This!! She's fab!

Lovely dance by Harry and Jo. Oti and Natalie fabulous.

Who was the elf?

Not appreciating Bobby. Can he not choreograph anything that isn't side by side jazz hands?

I watched this and the first closeup of Tom Chambers was already too much But Oti was amazing, and I say that as an habitual Charleston-derider.

Harry was fab.

Jwanne dances beautifully but I do find her head placement exaggerated to the point of looking painful. This may be technically correct but it really spoils the look of the dance for me.

Unappreciating having had nougat and a family sized bag of crisps for lunch - where's that nauseous-looking smiley?

I never noticed the dance......... I was drooling at the boots and the legs inside them.

Me too! None of them this year were major favourites of mine but at least I have some memory of them and most of them aren't dancing at week 1 (even ringer week 1) standard.

Loved Harry and Jo's routine. Little as I liked Aliona's choreography for most of Harry's series, I do think she properly taught him to dance and you could tell he enjoyed that AS. Also I've got to love a contestant who turns up for a Christmas special saying "I'm here to get 40 please - I'm pretty sure the rest of you will play ball but Craig, if you could be so kind?" Also is it just me or is Harry turning into the celeb version of rent-a-pro? He danced with Ola in that first special, then with Aliona for the series, then with Chelsee for something or other, then with Jo and he danced with Abbey in the group dance. If you need a male celeb to do a ballroom dance who you gonna call? Harry!

Unappreciating Tom for lies of omission. "When I did Strictly I was on Holby City. Then Strictly changed my life!" Yes, you've been employed as a dancer since then. You could literally be employed as a dancer/ actor that people would pay to see dancing that very Charleston. It was a very good Charleston but even for me that pushes the ringer buttons a bit too much. I enjoyed watching it and I love that Oti got a chance to teach and choreograph someone who can dance but I'm glad he didn't win.

<3 Pasha making Lisa do a quickstep at full speed. Sorry Lisa, you were badly shown up by almost every contestant there. I think you were lucky to outscore Cassidy, frankly, and I generally liked your ballroom back in series 6.

I had to appreciate Aljaz grinning at the back of shot the whole time as two of his ex-partners competed and both referenced him at some point. I wonder if he was sad not to be dancing or if he was relieved not to have to pick between them.

Speaking of which, I wonder how Lisa felt about Brendan dancing with Abbey and praising her to the skies. (Abbey is really good at that waltz. I never rated her Latin and I'm still a bit baffled that she won but she looks perfect for ballroom and she's so elegant in hold.) Was it a height thing - is Abbey taller than Lisa? Did someone throw their toys out of the pram? Do Brendan and Lisa not like each other any more? It just felt like a really odd situation.

Unappreciating that I think Alison danced worse than she did in her series. I do like her though, not sure why. She just seemed to have so much fun with Aljaz and I liked Aljaz's choreography for her more than I like Robin's.

Cassidy seemed like an odd addition to the line up but it was great to see him and Nat and I thought he did really well, especially considering that everyone else there had had far more ballroom and Latin training than he had. to his whiskers though. It looked like his face was melting when they went crooked at the end. Very off-putting.

I missed commenting along live with you all last night as my sister rang 5 minutes before it started & I ended up watching on a 30 minute delay

Lisa/Pasha- Very amused at Lisa being made to do an actual Quickstep. Less amused at the costume/makeup that Pasha had to wear.

Robin/Funnity II- Oh dear. A good reminder of why I don't miss Robin.

Cassidy/Nat- Seemed a bit unfair to give the relatively unexperienced dancer a new dance that he's not done before and a Jive at that. Enjoyed them though & loved Nat's boots!

Abbey/Brenda- Very good. I too wondered if NotClooney & Brenda have fallen out. Her comment about being thrilled to be paired with Pasha & Brenda praising Abbey that much... *shrug*

Harry/Jo- A very good dance & a worthy winner but Jwann managed to irritate the cr*p out of me. Yes, it's impressive that she's so bendy & yes, I would love to be that bendy too. This does not mean that it looks good or should be performed in a ballroom routine. It jarred with the good job that Harry was doing. Add to that her OTT reactions to getting tens & then winning & she managed to undo the goodwill that I'd been feeling towards her for her choreography corner bits on ITT. Harry looked quite embarrassed at her reaction as they went to collect the trophy.

Tom/Oti- She was fab, he was good too if you ignored the faces.

Ringahs for Oti and Nat 2016!!



Hope everyone had a great Christmas! xxx

If the producers really think we need a 'funnity fun' dancer in absolutely everything I'm quite happy for it to be Alison, but Alison managed some really good dances (within her obvious limitations) when Alijaz was working with her. Robin seems to have decided not to bother with choreography and just go for the 'comedy' of a large woman dancing.

