Strictly 2025 : Warm Up Chat

[EineReiseDurchDieZeit]

Thought I’d sound the KLAXON and round everyone up for some Strictly chat about possible/rumoured contestants. They usually start announcing soon!

I’ve heard Dani Dyer, Stacey Solomon, Ashley Cain and Tom Parker Bowles

You have made the Line Up seem a lot more dignified @SequinsandSoleros

Glad about Stefan .
But will have to keep reminding myself that in real life he has two legs.

Is this a neighbours reference I haven't watched it since Bbc1 where he definitely still had legs 😀

And there'll be crossovers.
As a pp says, those that know Harry from sport rather than Gladiators.
Fans that know Karen from both ends of the age spectrum.
Those that don't know GOT but will support Kristian because he has a pelvic tilt or because they're an LGBT ally.
Children that love Ellie from the kids' show and mums who'll back her. Before we even get into the eye candy element or the dancing itself. Those that know Alex as River, those from ER, those from Moll Flanders (Best performance for me - Croupier baby, put her partner in a tux).
It does make it a more even playing field to some extent, especially with the pros as an added weapon.
What it comes down to is how many viewers actually vote and what the majority demographic is.

Stefan 66

Ross 63

Alex 62

Jimmy 53

Kristian 49

Balvinder 46

La Voix 45

Chris 39

Karen 38

Vicky 37

Harry 36

Thomas 34

Dani 29

George 25

Ellie 23

3 older / 3 people of colour / 3 LGBT / 2 SEND
2 will go for "ded normal", 2 will be geezers or access to, at least 2 will give Shirley the horn and there are too many BabyWarz to count!

No idea how many have a Dead Nan lurking or a contemporary in them but you can be sure the BAFTA moment will be nicked from DWTS anyhow

Myself - I love Alex. I thought Jimmy came across very well. Am a fan of La Voix but it could go either way. And I hope Chris the rugby player surprises me like Gavin Henson did.
(Still not over their rumba. Katya V: "I'm having sexy thoughts." Gavin: "Good for you!" )

But...who am I kidding?
In the same way I pick a car for its colour and low mileage, I will probably end up slinging my vote towards the best costume to my favourite song until they murder it

Have a good weekend all of you xx

I just Lold, "giving Shirley the Horn"😂

I have not watched it in years, but he lost it years ago

Poor Paul 😀

It's a really common phenomenon in television (and in the arts in general); chasing an audience that will never be interested at the expense of the audience you already have. Most people who watch Strictly (in fact, most people who watch television, who go to the theatre, who go to art galleries, etc.) are middle-aged women, but the producers have a disdain for this group and chase after everyone else, particularly young people. And then they wonder why their audience dwindles.

There's a school of thought that says if you don't engage people when they are young they will never be interested in your output, but this forgets that people's tastes and priorities change as they get older. When we were twenty I bet most of us wouldn't have thought we'd be spending our Saturday nights watching BBC light entertainment programming.

A few years ago I got to see some of the pitching and commissioning documents for well-known American television dramas. I found it really interesting that a lot of the high-end, critically acclaimed, successful ones embraced the idea from the outset that their audience would be middle-aged women. A lot of the critics who hype these shows up are young males but the shows stay good because they know their core audience.

@EsmaCannonball You're 100% correct.

Shark? Crocodile? Bouncer went rabid? How did this happen?

Never thought I’d be googling ‘ how did Paul from Neighbours lose his leg?’ On a Friday night.
Apparently he fell off a cliff and cut his leg, the wound became infected resulting in his leg being amputated.

Are we allowed to speculate who will get paired with whom, or do we need to create a spoilers thread for that one?

Not a prediction, but it's just occurred to me that if Dani gets paired with Vito, then Dani D Vito could be a possible team name! 😄

People have mentioned Harry with Jowita, but I think he would have better chemistry with Katya, and he will be well up for her mad choreography.

Normally we speculate away about pairings don’t we? How significant is the gap between pairings episode being filmed and it airing?

Thinking about it I’m not particularly invested in who gets who apart from Karen H getting someone with a shot for once and Alex getting someone who will make the best of her.

I hate all the faux excitement and screaming and punching the air thing on the pairings show. It’s very forced.

Danny D Vito is inspired <applauds>
Launch show is filmed Wed 10th Sept
Presume series opening is going to be sat 20th?
Spoiler thread from the 10th?
We also need a new video separate thread.
I have already made my predictions but every single sodding year I get 3/4 wrong so my target is 5/16, 1 more than usual! ;-)
Don't think it's ever been taboo on here to muse but up to you guys.
Pretty sure Alex won't get Neil because of height otherwise you'd be looking at Team Ginger. 👀

On the lack of women, it seems this particular woman would have happily given it a bash.

https://x.com/narindertweets/status/1955941368443945041?t=_dBwAmQbGGbkNAT8hHRoZA&s=19

I don't believe that they couldn't find enough women to take part. Especially given the barrel scraping (lol) that's been obvious for years now.

I don't think it's barrel scraping, which implies they'd already asked loads of A listers, been refused and gathered together a load of stopgaps.

It's their strategy plan to have reality people and Tik Tokkers to try to hook a younger audience, but those people they're aiming for won't watch, won't vote, and the core audience is pissed off into the bargain.

I know three 14 year olds (DD one of them) who are going to watch, purely on the back of George Clarke. Normally, DD leaves me to it and wouldn't be seen dead watching it these days.
I don't think they'll go the distance necessarily i.e they'll watch him and then bugger off (producers may get wise and stick him more towards the end) but there's a pull there.
Look, if they'd been desperate enough, they'd have pulled Thomas and stuck on a traitoress.
The casting is deliberate.
The year you had Layton, you had Amanda.
The year you have Chris D, you have Thomas.
So the geezers/reform twats out there, who like Bosh Wanker (TM dig spy) will get behind him.
I wonder whether he'll get Amy to counteract.
Sugar and Bosh spice and all things nice controversial.

The cast for Celebrity Traitors, however, is something else. I know 16. Fourteen haven't done and I do wonder whether Claude's secret mission by the Beeb will have been to try and recruit some for Xmas/season 24!!!

"The Celebrity Traitors line-up confirmed" https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2025/the-celebrity-traitors

That's 16/19 - presume because Traitors is newer, more cerebral, less taxing physically even with team challenges and Scotland's nice.
The three I didn't know - Cat, Niko, Ruth - Cat is a singer whose song went viral because of TikTok, Niko is a youtuber and Ruth is an actress. The first two are people of colour and Ruth is an amputee. I look forward to getting to know them.
The rest are household names.
Will be interesting how many allegiances are already there due to friendships, whether ego is involved and whether the lesser known are voted off by their peers first.

Oohhh excited about celebrity traitors cast.

Me too. Interestingly, Ruth also started her career on TikTok before being picked up by Netflix. So mydadwasanarse is completely correct in the TikTok brand-hook strategy.
I've only just started using Instagram so am still some way behind!

I’ll start a spoiler thread on the 9th or so for coupling spoilers and then keep it as the spoiler thread for the series. @CaveMum do you want to do video thread honours?

I keep wondering where Celeb Traitors will fit into the Autumn schedule 🤔 will Claude be on 5 x a week?!