Don't forget the "Curse of Kirkwood".
Soap Producer who puts actors up for Strictly, then gives them no time off to train.
Ricky Whittle, Ali Bastian, Scott Maslen, Ashley Taylor Dawson, all had to juggle soap filming schedules with Strictly training.

The Hollyoaks actors have it very hard as they film in Liverpool/ Chester.
This means the Pro's have to schlep up to Liverpool to train.

Holby/ Casualty celebs also means the Pro travelling to Cardiff for training.

Let alone fitting in ITT appearances which are filmed in London during the week.

And of course if we had actual training footage instead of comedy VTs, that would probably be a half a day more spent actually training for everyone.

Very good point.

If Brendan is so concerned about lack of training time why is he not travelling to Cardiff to train while Sunetra is there? The other pro,s are travelling with their partners. I like Brendan but find this a bit strange.

Perhaps he knows that people will blame him for the lack advancement of his celeb, or that people will blame him for blaming training time for the lack of advancement of his celeb, even when he hasn't said that.

No wonder Brendan looks bored though if he's twiddling his thumbs all week?

From a philosophical, rather than specific viewpoint:

If you were a Strictly pro would you rather be assigned a naturally talented celeb with limited training hours or a distinctly average celeb with all the time in the world?

Here's the thing, I really like Sunetra but I'm starting to have little patience/sympathy with contestants doing this show but having little time allotted for rehearsals. You know or should've known what you were getting yourself into before signing up for the show. Just do it.
Like I've said in another thread, it's not fair on the pros and the contestants themselves.

We don't know the details, she could have had a phone call saying she had to go to Scotland just before the programme. We don't know how detailed their schedules are planned, he might have known she had some work on Thursday but not realised it was in Scotland. He could have just exaggerated his reaction for effect.

I doubt whether it has much effect, you cannot train all day without a break and should not take very long to record the videos.

I'd imagine you'd rather the former, surely? If there's no natural talent, all the time in the world probably isn't going to help much (Judy for example) Someone like Sunetra has natural dance ability, and obiously picks things up quickly too, to have done as well as she has on such little training.


To be fair, that's what Sunetra is doing - just doing it. She and Brendan haven't complained about it. Yesterday was the first we've heard any actual figures with regards to lack of training time, isn't it? I don't watch It Takes Two regularly so I'm not sure if actualyfigures have been mentioned on it at other times?

He had a Casualty actress in series 2 and was complaining about travelling to Bristol (where it was filmed back then). However, he was single then with no family commitments.
(And his partner was not very committed to the cause IIRC)

This is stuff that TPTB should take into account when pairing up the couples in the first place.

It must be frustrating for Brendan. He can see what Sunetra would be able to achieve with a lot more practice. It must be demoralising to go out onto the dance floor knowing your partner won't do herself justice. I love Sunetra but her performance at Blackpool almost gave Judy a run for her money - her timing was all over the place

Brendan said on ITT that he had been training in Bristol so he must be travelling to train with Sunetra, I felt a bit bad for slagging him off a bit earlier

Soaps and shows like Holby City are filmed 6 weeks in advance and Christmas is their time for big storylines. If you are in one of these things then late October till the end of November will be your most hectic period and there is no way a soap will write out a big character from its Christmas/New Year storylines.

I think it's a double edged sword......... soap actors are most likely to be invited to do a show such as Strictly whilst they are still in the soap........not much point when they have left the show and are not as high profile ( though I admit some of the celebs this year were not universally known to all anyway , me included ) ..
and there is also the question of how much choice someone such as Sunetra was given, when she was asked ( advised ? ) to do the show....maybe there was a degree of pressure on her to take part, because of her soap role.

As for Brendan having to travel -
I do really like Brendan, he has always been one of my two top pros, but I find it irritating if he is indeed moaning about the travel time. Many of the Pros have to travel to where the celeb is working, and often it is much further afield than Bristol.

And, why could he not consider staying over in Bristol for a night or two, at least that way they could start to train earlier or finish later and really maximise the time available to Sunetra.

To think that she produced that Samba ( even though it wasnt great ) with 9 hours training, against some of the other celebs, who are putting in 50 or more hours a week, I think is a credit to her.

I agree with this. Strictly is a massive show and it could be considered a real honour to be invited to participate in it, so I find it annoying when celebs moan about how little training time they have due to other work commitments. Sunetra has mentioned this on ITT before, Simon only did a day or two when he was touring with Blue and I think others may have mentioned it. It's to their credit if they can do that and still deliver good performances, but I won't feel sorry for them if they don't, they chose to take on extra work.

PS. Isn't there supposed to be a minimum amount of training time per week in their contracts? I thought I read somewhere last year it was 10 hours, as I think Vanessa Feltz was barely doing that.