So much moaning about the unknown celebs.
"We should have big stars that we all know", people insist. "Far too many BBC employees", people complain. "Has-been singers trying to restart their careers", we're told.

Following that argument we would never have had:

Mark Ramprakash - never heard of him before strictly
Jill Halfpenny - sodding BBC employees
Louis Smith - never heard of him either
Louisa Lytton - more sodding BBC employees
Alesha Dixon - who?
Austin Healey - never heard of him
Kara Tointon - that darned BBC again....
Harry Judd - er...

Fiona Phillips - Ah, now finally someone I've heard of who doesn't work for the BBC. Oh, wait a minute...


Who else would we have missed?

Its a BBC programme so why on earth should it not be jam packed full of BBC employees?

I just don't 'get' the criticism.

The thing is, that a lot of them are actually freelance rather than contracted specifically to the BBC anyway - certainly the actors will be?

Anyway
Matt D'Angelo - flipping BBC
Gethin Jones - BBC again
Matt Baker - has BBC running though him like a stick of rock

Also bloody BBC employees Natasha Kaplinsky & Zoe Ball.

At least they did have the well known but non-BBC Carol Vorderman....I mean, who wouldn't want a series full of Vorderumba's?

I think this entire thread my have been based on the post I made a few days ago - so, for the benefit of those who didn't see it first time round, I'll just post it again!

Very true about Alesha, she was one third of a group who had a few hits but were not exactly a supergroup and to be honest only one song Scandalous really stands out.

It'd be like Lisa Maffia or one of the Honeyz being cast now. People would be like "Who?".

Is Chris Hollins the person with the least celebrity of anyone who has ever taken part in Strictly? It didn't seem to do him much harm.

I would actually give that dubious honour to the first contestant ever voted off of the show - the late musical comedian Jason Wood.

Harm? Harm? It harmed me to the point of extreme trauma having to watch him! So OTT, so tooth-grindingly irritating. Awful routines, awful gurning, manic joy.

OK, OK - I will admit, I did stop watching him after a bit because I really did not want to fling my lovely Samsung TV out the window.

His Charleston was true, unbridled horror

I don't care of people are famous or infamous. All I care about is can they dance. And that girl could dance. Loved watching her.

I thought it was fabulous darling

He was the resident sports presenter on BBC Breakfast wasn't he?

Exactly. How is that a big celebrity?

Depends on your definition of a "big celebrity" - and just how many "big celebrities" has Strictly ever had...?

I loved her but she was certainly the type of celebrity that if announced now people who wonder who it was. I don't remember Misteeq being a group were the individuals were really known like how the Spice Girls were.

That would be Jo Wood, Penny Lancaster-Stewart or Nancy Dell'Olio.

Tom Chambers didn't even have a Wiki when he was announced in 2008!

Really?? Yeah that's pretty bad.


Nancy was high enough profile, famous of being famous yes but she was in the tabloids regularly for an extended period of time.

I agree with the poster above that Jason Wood was possibly the most unknown person ever but it was series 1.

Some are also rather niche famous to the sports which they're in, like it would have been easy for some sports stars to slip past the radar if not a big sports fan, like Ben Cohen's major fanbase would have been gay guys as his profile from 2003 wasn't as big as say Wilkinson, Dallagio or Johnson.

As you said Misteeq weren't a massive girl group - they were only briefly successful but I do think Alesha stood out from the others two members - all of them were attractive girls but I remember watching interviews of the girls at the time and she definitely stood out as the most boisterous and charismatic of the three of them - also just prior to strictly she'd been in the tabloid gossip pages quite a lot because her then husband Harvey had done the dirty on her with her so called friend Javine Hylton - so if some people didn't know her from Misteeq - many would have known her as the woman who'd been wronged by someone from 'so solid crew' and the girl of the tv show 'pop stars the rivals'.