Really not appreciating Robin's choreograophy or general attitude!

Also, Robin's A-Z on ITT was terminally tedious and his narration technique from the autocue just underlines that it's not as easy to sound spontaneous as Zoe usually manages to make it appear.

He also infiltrated a countdown of the nation's favourite Abba songs (guilty pleasure and far too much wine last night ). Took a lot of effort to not throw sausage rolls at the telly.

I hope my mum saw that! she's mad about Abba. Always seems rather incongruous to me - she's 80 next birthday and quite stern!

Finally caught up with the Christmas show and I'm finding it hilarious that even a man with one leg can do a better jive than Peter Andre. Who'd'a thunk it?

Great show all round - I was unexpectedly impressed by Abbey, I didn't like her much but that waltz was lovely. I'm pleased that Harry won though, and even more pleased to see Joanne and Oti paired with good dancers!

It was my favourite Christmas show for many years. Some lovely dancing, which was so preferable to the last few "one week randoms", and nice to both see some familiar faces and the mixed-up partnerships. I could live without ever seeing Bobby Windsor dancing again but even that couldn't spoil it.

OT but seriously unappreciating not being able to get home because of the floods.

Oh, I do hope your own house is OK, DeltaBlues!

Thank you. We've heard from our next door neighbours and thankfully our street is dry, but virtually all of the surrounding routes in are under water at some place or other. We're still far better off than many, of course! We've been inconvenienced - they've been devastated.

BIB - Bobby Windsor noodles with my instincts, if I were a dog (steady!) I'd bark at him. His face is so frozen I have no 'signals' to help me know what he's really thinking and feeling. He might be the nicest guy in the world but I don't trust him.


Very glad that your house is safe DB, but very sad that there is flooding in your area though, such a nightmare. Hope you get home soon.

Oh heck, (((Delta))). Glad your home is ace and hope you can get back before too much longer.

Hope you had a good birthday mirinamau.

Watched the Christmas Special - not as bad as feared given some of the cast did make you wonder a lot about some of the old pro-celeb dynamics, though where Poor Pasha has to wear a three foot high high so his partner didn't appear to tower over him.

Saw Bobby with Alison on the Pointless Christmas Special and he is in panto this year - so hopefully he has a new career choice open to him for the Autumn/Winter season now and will do the same next year. One over-dancing theme lover in the pro dancer cast list is more than enough

I never really liked Robin so I may be wrong in this wasn't he injured last minute and we had Trent instead of him? In which case glad he is back to dancing now off you go and never side by side dance on my tele again.

Delta I have a friend in exactly the same predicament as you, whilst hooray your not flooded, it is still extremely upsetting to be homeless for a while..
I hope you get home soon

I unappreciate that yet again the UK is suffering from flooding. We were in the same boat (!) two years ago and, although our house wasn't flooded, the road was and we lost both our cars. It was a one off due to a man-made pond being breached in heavy rain on Christmas morning about 3am! Plus the water had nowhere to go and came up our road!

Robin's face always make me think he has an allergic reaction to the botox due to his puffy eyes.

Thank goodness your house is okay - this flooding is awful.

By the way, just noticed your "location" .


Ain't that the truth.

And whatever I may think about Kevin, his choreography is definitely significantly better than Robin's.

Amen to that!!

I actually met Robin at a show this year (along with Kristina, Trent, Gordana & Pixie)... he seemed a nice enough bloke which made me like him a bit more, and he was great dancing with Kristina. I'm still not keen on him dancing on SCD though, granted Alison is probably out of practice but she seemed so much better with Aljaz. Granted she's not the best dancer for obvious reasons, but he didn't treat her as a 'joke' act and she has got some natural rhythm and bags of enthusiasm. That said it was nice to see her back - better her than Lisa Riley!

I hope this never happens again

The problem is, I can't think of any of the female celebs this year who would have gone further or had a better run if they'd been paired with Robin.

Another one who don't like Robin as a pro. Probably lovely in real life, but as pro is just bellow mediocre.


Yep. Actually Kevin choreography and teaching are good, even great in some cases. it's. The over dancing, facial expressions, the "Clifton" clan and over excitement that makes me go .


Agreed! I am pretty sure that someone like Anita would have done much worse!!

By contrast, how many would have done worse with him? The only ones I can possibly imagine with him would have been Carol - who would probably have been overwhelmed - and Kellie - who would have suited his OTT dancing but probably wouldn't have learned much, whereas at least Kevin does chuck plenty of actual dance content into the pot.