This week, I am actually in the studio audience for the live show, thanks to my boyfriend E, who works at the BBC (he used to work in the stewards/ticketing department and still has friends in the office he can contact for help). As well as me and E, we are accompanied by our friend D and her mum T, who is visiting for her 60th birthday.
We have to get there hella early – 3.30 – to get our tickets validated and hand in our bags/coats etc. Audience members are then held in a foyer area that is a bit like an airport (bar, shop, caff, not enough seats). We started to be seated at about 5 and had to queue for ages while everyone was slowly shuffled into the studio - while we were waiting, we saw Gloria Hunniford (who is TINY!!!) arrive in a black Rolls, and also queued next to the celeb audience/friends and relatives – including such stars as Quentin Whatsisname off Top Gear! Gok Wan! Parkwife off EE (who appeared to have come dressed as her character!) and the Fonz!! Brendan walks past and everyone goes “Wooo!” (apart from me and E, who go “wanka!!!”)
We are at the back of the queue, but one of E’s friends is working on the floor and saves us four seats at the front! We are right next to the celeb seating area, but in a dark corner and have cameramen running in front of us the whole evening, but we have a little monitor screen so we don’t miss too much.
Gabby Logan turns up! She is much prettier IRL. Also Kate Garraway, wearing a weird grey dress, and a cute athletics bloke, whose name I have forgotten (Darren Chambers poss?)
A warm up guy talks drivel and then we all stand up and clap for Brucie! Even though it is only 5.45! I always make fun of his ropey presenting, but he did a really good job warming up the crowd – he gets a lady up out of the audience and dances with her, sings a song, thanks everyone for coming and tells everyone his secret signal if he desperately needs a laugh. Whenever he got the chance he would run out and chat to everyone – he really made an extra effort to keep the audience happy.
The judges arrive and they record the Sugababes section for the Sunday show. Darren and Lilia do a rumba type thing that is very good. They are both teeny tiny IRL! It is interesting to see them dance live as you can watch whatever you want, not just what the camera is pointing at. Lilia’s dress gets tangled up in her heels at one point and she also misses her footing after a lift, but of course can cover for it with ease. The retarded dancing facial expressions work a lot better IRL too, as at one point Lilia appears to smiling adoringly at us!! Wooo! They have to record the whole thing again before they are happy with it, then Tess comes on and tells the Babes their new record has gone platinum and gives them the disc.
The floor manager bloke coaches us on how to be an audience – we are ORDERED to boo and cheer at the judges scores!
ZOMG it is time for the live show! We all start clapping along to the music and Brucie and Tess reappear. The live show is quite easy to sit through (as opposed to some recordings, which are really boring and repetitive), as whenever the dancers go to Tess’ room, or when they show them training, we can basically chat amongst our selves and relax. We are highly tempted to run on stage during one of the dances and start getting on down – it’s a live show and they couldn’t do anything about it. Bwa ha ha!
We don’t, of course.
THE DANCES!! I will let Sarah describe the dances, as I was totally distracted by all the cameramen running around and getting in the way. I enjoyed all of them though (even the rub ones), but especially Matt & Flavia, who were super fast and skill - Matt was even making little GRRR! faces like a proper dancer! Bless! – and Alesha & Matthew. Alesha looked fantastic and just seems infectiously happy when she is dancing – I wanted them both to do their dances again when they had finished.
SARAH: Well, Gethin and Camilla were good. John kept looking at his feet. Letitia was wearing a brown thing, and did rather well. I nearly welled up myself when Arlene gave her a mumsy lecture about being a beautiful woman and a good dancer with lots of potential. Brendan and Kelly did lots of posing and very little actual proper dancing. Why does Brendan think he's some kind of avant garde choreographer when the evidence is so...pedestrian? It's like watching a hen night in Ballymena. One of my favourite bits is him trying to take on Arlene - the woman who picked up Light Ent dancing by the scruff of the neck, stuck it in a leather gimp suit and made it writhe all over a panting Kenny Everett - and suggest she didn't know what good dancing was.
Where was I? Oh yes, Alesha was grate. So was Beano. And Kenny did lots of strongman lifting and walking about with great good humour. All he needed was a cow pie.
Back to Mark...
