Well, from the point of view of heart string tugging the BBC - and I'm sure it's the BBC not the celebs themselves - did a grand job with Zoe as well.

The had her dad watching her dance for the very first time/acting like a lady/wearing a dress involving lingering shots with tears rolling down his face and an interview with him where he choked up.

Even for Colin they managed to coerce a random class of Welsh schoolchildren to appear in a VT and a very cute god-daughter featured quite strongly towards the end.

When it comes to encouraging people to part with their money, the BBC are past masters.

** Waiting to hear the stories from this year and Peter Schmeichel **

**cough** extortionate license fee **cough**

Seeing although Darren is so kid friendly I wonder if any of the profits are going to childrens charitys...........mind you looks like he snubbs his dance partner who taught him to dance, i mean so insulting chopping lilias head of.

Obvioulsy all money goes to Darren Gough foundation (himself)

Oh agreed, they've always done it to some degree with every contestant, particularly when we get near the final but Darren's exposure went way, way beyond that. If they showed the clip of his boys dancing once, they showed it a dozen times. Over, and over again. His children actually appeared on ITT with him, they were in the audince of the Saturday shows with lots and lots of camera shots at the end of the dance/after the scores. Far more than any other contestant had.

Zoe's Dad was shown about three times on three separate weeks I think, and Colin's Godaughter maybe twice. Nothing more than we've seen this series with Ray's daughter or Carol's children.

The use of Darren's children was far more manipulative and his popularity soared after that, and without doubt helped him to win and if that's not an unfair advantage I don't know what is.

Photograph of not Lilia.

Another let down.

In a series full of them.

Am fed up.

He hasn't snubbed her - she in the book!!!

But once the BBC had the clip of Darren's children, they could just play it - he wouldn't have any say in it. A bit like Matt's wiggle, but we'll not go there! that's a whole different nightmare.

Who knows, if Ray had progressed further we may have seen more of his daughter, and Carole's and Matt's offspring might get a further outing yet. Emma seems to have cornered the market in 'famous friends' for this year so all the rest have to fall back on are sickness (Zoe/Bill last year) - although Jimmy did have first dibs on that one; a totally made up 'love angle' and the cute children. I'm sure the Beeb will do their best

Well yes, obviously. I wasn't saying Darren was an evil genius behind it all !

I'm saying the BBC biased Darren's chances of winning far more by using his children in a very manipulative manner (Zoe's two boys, for example, she never allowed to be filmed) - which yes, he did have a part in, but mainly they saw a cute human angle and ran with it. The exposure this generated was far more than any other contestant had be it illness or love angle or anything else. Also far more emotive.

Got to agree with Swonky. There was sooo much use of footage of Darren's children last year and certainly more than any other celeb. His whole, "I've never danced before in my life. I'm a man's man from good,old Yorkshire; I only lifted pints not dancers before this show, and now I'm inspiring every man to dance" yadder, yadder, yadder also REALLY got on my nerves. He kept saying the same things after 10 weeks of tight, sequined costumes and of being trained by a world-class professional dancer. Plonker!

Well said totally agree

Obviously, not many of those contributing to this thread have actually read the book.

Few points:

1. The cover photo is of Lilia (the book is full of new photos of her & Goughie, which Darren Bennett helped the photographer to setup - something that is acknowledged at the back of the book);

2. Goughie freely admits; again in the acknowledgements, that the book is pretty much a transcript of conversations &, again, acknowledges the person who carried this out for him;

3. The BBC has a policy of no advertising & has been known to even blot out the labels on products shown on sitcoms, dramas, etc, so the penguin issue isn't all that novel;

4. Don't see why there should be any apparent bad blood between Lilia & Goughie; after all, they have remained good friends after the series (as they have with Jill Halfpenny) - straight from the horse's mouth (though Lilia could never be described as resembling a horse);

5. To criticise Goughie for having released a SCD related book; the sole purpose of which appears to be to relate the fun he had doing the series, learning to dance & encourage others to take it up is rather unfair, considering he's the only one of the 3 series 3 finalists not to have a contract with the BBC;

I'm sorry, but if you start talking about unfair advantages... well you can invent them for pretty much any celeb you happen to dislike. There was plenty to tug at your heartstrings last series if you go for that sort of thing. Personally I would have thought Colin's adorable goddaughter would be much more likely to get you to pick up your phone than Darren's two mini-me sons.
Last edited by katie_p : 23-11-2006 at 14:37

If you actually read the book its quite interesting instead of having a dig before seeing the book. Its his scd experience and some fantastic pictures of him and Lilia.

