Saturday night entertainment at it's finest! (Strictly Come Dancing)

Member Name: mumto3

Product:	Strictly Come Dancing
Date:	16/10/08 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very entertaing with lots of excitement and emotion

Disadvantages: The show seems to be on at a different itme every week

Strictly Come Dancing is a BBC1 Saturday evening family entertainment show. It is loosely based on the old television series Come Dancing. The show is currently in it's fifth series and I am sure there are many more to come.

The idea of the show is that professional dancers will teach celebrities to dance. They will learn ballroom dances like the Tango, Foxtrot and Waltz and Latin dances such as the Rumba, Paso doubl and the Cha Cha Cha. Each series the number of couples is increasing due to the huge popularity of the show. Each week the couples are judged by a panel of four judges and given marks out of ten for their efforts. This makes up 50% of their overall score the other 50% being provided by audience phone ins. You can call up and vote for the couple you like the most or who you felt did the best dance. The couple with the lowest score then has to leave the competition.

The result show is shown on Sunday nights although it is filmed on saturday nights straight after the main show has gone out live.

The show is hosted by the legendary Bruce Forsyth and the lovely Tess Daly. I believe Bruce was once a hosth on the original Come Dancing show. Bruce Forythe is a household name and is very popular. I really like his presenting style and he has developed some new catch phrases since hosting Strictly Come Dancing. Some of his jokes and links are a little cringeworthy but on the whole I think he is perfect to present this programme. Tess Daly used to be a model and also starred in a Duran Duran music video back in the 1980's. Tess appears to be a very bubbly character and gets on well with contestants however I feel there is something lacking in her chemistry with Bruce and this does affect the quality of the presenting.

The judges are Len Goodman, Arlene Phillips, Craig Revel-Horwood and Bruno Tonioni. They all have a dance background and when judging are looking at different aspects of the dance. Len Goodman is the head judge and used to be a ballroom dancer himself. There are often disagreements between the judges which Bruce Forsythe has to stop by blowing a whistle!

During the live show you get to see some of the training that the professional and celebrities have done and some of them spend hours everyday in training. There is a lot of time and effort put into the choreography and performance and the results are often stunning.

Some of the professional dancers are now very popular and do other TV shows. Anton Du Beke can been seen in the new BBC tv show Hole in the Wall and Brendan Cole has been on the singing competition It Takes Two and Celebrity Love Island. There have many different celebrities involved and some of the winners include Cricketer Darren Gough, Singer Aleisha Dixon and Eastenders actress Gill Halfpenny.

The standard of dancing is very high and even those who aren't naturally gifted dancers give it 100%. The costumes are fantastic and very beautiful and some are even quite daring. None of the women are stick thin little creatures and they all have healthy curvy bodies that look stunning in the gorgeous dresses.

I think the show offers good all round family entertainment and my only complaint is that the time it is on often changes. I am completely hooked again this series and am really looking forward to seeing who wins this year as no one is really a clear winner at the moment. I get really into it and even though I have never done any of these dances I find myself sitting in my chair commenting on the performances and pointing out slips and wrong footing! "That should have been a heel lead but he was up on his balls again!"

If you want more information about the celebrities or professional dancers involved all the information is on the BBC website www.bbc.co.uk/strictlycomedancing There is also a show on BBC2 every weekday at 6.30 hosted by Claudia Winkleman that has interviews with all the couples and shows much more of their training and what goes on back stage and during filming.

Summary: Brilliant saturday night entertainment