

I hate the charleston but I liked Anita's dance last night. It was fun. Definately not terrible.

The Charleston is not an elegant dance - and even an ugly version of it got Chris Hollins to lift up the glitter ball with Ola!

Anita's legwork is not perfect, but she gets a great deal of the marks for performance - we don't get that as strongly at home as they do in the studio. Some musicians play "brilliantly" in concerts and really please the audience while playing handfuls of wrong notes.

The difference between Anita and Holly/Jason is that Anita is willing to give it 100% with total lack of reserve.

We are only half-way through the competition, so let's keep the technie bit for the quarter finals and semifinals.

Anita and Robin danced well tonight, better than could be expected. Her legs will be on next week's to do list.

I thought she was really , really good this week

Me toooo!

Anita and Robin made me smile. They performed such a happy dance, with a great atmosphere. I like Anita's work ethic. She really works hard at her routine. You can see she really wants to be a dancer.
I admire her for it - wish I had her energy levels. And I am so much younger than her.

Dancing with Robin would help, I guess

Anita's Charleston was energetic and charming, I loved it.

I thought she was "ok"..and nothing more. It just bugs me that they are always on about her age, I would have thought that was condescending or patronising ? Let's face it, there have been many better performances of the Charleston in previous series, and Chelsee was far superior last night.

I love Anita's enthusiam, and she gives everything she's got every week. She and Robin are my favourite team, perfectly matched, and they get my vote every week!

I think she gets by on "performance" She is the best at acting the dances, which really helps her.

Me too they "do team work"

I really liked it. It was fun & energetic.

And she was rightly rewarded with much higher marks. She's about a third of Anita's age yet the difference wasn't that big. Chelsee kept looking over to Pasha nervously I noticed, I thought she'd actually forgotten her routine at first.

Have just come in to work and had the Strictly catch up and everyone's favourite dance this week was Anita's.

Can't have been that bad then!

My favourites were the two charlestons.

I thought it was great

Charleston is fun. I think it was between Anita and Russell

Is there anyone more enthusiastic?

Not a huge fan, but I really like what she is about, Alex Jones could do with taking a leaf out of her book, thinking about it, a lot of the celeb dancers could.

Good on her

You're right she is lucky, but it's not the full story. Whilst our genes help us stay young we can all help ourselves by eating sensibly, taking exercise, and not smoking.

I'm very sorry to hear about your mum.

I think Anita and Lulu are fab and they are an inspiration to us older types.

some idiot was moaning about Lulu needing to "strengthen her core" on Saturday night which I responded to by saying "she is in her 60s" and he replied "is that some excuse?"

really, these two are quite amazing to be dancing as well as they do in their sixties especially when you compare them to other older ladies (apart from Pam Stephenson) that have barely been able to move at all

I don't think the performance aspect of dancing should be underestimated though. We've seen able dancers fail to fulfil their potential because they couldn't embrace that side of things (e.g. Ali Bastian). Others needed an acting coach to bring them out of their shells (e.g. Gethin Jones).


Although I take your point about Anita being amazing for her age, I don't think the older female celebrities should be spared criticism just because of their age. I like that the judges give Anita things to work on each week because she's so eager to improve