I'm going on a combination of dance level plus cliched pigeon-holing...

Anastacia- Claire King, Pamela Stephenson, Zoe Lucker –quite good, strong older woman, “big personality”
Claudia- Danni Harmer/Louisa Lytton v good dancer, young, cheerful, “babied” for age & height
Daisy- Jodie Kidd- quite good, fairly relaxed, good SOH, TALL
Danny- Ricky Whittle- looks getting in the way of discussing actual dance ability, criticised for having looks over personality
Ed- Don Warrington- reserved older guy who doesn’t get to stay long enough to relax into the show and reveal more of their personality. Not completely bobbins- just a bit.
Greg- Ben Cohen (pre divisive relationship issues) Steve Backshall- very likeable guy who people would like to do well, but is only ok at dancing.
Laura – nope. Can’t think of another non-neurotic, talented female presenter without dance experience.
Lesley- Stephanie Beacham, although this doesn’t really work beyond the cougar cliche and Lesley’s a good dancer. We’ve had too few good dancers of >60.
Louise- Rachel Stevens- pop singah ringah, pleasant, pretty, deemed beige by some.
Melvin-DJSpoony –cheerful, likeable, small amount of ability but a DJ and therefore not much fanbase within the Strictly audience
Naga- Kirsty Gallacher –fit&sporty but wooden at dancing, serious
Ore- Tom Chambers -good, larky & enthusiastic, may get on some’s nerves
Rinder- broken the mould.
Tameka- Pamela Stephenson- for feistiness combined with dance talent, Alison Hammond for the incessant laughing
Will- Aled Jones- quite good dancer, darling of the middle classes.

Laura - potentially Caroline Flack (not sure if she had proper dance experience?)

I thought of her- but I was trying to match dance experience and as far as I can tell, Laura's had very little beyond the Irish dancing. I also found her a bit needy whereas -so far- Laura seems pretty chilled. Time will tell, eh!

I get Georgia vibes from Claudia, and Natalie Gumede/Denise Van Outen vibes from Louise. I agree with the Alison Hammond comparison with Tameka, maybe a bit of Kellie Bright too.

Anita Rani?

Indeed Dippy! I think Danny might be a better dancer than Ricky - who was pigeon toed (the curse of Greg this year!) but i agree about his looks might be talked about more than his dancing - i am already guilty of this ( I mean look at his eyes)!

Laura - Carol Smillie.
I would say Lesley reminds me of Fiona Fullerton.

Good call: both cheerful, both sporty, both with potential to improve.


Yeah- both pretty upbeat, but I can't remember if Carol was any good as a dancer? *heads off to Youtube...


ETA- can't find any decent clips, but from what I saw- yeah. Not a bad comparison.

Yep- fair call. But in my head I always put Fiona with Cherie Lunghi and Felicity Kendall- all genteel and wafty. Lesley's got more oomph for me. But pretty close.

Caroline was actually a ringer....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ED-dancer.html

She also took part in Dancing on Wheels, partnering a wheelchair user in European championships, so must a have had a bit of ballroom training!

She was likeable though, and got away with it I think.

Carol's best score 34, worst 25...so not bad at all.

Here is her video diary where she documents her first dance (VW) for which she got 25 on the night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXX3imM_GAs

Yep- that's why I can't in my head liken her to Laura. Struggling to think of a young female presenter without dance experience. Laura may be an anomaly ... within the media, and not just Strictly

Fiona nowhere near as good a dancer as Cherie nor Felicity. She was also stronger than those two also.

If you talking 'oomph' then Lesley is Nancy Dell'olio with slightly better moves!!!

Haha- there's oomph, and then there's delightful delusion...

He's reminding me of Lisa Riley - surprising first dance which everyone is talking about, spends every week after trying to recreate the same effect and goes out around 5th/6th as 'people's champion'.

Very good call. Damn my gender-blinkered thinking...

Lesley= Ann widdicombe

Nah- nothing like, for me: one can't dance AT ALL, the other dances pretty well: one has the cougar-cliche tag, the other.... doesn't. One was a joke contestant, the other would be a contender if she were 40 years younger.

I'd put Widdy in the same bracket as John Sergeant or Russell Grant.

Omg do you read my mind ? Because I agree with most of these lol.

Never. Anita had so much personality. Laura is just bland, boring. ... no omphhhhh whatsoever even though she's a great dancer.

She reminds me of Holly but then again holly had some personality. ....ohhh I know who she reminds me of : Rachel Riley; just in terms of personality.

You may want to keep in mind Laura is my favourite this year, as was Anita last year

I did consider her- very similar personalities- but Laura seems a much better dancer.

As for the similarity to Anita, I agree with the poster in terms of dance background and dance talent, but not personality.

Anastacia- Patsy Kensit
Laura- Helen George
Louise- Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Tameka- Jessie Wallace
Claudia- Louisa Lytton
Naga- Sunetra Sarker
Daisy- Penny Lancaster
Lesley- Fiona Fullerton

Melvin- Spoony
Will- Gethin Jones
Greg- Michael Vaughan (with more ability)
Danny- Scott Maslen
Rinder- Julian Clary
Ore- Mark Wright
Ed- Mark Benton

Agree/agreeish with 8/15 .... not saying which

NB- hope Danny doesn't have Scott's overwork meltdown around week 9.