Amanda Abbington and Strictly.

[PriamFarrl]

I never watch Strictly, but it seems that her being on it is causing some conflict.

I did a quick look but couldn’t see a thread.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/tv/strictly-come-dancing-fans-divided-27466760?fbclid=IwAR1iNqoQHvU6tlsap3W1iWz7oG81Sp0Qimp81rzzd5XAU9fB4NLm_LgE47w_aem_AWkW94vOg0i7vw4ncasDUMNwbDACoxFIhz_Dsisy4LT9Nv0k-aEB-k7pqbT5hptMzeU#ll00z8fhy5yfgk5qz3

Amanda Abbington on Strictly experience – full interview
https://www.channel4.com/news/amanda-abbington-on-strictly-experience-full-interview

Extract on the news itself. It says its 45min long ....

Seems to have a transcript for anyone who wants to skim through

It’s heartbreaking to see what she went through, and the abuse she’s been getting for daring to speak up about it.

Crikey! Have the BBC learnt nothing. If there’s damning footage it should be handed over to Amanda. Blocking her from having it is just continuing the abuse.

That interview was very good. I thought the interviewer handled it well too. Very damning for the BBC.

I imagine it’s GP’s legal team that are holding up the handover of footage?

This older article says he employed ‘London based attack dog legal firm Schillings’

https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/strictly-come-dancing-giovanni-pernice-bbc-claims-abusive-behaviour-b1159668.html

Preventing the footage being made public or shared with anyone who is motivated to make it public is presumably a massive part of what GP is paying them to do…

Amanda is very brave. The strictly subreddit was full of Amanda-hate for her terfiness when the show was on but now anyone calling her names seems to be getting downvoted and there are lots of begrudging ‘well, I still don’t agree with her views but I believe what she says about abuse and bullying’ comments.

Very interesting thread here from James Dreyfus about how he warned Strictly producers that Amanda Abbington had experienced a lot of online abuse and they needed to take care of her:

https://x.com/DreyfusJames/status/1816168914130460981

There have been times throughout this whole saga when I've wondered whether the BBC deliberately assigned Amanda an unlikeable partner because they were hostile towards her gender-critical views. I realise that sounds a bit conspiracy theory, but still. They must have known what he was like.

Preventing the footage being made public or shared with anyone who is motivated to make it public is presumably a massive part of what GP is paying them to do…

Blocking it from being made public while the investigation is ongoing is fair enough. But I can see no justification at all for withholding it from her lawyers.

And if, as claimed in the statement at the end of the interview above, it doesn't show what Amanda claims happened surely Giovani should want it made as public as possible.

I think she was put in there to be a villain. And was to be pitted against Layton. So I think a lot was deliberate.

I am in total admiration of her bravery at all of this. I really hope that it encourages other women and girls to speak out when things are not right.

That interview is so hard to watch I really fell for her. It made me cry a little when she said she tried to manage the situation in the training room because that's what you have to do as a woman.

I honestly don't think that was why they were paired at all.
I think they thought his popularity (you've seen his fanbase, feral) would balance out her haters (not on here but on x and reddit) to make it an even playing field.
From that point of view, it made sense.
Plus, she was talented and he's never really had someone that was completely hopeless (even Richie showed potential in the QS).
And he'd done so well with Debbie. Trained dancer, they got on - and Debbie was also vulnerable, given Paul had only died the year before.
Given Amanda was substantially younger than Debbie and had done some dance training in her youth, I think they thought:
She'd manage the training as Debbie had
His popularity would rub off on her and keep the terf-haters at bay
and possibly, worst case scenario, she'd be like Michelle and not take any bullshit/give as good as she got.
She's 5ft 4. He's 5ft 10.
She couldn't have Gorka as he was up North to train.
Neil, like Amanda, is marmite so that put her at risk of first boot (bad for him too, as Nina was an unexpected early exit. Plus he had a new baby due any minute).

I don't think it was sabotage. I really don't.
In retrospect, she'd have been better with Carlos (but he was only in his second year so perhaps they weren't sure of his popularity with the viewers yet).

That's an interesting take, given they had approached James as well.
But Lakita never made any negative comments about her and never have.
I can see as a narrative, having opposites would be interesting but I'd have thought it was more to balance out the cast.
In other words, you have someone gender-critical as well as someone who intends dressing in drag. To counteract accusations of having an agenda either way. They would never have asked her political opinions, it's not that kind of a show. But it might have helped having her as a cast member if there had been pronounced kickback against Layton dancing as Rizzo (there wasn't really, only that that Viennese was crap).

I dont care about what or who thought this will make an interesting pairing for a dance competition.

The point is how could the BBC or any management still be employing a man who was known to behave like this.

In the interveiw she said once the pairing was announced she got phone calls from other saying, so sorry Amanda.

