Strictly after Forsyth

The relief when Bruce Forsyth said he wasn’t going to do any more Strictly Come Dancing was huge.  Then he threatened to come back as a guest; but maybe the producers will decide that he should stay gone.  Inevitably there is a great deal of speculation about who should replace him, and it’s all based on the assumption that another “star”, a big-name presenter, is needed.  Graham Norton has been mentioned frequently.  Anton Du Beke was the assumed successor for many, but there is opposition to that.

In the last series, the three shows in which Forsyth was absent were ably presented by Tess Daly and Claudia Winkelman.  There were no jokes, the show went smoothly and everybody was happy.  Some fans believe that this format should now be permanent, and I would be happy with that.  In those countries which have bought the Strictly franchise they haven’t felt the need for a star presenter, just a presenter who lets the dancers have all the limelight.  Why can’t the BBC do the same?  I suppose it’s asking too much for the producers to break out of the lazy thinking which assumes that a mature man has to be in charge, with a glamorous female assistant.  But why not have Tess in the lead with a male second presenter?

Whatever they do, the producers must avoid the mistake which crippled Strictly from its beginning.  It must not be the vehicle for another dominating ego on huge pay and a 5-year contract.

More Strictly

Wasn’t it great last week?  We were able to watch Strictly Come Dancing without resorting to ways of cutting out the awful Forsyth.  The show went smoothly and the competition was excellent.

But he’s back this week.  People who don’t mute his contributions, as I do, tell me that he’s worse than ever, stumbling in his delivery, cringingly unfunny and at times just embarrassing.   Why is he still there?

I’m wondering whether the online voting will make a difference to the outcome.  At the moment the big worry is Dave Myers, and the threat that he could become another Widdecombe.  Let’s have a dance-off tonight between him and Julien, with Myers going out.  Then we can relax.  Except for having to shut out Forsyth.

PS:  Amazingly, I find that there are still people who believe that the results show actually takes place on Sunday night.

Strictly again

I can’t remember ever being less interested in the start of a new Strictly Come Dancing season.  I think despondency set in a few weeks ago when the BBC announced the departure of several of the best-liked professionals and slipped in the fact that Bruce Forsyth hasn’t gone – we’ll have to grit our teeth, keep hold of the remote with our fingers on the mute button and put up with him yet again.  As the new technology has spread, I wonder how many more people will be using it to get rid of him altogether.

As I write, we’ve heard of three contestants, and it’s far from encouraging; Vanessa Feltz (what’s the betting she’ll be partnered with Anton?), Tony Jacklin (far too old) and a woman from Countdown.  The rest will be revealed on The One Show tonight.  Will there be any real star names?

The fiasco of Forsyth’s continued presence is indicative of a huge problem at the heart of the BBC.  They have someone who, they believe, is too popular to ditch.  It’s too risky.  Never mind that a big chunk of the audience are pleading for him to go.  No producer is going to be responsible for not renewing the contract.  Think what that attitude led to with Jimmy Saville.  Not that I’m comparing Forsyth with Saville, but the attitude is the same.  Nor do I want to compare Forsyth to the Dimbleby brothers, but again they’ve both gone on way beyond retirement age but no producer wants to be responsible for getting rid of them.

 

Getting our hopes up

The day after the final of Strictly Come Dancing, some of the papers are getting our hopes up that we could have seen the last of Bruce Forsyth.  The Mirror says that he’s considering whether to take another contract or whether he’s had enough. The extraordinary thing about the interview is the implicit assumption that everybody wants him to stay.

It’s been an odd sort of Strictly this year.  Attempts to pit judges against the GBP with joke contestants failed.  The first two went out in weeks one and two, and the third turned out to be able to dance.  Indeed, Lisa Riley did great things for us fat women.  The 4 best dancers ended up in the final, and the winner was not really in doubt.  So far so satisfactory.  But as always it was Forsyth who made it a chore to watch.  With increasing numbers of people owning the technology to silence him, there were fewer of us having to resort to the mute button.  The show achieved record viewing figures, apparently, surviving when the X Factor rubbish is struggling.  The producers appear to think that Forsyth is a part of this success.  He’s not.  On It Takes Two we were shown some clips from the foreign versions of the show.  None of them have chosen to have an octogenarian “entertainer” doing jokes and believing that he’s the star.  The evening when Forsyth wasn’t there – his week off, though it’s hardly a week’s work – was wonderful.  And he didn’t even stay the whole evening when he was there, leaving the results show recording to Tess and Claudia.  (And that’s another thing.  This Sunday show pretence is silly.  I found the result online every Saturday night.)

So, Mr Forsyth (I don’t recognise titles), don’t tease us with your uncertainty.  Retire.

How much is he getting?

I’ve refrained from commenting much on Strictly Come Dancing this year.  It lacks the interest of previous series.  Of the three joke contestants, two have gone out and the other, Lisa Riley, turns out to be able to dance.  But now I read this in the Telegraph:  Bruce Forsyth is having a week off from the show on 10 November.  First reaction – hurray!  A Saturday without having to mute chunks of the show.  But then the questions arise.  “When someone is 84 we are not going to begrudge them a week off,” said a spokesman.  Really?  How much is he being paid for this series?  If he’s expendable for one show, why not for all the rest?    

