I mean she does bring out a great side to Aljaz we didn't really see last year and she has bags of personality during her performance!

But even I can see.. Her footwork is lazy, her technical side is really poor yet every week she gets overmarked. I thought her Jive was hugely overmarked, she rarely did anything. Tonight was a similar story.

Is it just me seeing this? Alison and Aljaz are one of my favourite couples but the overmarking is annoying and I just see her as a Lisa Riley II in the sense that she's praised for her character in the dance but doesn't seem to be making any improvement or progress at all.

She stomps through everything and her enthusiasm is becoming annoying.
Hope she goes along with Scott Mills soon.

They need to get her in heels.

I do enjoy seeing her perform and she has probably got a few more weeks left in her but I didn't agree with the judges marking her the same as Steve and Sunetra.

She was perhaps slightly overplaced tonight. She was above Scott, Judy and Tim (as indeed she should have been) but was tied with Steve and Sunetra who were both better.

What annoys me the most is that she gets the same mark as Sunetra, who I thought was much cleaner in her footwork (yes, I do know samba and salsa aren't exactly the same ).

Although, the judges remarks (and marks) seem to suggest otherwise.

I don't think heels are the problem. Men dance similar steps in lowish heels. She just doesn't have the footwork right. In some ways her exuberant personality is great (performance and feel for music) but in others it is a drawback (technique). I think she needs to be a bit more disciplined in her approach.

My cousin who is a big lady - not as big as Alison, but not far off it - said tonight that she found the judges comments and marks for Alison to be nothing short of condescending. Almost as if she is being treated differently simply because of her size, which is insulting. I think the real sad thing is that Alison doesn't realise what a dreadful dancer she actually is. Yes, she throws herself about with loads of enthusiasm, but that's about all.

She already has 20 marks before setting a foot on the dance floor every week, the rest of the marks she gets are for her overbearing "personality". . It's ridiculous.

The fact she got the same marks as Steve and Sunetra while she barely moved at all is disgusting

Her footwork is awful and I can't see how they mark her so high

I was engaged in a discussion on a thread the other day regarding a certain conspiracy theory in which the judges were accused of undermarking Alison because of her size.

The judges must be capable of extraordinary things if they are capable of both undermarking and overmarking simultaneously!

The real problem is that only 1 out of the 4 judges uses the full range of scores available so there is quite a lot of bunching on the leaderboard.

I haven't seen a dance yet by her that deserves over a 5. The BBC cronies have to do the right thing though ?

To be fair, her cha cha cha in week 1 was pretty good. However, she did have 3 weeks to learn it. She is obviously finding learning a dance in 1 week quite challenging.

Maybe those people are just fans of Alison and not of dancing? [I don't mean that to sound offensive]. A lot of people really love Alison, which is fair enough. I'd never seen or heard of her before Strictly, and still don't know what it is she does for a living, but I do know dance, and I can say with certainty her dancing is not good. She moves her top half a lot, but her feet get left behind!

Overmarked every week cos they feel sorry for her. Only now have they started throwing in some negative comments. She was so bad I had no idea what dance she was doing. She can't even lift her feet off the floor and she looks awful. At least LIsa Riley made some effort to actually do the steps. Poor Aljaz he looked worn out. She could do him a permanent injury.

Well, perhaps one of those theories is right and the other is wrong.

I'm inclined to think the over-marking theory is the one that's right.


It's not necessary to use the full range of marks to mark Alison fairly relative to the others.

In that dress when she whirled around she looked like one of the brushy things in the auto car wash.
I think they're overmarking her because there's an elephant in the room.
It's hiding behind Alison in shame.

In terms of position on the leaderboard Alison is pretty close to where she should be. The judges do seem to be kinder to the larger women than the larger men (like Audley Harrison) who were told they were flat footed every single week. Darcey will never tell Alison to improve her core strength.

I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC has a remit from the government to promote active lifestyles and Strictly is seen as a way of promoting dance for all age groups. They like to encourage people of all sizes to dance and perhaps they are afraid to anything except encourage.

Whereas her partner hides behind her whenever the titles are run.

I don't think so and I wasn't keen on her being in the programme to start off with.

That dance last night was in general brilliant and the most entertaining I thought. Though that was more down to the singers and the brilliant choreography but Alisons done alright too.

I personally think she needs more leg strength, as she is not pushing into the floor to get the sharper movement. He needs to focus on her foot placement and technique, too much on the energy above the waist.

I agree with you Kaycee, I think that the judges are afraid, for obvious reasons, to say what they really think and mark accordingly. In reply to another poster, the heels would make no difference.
The question to ask yourself is, if the celeb was more of a "normal" size, would they let her get away with it ? I think the answer would be no.

Sounds unkind I know, but I don't think Alison has ever been unmarked in any dance, more the opposite as she doesn;t actually dance at all. Thats not to say she isn't trying.

It's hard to phrase it without causing unintended offence, but I feel that she hasn't yet truly danced with her feet and maybe cannot. Conspiracy theory alert!: I think she may be being lined up for hosting the live tour.

I agree with this completely.

If she were a smaller size and doing the same errors with her footwork and technique then she would be marked a lot less and the critiques would be a lot harsher IMO.

I find it a bit condescending, it's like they are using the Lisa Reiley book of comments for her.