Awww, no...come on. Objectively, it went far beyond what any other celeb had. We even had the clip again last night. Think if that were Colin on we'd see his Godaughter again ? No way ! No other celeb had any one clip repeated as much, no other cleb had their own children on ITT and so on, and so forth.

This "manly man" getting his two sons dancing ballroom on a dancing show is an own goal of Paul Robinson satandard.

It might have been shown more, but did it make you vote? It's quality, not quantity! Otherwise, you might argue that the repeated showing of Mattwiggle will help Matt Dawson win votes! Colin's Goddaughter was the only child appearance that made me go ahhh... generally these things make me want to retch. I doubt it made anyone vote who wouldn't have voted anyway.

It was the 'angle' they had decided on for him though last year wasn't it - so they were bound to rehash it again last night.

Ray has had his daughter on this year with her dance class and she may have been on again if he hadn't gone out - who knows. I think Spoony also had a child featured at some point.

Mark's girl is very often there on a Saturday night and shown in the audience and again, has featured in his training.

I'd doubt that any of the celebs have any say in where the camera pans for the audience filler slots - and cute kids are good for business.

You could ask what is worse - a couple of kids on the ITT sofa once or a whole host of celebs (some more than once) on all to say they support and are bezzie mates with exactly the same celeb contestant?

But like I said, objectivley it did help him. I can't see there's much doubt in that. In fact so much so that the whole thing is so identifiable with him he now goes around playgroups encouraging other young'un's to dance ! It's sort of his signature thing now ! Darren and 'that clip' are one and the same almost.

And yes, it did make my Great Aunt spend £5 voting as I said before, specifically becuase she liked that very clip. It was very emotive indeed, far more so than just seeing Ray's daughter or Colin's Godaughter.

It was the perfect formula of Manly Man x Children + Inspiring to dance = Winner. He won over two far superior dancers, afterall.

Well yes, exactly. That's what I've just been arguing ! LOL !

The BBC had an angle, and they used it so it was an unfair advantage for Darren or rather, the continued use of it *became* an advantage for Darren. I doubt the BBC set out out to make him a winner.

You really can't fail when you show inspiring children to dance, no matter how many mates you get on, that will always be a winner with the GBP.

Ok... well I am mystified by that because it would never make me vote for someone I didn't already like! but I'll take your word for it

I guess because I voted for Darren in the final, and because I thought he was a good dancer (although it seems I'm very much in a minority there), I don't need any other explanation for why he won. I have always just assumed people voted for the same reason I did- that he achieved the most and entertained the most out of the three of them. And no, I didn't find his children entertaining!

This thread is hilarious. Last year Darren Gough was the salt of the earth on this forum; he had, by far, the least negative comments about him, and everyone was championing him over Zoe (called clingy and overrated) and Colin (called boring and too good from the beginning). How things change a year on...

Will we be here in a year's time saying how rubbish Mark's salsa was compared to Mr. X's?

I don't think it's becuase they were entertaining, it's because the public thought "not only is he enjoying the dancing himself but he's inspired his two young lads to do it as well" and bingo. Hard to beat that formula really, and it seems it's still a winning one even today. Even I ended up thinking 'well at least it's influenced his and his familiy's life for the better' even though I didn't like him and felt Colin should have won, so it was a very powerful image.

It would have been interesting to see if he'd still have won *without* his kids almost being part of the show too. I'd say no, but we'll never know.

I never voted for Darren I voted for Colin so I am entiltled to my opinion

Happily I have a time machine and can tell you all the Michael Parkinson's salsa is ten times better than Mark's

That is a mental image I really don't need