Strictly Come Dancing‘s fourth week was an odd cocktail consisting of abject awkwardness and history-making showmanship.
Resuming on BBC One on Saturday, October 18, the ballroom competition welcomed back Stefan Dennis and his professional partner Dianne Buswell after their week-long sabbatical (the soap star was told by medics to rest after coming down with an illness, in other words), yet the surrounding drama well and truly stole the spotlight despite their series-best performance.
We had Gladiators cameos from Hammer and Giant – real names Tom Wilson and Jamie Christian Johal – cheering on their mate and colleague Harry Aikines-Aryeetey from the sidelines, while ex-contestants Pete Wicks and JB Gill also failed to subtlety blend in with the families in attendance.
La Voix might just be the recipient of Shirley Ballas’ most soul-crushing piece of feedback, yet on the flip side of that headline-maker, the Strictly head judge literally bared her soul to Alex Kingston only minutes later following an exquisite Rumba.
Here were the biggest happenings from across the latest episode…
Judges sing their hearts out in painful karaoke
Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Shirley Ballas and Anton Du Beke treated viewers to quick bit of karaoke (BBC One screenshot)
The four Strictly quality-controllers, Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Ballas and Anton Du Beke, showed their fun side by belting out the chorus from the 1992 tune ‘It Must Have Been Love’ by Roxette. Ironically, their melodic qualities left a lot to be desired.
“Performing next is Harry and Karen [Hauer] and tonight they are dancing to an iconic power ballad, which is not only perfect for a Rumba but apparently also some people’s go-to karaoke track…” commented Daly just before the BBC cameras cut to the panel holding microphones.
“Motsi’s energy was perfect for bad karaoke singers,” laughed one X user. “Judges’ karaoke was… interesting,” added another.
“Judges doing karaoke every week please,” suggested somebody else, while a fourth fan described it as “the worst celebrity karaoke since they decided to do a celebrity version of The X Factor”.
Angela Scanlon supports pal Vicky Pattison
Angela Scanlon appeared in Vicky Pattison’s pre-dance VT (BBC One screenshot)
Strictly 2023 contestant Angela Scanlon made a quick cameo during friend Vicky Pattison’s pre-dance VT. Together with the reality TV personality, who’s appeared in Geordie Shore and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! over the years, Scanlon co-hosts the Get a Grip podcast which launched in May this year.
Kai Widdrington was strong-armed into the podcast studio to meet Scanlon in between Samba rehearsals with Pattison, and they were asked to give her a little taste of what’s to come.
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“The way she kind of seamlessly kicked into that… I feel like her confidence has just shifted,” smiled Scanlon, who finished in sixth place during the year Ellie Leach took home the Glitterball.
Stefan Dennis’ solid return after illness
Neighbours legend Stefan Dennis was back after an illness layoff (BBC One screenshot)
Having sat out Week 3 on doctor’s orders, Neighbours icon Dennis bounced back with a stylish Charleston this weekend. He and partner Dianne Buswell welcomed a score of 26.
Horwood wanted “more musicality” from the 66-year-old going forward, but Ballas thought he returned to the ballroom “with a bang”.
Mabuse added: “That was your best dance! We’ve been waiting for this because you have been good from the very beginning but you have always kind of gotten nervous and missed a step and missed a step, and it was like what’s going on? You looked great.”
Claudia Winkleman remakes Coldplay scandal
Claudia Winkleman and Dave Arch’s Coldplay moment (BBC One screenshot)
Ahead of George Clarke and Alexis Warr’s Tango to ‘Viva La Vida’ by Coldplay, co-host Daly surprised viewers by passing the coverage over to Winkleman and Strictly musical director Dave Arch faux cuddling on the balcony.
“Next on the floor it’s George and Alexis and tonight they’re dancing a Tango to a Coldplay classic. And in honour of Coldplay I thought we should get out our very own Audience Cam and see what’s happening in the studio tonight…” she teased, with the camera cutting to the cheeky scandal recreation.
Incase you’d somehow missed it, back in July of this year, a jumbotron-screened ‘kiss cam’ at Coldplay’s Massachusetts gig singled out Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot in the crowd looking pretty cosy. When they realised what was happening, both individuals pulled away from each other and tried to hide.
“Either they’re having an affair, or they’re just very shy!” reacted singer Chris Martin.
Shirley Ballas ‘unable to judge’ La Voix
Head judge Shirley Ballas claimed it wouldn’t be fair to even begin judging La Voix’s Cha Cha (BBC One screenshot)
RuPaul’s Drag Race hero La Voix and his partner Aljaž Škorjanec endured a night to forget. Despite giving us a lively boxing-themed Cha Cha, their performance was chewed up and spat out by Ballas.
In perhaps a Strictly first, the head judge essentially refused to offer any constructive feedback because it wasn’t worth the effort. “If I am perfectly honest I wouldn’t be able to judge that at all,” she began.
“I can’t say that you need more flexibility, I can’t say you would need *this* because you never got off to a good start from the beginning, so I feel it would be unfair of me to even sort of say ‘you need this’ and ‘you need that’. You just had one of those days, but we love you.
“You can come back strong from this and I do have to say that when you stand there you’ve got a gorgeous pair of pins,” Ballas caveated.
A group hug erupted following La Voix’s grim score (BBC One screenshot)
Horwood’s analysis wasn’t much sunnier either, as he compared this particular Cha Cha to “going to the dentist” in that “you go in smiling, you get prodded and drilled, and leave numb!”
In typical La Voix fashion, he then joked that their Wednesday rehearsal was a lot stronger and asked for the judges to score that instead. Soon after, Winkleman orchestrated a group hug to cheer up the two dancers after their torrid judges’ address.
Alex Kingston stunned by judge’s kiss
Alex Kingston’s Rumba was kiss-worthy according to Ballas (BBC One screenshot)
The U-turn of all U-turns emerged later in the show when Kingston and Johannes Radebe blew Ballas’ mind. When they’d wrapped up their Rumba, the 65-year-old couldn’t contain her appreciation and made her way over to them for a more intimate breakdown.
At times overcome with emotion, Ballas told Kingston: “I have to tell you in all my time on Strictly I have never seen a pair of legs work like that; every close in place, every forward walk turning, just an absolute perfect routine for me. Your choreography was stunning, the way the temperature was between the two of you was portrayed beautifully.
“May I give the queen a kiss?” she then asked, embracing the contestant who herself was visibly teary. “That’s never happened before in Strictly history!” mentioned an excited Daly.
Who topped this week’s scoreboard?
The top half of Week 4’s leaderboard (BBC One screenshot)
Following Ellie Goldstein and Vito Coppola’s crowd-pleasing Couples’ Choice display, which received a score of 31 from the judges, the Week 4 leaderboard popped up on screen.
Thanks to their unforgettable Rumba, A Discovery of Witches star Kingston and Radebe reached the top of the mountain this time around with 36. Lewis Cope and Katya Jones, and Amber Davies and Nikita Kuzmin weren’t far behind though, scoring 34 and 33 respectively.
It’s almost a given at this point that La Voix and Škorjanec will be in the dance-off – a massive 10 points behind the rest of the pack – but who else will the public take down to this sudden death format?
This week’s table-scrapers were a massive 10 points off Chris Robson and Nadiya Bychkova in the second-to-last position (BBC One screenshot)
Strictly Come Dancing’s results show airs on BBC One and BBC iPlayer at 7.15pm tomorrow (October 19).