Worse still almost from the start other contestants, so presumably BBC employees were aware she was having a hard time. The BBC started filming it and said yes this is not acceptable, and then expected her to continue.

I think it is brilliant that former contestants have come forward and said they experienced similar, and even better that she is doing this (at expense to herself) so that no other woman has to go through with it.

The BBC should be investigated because if this happened on Strictly what else do they tolerate?

Back in the Victorian era of moody maestros people questioned this concept of you have to be brutal to get the best out of people. You dont. Only people stuck in the dark ages think this.

Apparently, but wasn't listening closely, another professional dancer who there have been some mumurings about was trained at the same Scilian dance school. So presumably they were taught this is how you teach.

I am so fed up with this lets turn a blind eye because someone is a brilliant artiste, so they can behave in that way.

Layton got a lot of hate as well. I don't really know what happened last year with the Strictly fan base.

The point is how could the BBC or any management still be employing a man who was known to behave like this.

I agree. It's utterly bizarre. He obviously had a record of treating dance partners badly. So why allow him to continue?

Can Giovanni have it boh ways? Genuine question. Can he be "old school dance teacher" and believe there's nothing wrong with his methods, while withholding the videos? Or is he just a hateful bully and he knows, deep down, that is what he is, and doesn't want the public to find out?

I think a dance teacher could be a self aware abusive bully who has always gotten away with it in the past due to their status inside their extremely niche industry and a certain amount of normalisation of shitty behaviour.

And that they might feel untouchable/invincible until someone on the periphery of their world managed to ding their reputation.

It’s possible that GP thinks the footage is all fine and it’s his lawyers who are saying ‘fuck no, you don’t want that out there, it’ll be game over for your entire career the minute the public clap eyes on it’.

The Strictly subreddit are hypothesising that GP’s legal team are using GDPR to deny Amanda access and that a subject access request by Amanda would only result in redacted footage (not sure how you’d redact video, pixelate GP and put tweety bird sounds over everything he says?)

It would presumably take a judge to overrule GP’s GDPR?

Yes, @CryptoFascistMadameCholet , I think you're right and he can be both. I wonder if particularly sadistic types are attracted to this kind of work, and it's a mixture of "harsh but successful teaching methods" and indulging their sadistic tendencies. It gives them an excuse but they seem to firmly believe it's acceptable if the end result is good. There a scene along similar lines in the last episode of The Bear (no spoilers, but those who've watched will know what I'm talking about). And Whiplash, of course.

I don't understand how GDPR could possibly exclude the footage from a SAR submitted by Amanda, the subject herself. But I'm no expert.

At any rate, the fact it's being withheld is very telling. It feels like an admission of guilt to me.

At any rate, the fact it's being withheld is very telling. It feels like an admission of guilt to me.

It does, doesn't it? What we need is for someone at the BBC to leak the footage.

I get very enraged by all those people who insist that Amanda somehow just couldn't cope with demanding training methods - even though they weren't there so had no idea what went on. Even though they themselves probably couldn't last a day under a demanding training regime. Ann Widdecombe wrote a nasty little piece in the Mail attacking Amanda - yet when she was on Strictly and proved herself a crap dancer, she didn't put any effort into working hard to improve, just accepted her role as the comedy competitor.

Part of that was because Layton had danced professionally for many years, including in the West End. It was thought to be very unfair to the other contestants. There was a lot of “but he’s never done Ballroom or Latin before” from his supporters, but professional experience in one type of dance means that picking up other styles is much easier.

Outright hatred is wrong, but there was also politely expressed criticism of the BBC for inviting him to take part, and of him for accepting the invitation.

I obviously abhor the personal attacks on Layton for being gay/wearing drag etc.
But I did think his dance experience crossed the line of what is fair/acceptable to be on Strictly. I also thought the narrative (started by him and Nikita, I think?) of 'Laytonising Strictly' was misjudged and wrong. The joy of Strictly has always been seeing people fall under its spell, not the other way round, and it came off as rather arrogant.

And doesn't Amanda have ballet training, albeit I think from her youth? That is notoriously tough and demanding, so I can't imagine she's any stranger to working hard in dance training.

One of the main strands was always what a happy family it is, what an amazing experience everyone has, how supportive they all were.

The BBC needs to bloody well step up, because after that interview, nothing could sound more hollow.

It is they who are ruining the reputation of Strictly.

BBC apologises to Abbington but her claims only partly upheld

BBC News has been told that while complaints of verbal bullying and harassment were upheld, claims of physical aggression were not.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce81p7w6xggo

And yet, the BBC have apparently told Strictly's Italian sister show that Giovanni is safe to work on it. Hard to know what to make of that if he has been shown to be a bully, even if not a violent one. Unless he really did just swear a few times. It doesn't sound like that was all it was though.

Have any of you found confirmation of exactly what accusations they've accepted and rejected?