Strictly Come Dancing is a British television show, featuring celebrities with professional dance partners competing in Ballroom and Latin dances. The title of the show suggests a continuation of the long-running series Come Dancing , with an allusion to the film Strictly Ballroom . The format has been exported to 30 other countries (see Dancing with the Stars ), and has also inspired a modern-dance themed spin-off Strictly Dance Fever .
The show has run on BBC One since 15 May 2004, primarily on Saturday evenings. A seventh series began on 18 September 2009 and is currently airing. A further five stand-alone Christmas Specials have also been produced, in consecutive years from 2004 to 2008. Since the fourth series, the show has also aired on the BBC's high definition channel, BBC HD.
Format
The show pairs a number of celebrities with professional ballroom dancers who each week compete against each other in a competition to impress a panel of judges and the viewing public in order to survive potential elimination. Through telephone voting, viewers vote who they would like to stay, the results of the poll being combined with the ranking of the panel of judges. For example, with four contestants left, the judges' favourite would receive four points, second favourite three points, and so on, and similarly with the viewers' rankings. The profits from the telephone lines were donated to Sport Relief in series 1, and to Children in Need from series 2 to 5.
The show is broadcast live on BBC One on Saturday evenings, and it is presented by Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly. For some of the second series, Natasha Kaplinsky stood in temporarily for Tess Daly while she took maternity leave. The judging panel consists of Bruno Tonioli, Alesha Dixon, Len Goodman and Craig Revel Horwood. Goodman and Tonioli commute weekly between Hollywood and London to judge both the American and British versions of the show simultaneously. Each judge gives the performance a mark out of ten, giving an overall total out of forty. The voice-over announcer is Alan Dedicoat. During series four, an hour long highlight show was shown on Sundays at 7pm on BBC Two, and during series five, the results show moved to Sunday evenings, although it is filmed on Saturday and then broadcast "as live" each Sunday.
The singers on the show are Priscilla Jones Campbell, Hayley Sanderson, Tommy Blaize , Lance Ellington and Andrea Grant. The music director is David Arch. Lance Ellington and Tommy Blaize have been part of the Strictly since its beginning. In Series 3 Andrea Grant joined the singing team. David Arch and Priscilla Jones Campbell joined in the fourth series, and Hayley Sanderson in the fifth.
The show is broadcast from a specially constructed set at the BBC Television Centre. However, in the first two series, shows were also filmed at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool, where the original Come Dancing series was filmed in the 1970s.
In the second series, two shows were filmed at the Tower Ballroom, show five and the Grand Final which was broadcast live on 11 December 2004. In 2005 though the BBC announced that they would not be returning to the venue for the third series due to "logistical problems". In October 2008, Craig Revel Horwood called for the series to return to the Tower Ballroom saying, "the atmosphere was electric. It's huge and has so much history. The Tower Ballroom puts a lot of pressure on the professionals and the celebrities to perform to the best of their potential. What a wonderful place to go live to 12 million people. We have got to get the BBC to bring Strictly Come Dancing back to Blackpool."
Presenters
Judges
Professional dancers
- Note that Brendan Cole, Erin Boag and Anton Du Beke are the only three professional dancers who have taken part in the show from Series 1 to present.
Coaching
As of series four, coaches are Jaclyn Spencer and Chris Marques (aka Cuban Groove) for Salsa and Mambo, and Jenny Thomas and Ryan Francois for Swing,Jive, Rock n Roll and The Charleston. The Argentine Tango coaches in Series three were Flavia Cacace and Vincent Simone, both of whom have subsequently competed in the show.
Dance Off
From Series 5, a new system was introduced called the Dance Off . The Dance Off is performed by the two couples with the lowest scores following the judges' scores and public vote. After performing their dance again, the judges are asked one-by-one who they would like to save, and the couple with the most votes remains in the competition. If there is a tie, head judge Len Goodman has the deciding vote.
The results show is recorded on the Saturday night directly after the live show and incorporates the result of the viewers' votes which are completed by 21:30. This was confirmed by the official BBC website in 2008:
"The Sunday show is recorded on Saturday night but no element involving the results of the vote will start recording until after lines are closed and votes counted and verified."
Throughout the results show the presenters refer to 'last night' in reference to the main show, due to the air date of the Sunday programme, and Tess Daly's dress is changed to present an illusion of a second live broadcast.
From Series 7, the Sunday results show will be axed and put back to Saturday nights as a result of a revamp of the show.
Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two
Main article: Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes TwoDuring the run of Strictly Come Dancing , Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two airs each week night on BBC Two, hosted by Claudia Winkleman. It features reviews of the performances during the previous Saturday show, and interviews with and training footage of the couples preparing for the next show. The judges and other celebrities also provide their opinions on how the couples are doing. It Takes Two replaces Strictly Come Dancing on Three , hosted by Justin Lee Collins, which ran on BBC Three during the first series. BBC Two Scotland airs the programme on four nights only, running their own Gaelic-language programming on Thursdays instead.
Main series
Series 1
15 May to 3 July 2004, in order of elimination
Judges' scoring summary
Bold scores indicate the highest for that week. Red indicates the lowest score. * indicates that this couple was in the bottom two.
Average chart
Dances performed
Eliminated Second place Winner
The dances performed during Series 1 were as follows:
- Week 1 : Cha Cha Cha / Waltz
- Week 2 : Quickstep / Rumba
- Week 3 : Tango / Jive
- Week 4 : Foxtrot / Paso Doble
- Week 5 : Samba
- Week 6 : 2 dances not yet tackled from previous weeks
- Week 7 : 2 dances not yet tackled from previous weeks
- Week 8 : Favourite Ballroom, Favourite Latin & Freestyle Dance
Highest and lowest scoring performances
The best and worst performances in each dance according to the judges' marks are as follows:
Series 2
23 October to 11 December 2004, in order of elimination
Judges' scoring summary
Bold scores indicate the highest for that week. Red indicates the lowest score. * indicates they were in the bottom 2 couples.
Average chart
Dances performed
Eliminated Third place Second place Winner
The dances performed during Series 2 were as follows:
- Week 1 : Cha Cha Cha / Waltz
- Week 2 : Quickstep / Rumba
- Week 3 : Tango / Jive
- Week 4 : Foxtrot / Paso Doble
- Week 5 : Samba
- Week 6 : 2 dances not yet tackled from previous weeks
- Week 7 : 2 dances not yet tackled from previous weeks
- Week 8 : Favourite Ballroom & Favourite Latin
Highest and lowest scoring performances
The best and worst performances in each dance according to the judges' marks are as follows:
Series 3
Main article: Strictly Come Dancing (series 3)This series ran from 15 October to 17 December 2005. Over five million votes were cast, approximately three million of which were for the eventual champions, Darren Gough and Lilia Kopylova. Over ten and a half million viewers tuned in to the final show, and the whole series raised £1.5 million for Children in Need.
The celebrities that took part in this series were as follows:
Series 4
Main article: Strictly Come Dancing (series 4)The show ran from 7 October to 23 December 2006. Over 12 million votes were cast, raising £1.5 million for Children in Need. A peak of 13 million viewers tuned
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