“There they all are”

I’ve felt like complaining about a great deal lately, but now we can get to the main complain-fest of the year.  Tonight we saw the first show of the new Strictly Come Dancing series.  Just the introductions and pairing up.  But immediately I’m back to hitting the mute button on the remote because the appalling Bruce Forsyth is back.  Before I could make it, I caught the familiar, meaningless phrase.  The vast majority of the viewers want him off, and I suspect that the producers have had enough too.  But they can’t get rid of him because somebody, stupidly, signed a 5-year-contract.  And no way is he going to go quietly.  Already he is ruining the show.

As to the contestants, I can’t work up any enthusiasm.  It’s ludicrous that Johnny Ball is on, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he ducks out on health grounds after the first round, as Tarbuck did a few years ago.  The Jerry Hall / Anton pairing is depressing and won’t last long.  Apart from that, who knows?  Next show 5 October.  But I don’t know if I can sit through all that muting of the ghastly Forsyth this year.

Strictly in the news

One wouldn’t normally blog about Strictly Come Dancing in January.  It’s well and truly over for another year.  But yesterday we heard that Alesha Dixon is off to Britain’s Got Talent.  The BBC considers it so newsworthy that it was on the Today programme this morning.  They interviewed Anne Widdecombe about it, for God’s sake!

Most SCD fans will be pleased.  Dixon should never have been a judge in the first place.  But who will replace her?  The real fans would like Karen Hardy, or one of the other professional dancers who are no longer on the show.  They want someone, like Hardy, who is actually qualified to be a judge.  But I’m betting that the producers will go for someone in the same mould as Dixon.  It would be a real opportunity to refresh the show; get rid of Bruce Forsyth at the same time!  But they are basking in how successful the show was this year – and anyway, Forsyth probably has years still on his contract.

More importantly, the move gives us a depressing picture of what is considered star talent these days.  Alesha Dixon is an average singer who won SCD and was liked by the public.  As a judge she’s been a failure, inevitably.  But she’s now such a “personality”, supposedly, that she can move to commercial TV for, I bet, a lot more money.  On neither show is she required to do anything or show any sort of talent.  Perhaps she should make the most of the opportunity.  When Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley moved across for more money they found that it was the strength of the programme they were on, not their brilliant personalities, which mattered.

 

 

More Strictly

I don’t want this to be a blog only about Strictly Come Dancing – but it is an easy thing to complain about.  Tonight we had the second half of the first show (a logic peculiar to the SCD schedulers) and what a damp squib it was.  Nobody was outstanding.  Nancy and Anton made a pig’s ear of it.  Anton set out to choreograph a comedy routine for no obvious reason and then the whole thing dissolved in a mess over a feather boa.  Edwina Currie was doing okay but is going to be slaughtered by the judges whatever she does.  James Jordan did the professional-tells-off-the judges bit.  The marking was strange enough to demonstrate who the judges’ favourites are from the outset.  There was no sense of excitement at all.  One feature of this show which puzzles me, as I know it puzzles others: the first couple comes off the floor and then has to stand there like a couple of spare parts while Forsyth introduces the band and then the judges, and tells his “jokes”, and eventually they get to hear the critique.  This is ridiculous but has never changed.

 

Strictly is back

It was as if we had never been away.  Strictly Come Dancing returned last night, and the producers’ death wish was all too evident.  Thousands of us sat with zapper in hand, muting all Forsyth’s contributions as the same old weary format of “jokes” was trotted out.  The judges seemed to be indulging in self-parody, with Bruno being particularly ridiculous.  And the comic turn was put on at the end.  (What’s the betting that Edwina Currie will be last on tonight?)  And what of the contestants?  There was little to get excited about.  Anita Dobson did well, but the Latin may pose a bigger challenge.  The pop singer, Holly, was good but not startling.  Russell Grant actually danced, and it looks like he’s not going to be another Widdecombe.  Lulu forgot her entire routine.  In the first dance I tried hitting the red button to hear Karen Hardy’s commentary, but there was a woman with her who thought the remit was to be funny and was just a distraction so I switched that off.

And that was about it.  A few years ago we were told that getting rid of Arlene Phillips and replacing her with the dreadful Alesha Dixon was about “refreshing the brand”.  The aspects of the show that are crying out to be refreshed are hideously still the same.  I wonder what the viewing figures will be like this year.

Strictly not “great”

I do online surveys from time to time, and last week there was an unusual one – for the BBC.  Now, marketing surveys are often interesting for what they tell you about the company and its intentions, and this one said so much about the state of the BBC.  I had to wade through trailers, and it was clear that the main purpose was to gauge the impact of the Strictly Come Dancing trailers.  There was no scope to say, “I am sick to the back teeth of all BBC trailers.”  And the worst aspect of it was the use of the word “great”.  We are intended to see everything about the BBC (and especially Strictly) as “great”.

So was the launch show “great”?  It couldn’t be.  There was the 83-year-old Bruce Forsyth, with improbable wig, drivelling on silently – like thousands I mute all his contributions.  There was an atmosphere of false hysteria, and the introduction of celebs to their partners didn’t work, leaving people stranded.  I bet Edwina Currie was furious at the mess.  And at the end we were left in no doubt about the producers’ intentions when the judges said they were looking forward to Russell Grant’s performances.