Amanda Abbington and Strictly.

'Lots of previous celebs have had dance backgrounds'

Absolutely. The 'previous dance experience ' thing is a total non-story. It's probably hard to find actors and singers who don't have any dance experience. I'm fine with it because it means you don't end up with 15 contestants who 'dance' like Ann Widdicombe 🤦🏻‍♂️

Isn’t Angela Rippon also a professional dancer? Or am I making that up after seeing her dance on Morecambe & Wise (or The 2 Ronnies!)?

Exactly @RoseslnTheHospital. I can’t believe some people (not here) are attacking Amanda’s previous ballet experience as a child/teen when one of the other contestants (Layton Williams) has performed in the lead role in Billy Elliot in the West End! To paraphrase the late-great Len Goodman, if you cut him in half he’d have “Ringer” written through him like a stick of rock!

Lots of previous celebs have had dance backgrounds. The most notable being the lovely Debbie McGee who was a working ballet dancer for several years before moving into magic shows. That was 40 odd years ago though. Many of the other actors and actresses have had stage school level of dance training. The pop stars have also had varying levels of dance related performing. But yet some of the best dancers are those with zero dance training, like Kelvin Fletcher, or Mark Wright, who both just had a natural talent.

Amanda Abbington was a dancer when she was a child and a student. She's never worked professionally as a dancer, and hasn't danced for probably 20 years or more.

I want to support her taking part, regardless of whatever messages she puts out now in order to try to placate the baying mob and keep her current job.

Its really hard when comments are made on selected out screen shots as screen grabs. Not only are they hard to read, but are not in context. Is it not possible to post the links to the posts so we can see what the discussion actually was?

All I can tell from the last screen shot is that she is concerned predatory men are exploiting self identity. As I would have thought most of us were.

And she goes on to say she supports both trans and women's rights. And believes women need women only services.

And quite honestly, in these sort of circumstances whether her political analysis of trans vs. women's rights directly aligns with mine isn't the point.

She is a public figure who has made public statements about women's rights, and how drag queen performances aren't age appropriate for young children.

And yet trans twitterati have gone over the top in objecting to her being invited onto the programme, and the MSM have managed to turn this into some huge blow up.

I really doubt that most genuine Strictly fans know or care!

(There's an article in the Independent that headline makes it seem this is a huge issue but if you read the article it seems just not that important. But what it does imply is she had a lucky escape from MF. Although, in terms of the programme it turns out she did train as a dancer. Is this allowed. I thought it was about celebs learning from scratch. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/amanda-abbington-strictly-controversy-drag-transphobia-b2389652.html)

God only knows @Booklover28 none of this makes any sense

She is reiterating other GC views in her other posts though, so why is she being made to apologise by BBC only on this point? Plus she has thanked/liked comments from several openly GC people on her posts. If she has been silenced she wouldn’t be interacting with such people. It doesn’t look like her apology was made under any duress and this is truly her view.

Quite @BetsyBobbins there’s no way they didn’t know her views.

in fact id lay pretty heavy odds they’ll have a drag queen in the line up as well

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but I could almost believe they booked her knowing full well her views just to sit back, enjoy the witch hunt and reap the publicity rewards. Virtually the whole of the Strictly team is composed by gay men and people who are in the TWAW bandwagon, Jason Gilkinson especially.

She’s not confused, she’s being bullied - again

the BBC must be loving this! Publicity plus the opportunity for their TRA employees ti enjoy a middle aged woman being publicly and lengthily scolded while she grovels

So according to Amanda, people with penises are women. She seems to be massively confused about this whole thing.

That sounds just like the things people say about JKR and KJK so I had to look it up. As usual, it's nonsense from the Graun.

"An article referred to Ann Widdecombe “when she was prisons minister, responsible for keeping pregnant women shackled during labour and all that”. In fact Widdecombe had inherited a policy of securing pregnant women, which she defended in 1996. However, in doing so, Widdecombe made clear it was never policy to secure women in labour or childbirth, and she never suggested that this should happen. We are happy to make that clear and apologise for the mistake (Digested week, 20 May, p29)."

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jun/15/corrections-and-clarifications

Was good to see in the earlier articles that they talked about her children supporting her.

Well hope that's true.

She needs a supportive home live in the face of this orchestrated and totally unecessary pile on.

I completely agree @BetsyBobbins

Thanks @MarkWithaC and @CaveMum .

I think Freeman is one of those guys who cultivated a "nice" image due to his role on The Office but I've got to say that from the little I've seen in interviews and chat shows he comes across as a total entitled prick. And the guy is making Hollywood films and doesn't want to pay off his kid's mum's debts? Absolute knobhead 🙄

IIRC they were never married and when she was going bankrupt there was a big to do about the fact that he wasn’t stepping in to bail her out - given his high Hollywood profile. In the end I think he did pay off her debts.

I don’t know if it contributed to their split, they cited the fact he’d spent so long away from home while filming The Hobbit as an issue, but you’ve got to be a special kind of douche bag not to want to financially help out your long term partner and mother of your children.

Whether she was financially reckless/naive or just had bad advice, who knows.

I’m not sure they were married, although they were together for quite a long time. There was some kerfuffle about them arguing about her bankruptcy, but I’ve no idea if that contributed to their split.

this Strictly thing is infuriating. I’m angry that she’s had to call her perfectly reasonable comments about what a woman is ‘ill-informed’ and say she’s ‘educated’ herself.
Ive no doubt she made that statement under duress.

Interesting to see that the comments on Facebook articles about this by random media outlets like 'Devon Live' are overwhelmingly positive towards her and her expression of a legitimate viewpoint.

She's an intelligent and successful actress. Delighted to see her speaking her mind on an issue she knows about.

I'm amazed. I'd have had her down as very 'woke' (this is not a compliment!). Can't be doing with her though over the bankruptcy thing, not that I watch this programme anyway.

Lapinski is sadly a children's author. One book in particular is nothing other than trans ideology indoctrination

You’re right, that is pathetic

That’s the one!

She recanted once before a few years ago after she dipped her toe in the GC pond but started speaking out again in recent months with more confidence. I’ll certainly be voting for her every week.

Now that's interesting.

I think he's the guy he did the 'there's going out, and there's going out out' joke?

No one is allowed an opinion these days unless it fits the PC agenda. Its ridiculous