We then have a 90 minute break until the recording of the results show, and rush off to grab a seat and some wine in the foyer. While we are sitting chatting, a BBC bod comes over and asks me and E to record some vox pop sections for It takes Two, as they need “two lads” – (which I believe is code for GAYS!!!) We agree, possibly because we have already drunk a fair amount of wine, and go and stand in a corridor. We say who we liked (Matt and Alesha!!!) and who we think might go (Kelly or John???) and promise to hang around at the end to be interviewed again. We sit down again and then someone else comes over and asks us to do another vox pop, for the website this time. It is pretty much the same kind of thing but then they ask who we would be if we could be anyone on SCD – I say I would be Camilla so I could dance with Gethin (ahem) and E v lamely says he wants to be Bruno so he can give everyone 10 points for their dances. They ask him to do a Bruno impression and he tells them to fuck off. I don’t think that bit will make the website, somehow. Then they make us do the Tess/Bruce “keeeep dancing!!!” thing and we have to do it 3 times before the camera man is happy. By the time we are finished, everyone in that corner of the foyer is laughing at us. Oh well.
Back for the results show. This is even shorter as all the recap stuff is on VT and doesn’t require the audience. Bruce asks the judges for their thoughts and then has to do it all over again as Len makes an incomprehensible joke about Sainsburys, which can’t be broadcast as it is a brand name. Some Charleston bods come on and dance a bit and then Anton and Erin join them and do a high speed quickstep that is breathtaking to watch, with the pair of them coming this close to crashing into all the lights by the side of the dance floor as they shoot past us.
Next it is the much hyped group Dirty Dancing tribute group dance. I like the bit on the VT where they show Gethin and Matt feeling each other up. It is fun to watch but I was all like, “Aaargh! Too many people! Who do I look at!” There was a brief possibility that they would have to do the dance all over again, but sadly it was not to be.
Finally it is results time. As the pairs come and stand on their marks, there is much good luck wishing, kissing and hugging etc. All the people with good marks get through! Kenny gets through. Sigh. It is down to Letitia, Barnesy and Kelly. I think John will leave vs either of the two women, and yes – it is him vs Kelly!! Kelly totally messes up the choreography in the dance off (just standing and jiggling for one bit when she is supposed to be travolta-ing) but still beats John – oh well, I think he had gone as far as he was going to in terms of skillz.
That’s the end finally and we go back to the foyer to talk more bollocks to camera folk about how we are not at all shocked John has gone. E accuses me of being a camera hog this time! Then E takes us up to the TV Centre Bar as he has heard that all the celebs and dancers go up there after the shoot every week. The bar is pretty rammed and we see Parkwife and Matt di Angelo straight away! Pretty soon there are loads of famous people there – deep breath: Flavia, Vincent, Erin, Lilia, Anton, Darren, Ola, James, Matthew, Nicole, Brendan, Craig, Tess, Vernon Kaye, Gabby, Kenny, Kate, Kelly, Alesha, Barnesy, The Fonz, Quentin off Top Gear! (We are v sad that there is no sign of Gethin, Letitia or Bruno)
Anton is chatting to someone nearby so we ask him to say hello to T, as it is her birthday soon and she lurves him! Anton (who is what I would call a “smoothie”) gives her a birthday kiss and poses with her for a nice picture. Wooo! Me and E go over and gush to Alesha about how much we love her. She is really nice, asks us our names, thanks us for our support and talks about how Matt being so good really fired her up. We also get pictures with her and she gives T a birthday kiss too. E and T chat to Kate and say they miss her dancing (which is true, tee hee) and get another picture. Everyone was really friendly and approachable, but we didn’t bother anyone else and just kept to ourselves until chucking out time.
Random observations:
- Kelly and Brendan barely spoke in the bar, but the rest of the celebs seemed v friendly with their dancers.
- Brendan had two girls sleazing over him and licking his face all evening. Vom.
- Vernon Kaye looks about 15 yrs old in real life.
- James seems nice and smiled at me for no reason (??).
- Craig was sitting with a handsome young gentleman all night.
- We tried to remember the Fonz’s catchphrase – the nearest we got was “fandabbydozie”! – and were too chicken to go and talk to him.
- Alesha’s relaxing evening dress looked like a dance costume – v short and sparkly!
So yes, it was a great day out. Special thanks go out to Anton, Alesha and Kate for not ordering us to be tasered by burly security guards.
