I’ve been a fan of Strictly Come Dancing since it began because I just love dancing and everything about it was gorgeous. But over the years the programme has descended into farce.
My biggest comment has always been that it’s unfair to have male celebrities dancing against female celebrities as it’s much harder for the men as they have to learn to lead. Quite frankly, any woman can look reasonably good dancing with a professional partner as all you have to do is follow. So why don’t they have all the women against each other and all the men against each other and then in the final, the best male and female partner each other?
But it’s also become evident that BBC, in its usual manipulative, unfair, partisan way, puts up one of its own, gives them daily publicity, thus brainwashing the viewers into voting for them: John Sargent, Christine Bleakley, Alex Jones, Chris Hollins and now Susanna Reid.
John Sargent I treated as a joke and at least he had the self-awareness and decency to withdraw when he saw what was happening and that he might win, which would be grossly unfair to others in the competition. Then came Chris Hollins and things changed. Anyone with a shred of understanding about dancing could see that he wasn’t a patch on Ricky Whittle, who was the better dancer on every single level. But, of course, Hollins was on Breakfast every morning doing the sports and had huge exposure the other contestants didn’t.
And the same has happened with Susanna Reid. She has had three hours of exposure three days a week all through the series. At every opportunity dancing and phone-ins and voting and training and Kevin from Grimsby are mentioned. The public are brainwashed, of course they are. If TV advertising didn’t work companies wouldn’t spend millions of pounds on it. The camera angles are always clever, too; you never really see her feet, but even so, the fact that she clomps around the stage like your gran doing a knees-up at a family wedding cannot be disguised and that she’s in the final is a travesty and does the BBC no credit.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t have John Sargent’s humility. Her vanity is letting her think she can dance. But she’s an astute woman, who knows this, and it says so much about her that she wouldn’t dream of withdrawing as any decent person in her position would.
I tweeted my displeasure as this situation and received a threatening tweet in reply from @ SusannaReidFans (whoever they may be!) warning me to “Leave Susanna Alone”. Or what? I found this amusing so started to look on-line and was absolutely amazed. It’s a whole new surreal world. There are Strictly forums with gems such as “My stomach’s been churning all day. I just hope Suzanne and Kevin are through.” and “She’s the best dancer they’ve ever had.” and “I voted for Susanna 25 times.” PEOPLE GET A LIFE!!
Sophie, Natalie and Abbey all deserve to win because they are good dancers. But, unfortunately, Reid will lift the glitter ball, because it’s really easy to brainwash a lot of the people most of the time through “state” television. What with the worse-by-the-week Bruce Forsyth, and this travesty, the programme has surely come to the end of its shelf-life.
SCD RIP.
