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

Craig is great. I honestly think if you've only watched a couple of times you've got the wrong end of the stick. His comments are always fair and consistent IMHO. The audience are told to boo him in the warm up. It's all part of the panto esque quality. If you want real cruelty Bruno used to be viscious, but did it in a silly way so got away with it. I'd be judged by Craig over the others any day of the week. (Slightly over invested Strictly fan reporting for duty...)

It's all part of the panto esque quality.

I think that's it. As a newbie, I thought it was all a bit panto, so he seemed really over the top hostile and strict.

Also I hope the audience doesn't always do what it's told.

That would make it too contrived.

Completely agree

Didn't watch it all tonight, but it seemed everyone was getting quite high marks. Clearly I have no idea what makes someone a good or bad dancer.

Not falling over seems quite an achievement in my opinion!

Though had seen last week TRAs complaining that Amanda and partenr where clearly getting preferrential treatment as they were to dance the rumba "which everyone knows is an easy dance".

But then the Judges said how difficult it was to do.

Not sure I am every going to understand this dancing thing!

Though had seen last week TRAs complaining that Amanda and partenr where clearly getting preferrential treatment as they were to dance the rumba "which everyone knows is an easy dance".

Perhaps they were confusing “slow” with “easy”. The rumba is a dance where you can’t rely on carrying the audience along with you based on the fun and joy of it, like you can with Charleston, jive, quickstep or couples choice. You have to have excellent technique, like Amanda, to make it look good. For example Krishnan, who’s not a dancer, was able to do really well in the Charleston last night because of his personality and performance skills, and it’s not a ballroom or latin dance, so there’s not the same focus on technique, other than Craig wanting to see swivel. If he’d been doing the rumba he’d have looked like a pudding, Lauren would have distracted attention away from him by dancing around him in a fabulous frock, and Shirley would have said ‘Not your dance, but I liked the way you looked after your partner’.

Thanks for that, @LoobiJee! I know nothing about dancing so go very largely on whether I enjoy the performance, and so far I've been impressed with Amanda every week. She moves beautifully, which I assume is down to her childhood ballet training and years of acting.

I like your analysis of how Krishnan managed to do well last night, @LoobiJee , and how badly it might have gone if he had been doing the rumba.
I was so pleased that it went well for him as I was yearning to vote for him, and couldn't last week as he just looked out of his depth.
THere was me thinking he had improved massively, but it makes sense to see it as just an easy dance, where is sweet personality could triumph over lack of technique.
Similarly, I was a teensy bit disappointed with Amanda last night (but voted for her anyway), but if the rumba is a difficult dance then I guess that was just because she had to concentrate so hard on technique that she had less brainspace left for actory style and charisma.

It will be interesting to see how Krishnan gets on with the other dances, Good, especially the samba which has been the death of a lot of celebs’ strictly ‘journey’. He’s very likeable so he’ll win a lot of support, more than the ex trained dancers. I thought they did a really good job of giving him music, theme, costume, and choreography that gave him his best chance of success yesterday. He did really well, I thought.

Amanda's rumba was amazing!

As far as whether a dance is “easy” or not it comes down to a combination of things - the main ballroom/latin dances have a fixed syllabus of techniques that you have to follow and that is where you will hear the judges talking about things like foot positions, arm placements, etc being correct (or not), for other dances like Charleston, salsa, etc there is a much more fluid interpretation and whilst there’s a basic technique it is nowhere near as strict. Couples Choice is pretty much “anything goes” so it all comes down to how you sell it!

Rumba is NOT an easy dance! You could say it is marginally easier for the female celebs as they have more to do (the female partner - or “follower” if it’s a same sex couple) is the focus of this dance, the male (or leader) is there to show her off. But it is so slow! There is no room to hide if your technique or timing is poor - in a cha cha cha or a samba you can get away with wriggling your arse a bit to try and cover things up, but here it is all out on show. There’s a reason why so many celebs hate it!

Danced well, the rumba is a beautiful dance to watch. Danced badly, it is a horror show!

'Similarly, I was a teensy bit disappointed with Amanda last night'

Same. She has the most beautiful arms, and the splits were amazing, but I thought her hip action could have been better

I watched a video on the Strictly videos thread - a masterclass given by a rumba champion. IIRC it took ten minutes or more for her to demonstrate the rumba walk. Looks easy but as others have said, it’s so slow you can see every move, mistakes are magnified.

It’s probably the only dance for which my years of ballet would be an advantage, it’s all about the lovely arms and feet. Amanda got VERY high scores in a traditionally VERY low-scoring dance on Strictly.

Rumba is a hard dance to score well on. I thought she did a good job. DC does Latin and ballroom dancing it has taken a long time to live the rumba. They regularly just practice rumba walks in lessons.

Amanda is getting votes from our household, as she is a fabulous dancer.

Yep, I've lost count of the number of celebs who've gone out the week they had to do the rumba, so I was a bit worried for Amanda that she was doing it this week. Fortunately she negotiated it well, so hopefully will be safe from the dance off this week.

I'm a huge SCD fan, Amanda is getting all of my votes this year.

There's a Strictly videos thread? 😱❤️

Can’t get over her back.

Over here @Tallisker https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/4899144-strictly-come-dancing-2023-the-one-with-all-the-videos?reply=129788034

Concerned about Amanda after she pulled out last night. She's now deleted a Robin Williams post about depression that she shared on Instagram too.

Yes I'm concerned about Amanda too. She usually posts regularly on IG but there's nothing about why she's off at the moment

Hope she's ok - i love her and she's doing brilliantly on Strictly. She's a real shot at winning if she continues to be good.

There's a lot of nasty people on Twitter l gloating about her absence. It's obviously mental health related as previously they have been open about physical ill health absence.

Be kind, eh?

Strictly involves a pretty punishing schedule for those who want to do well and who put the effort in. For some contestants it also involves an unpleasant social media onslaught. Combining that schedule with family responsibilities will require a lot of juggling, which will be easier with a sympathetic and supportive home situation.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/dec/28/how-amanda-abbington-met-jonathan-goodwin-i-was-on-him-like-a-rat-up-a-drainpipe