A Point About Pointing

Our assesssment of this week's dances...

Frankie is main text and Clover is in PURPLE again.

Austin and Erin
Now they bigged this up so much on ITT that I think I was just set up for a disappointment, especially with them dancing to a song from Hairspray. To me it was technically good but it didn’t have enough zing for me, it just looked like repeated hopping. Nice frock for Erin though and she’s stopped looking like she’s doing Riverdance when she jives.

Austin has a bad back. Really? Does he? I hadn't heard. Did love the dance however; it was far too good for a second-week attempt. Could Austin be this year's Bunton? By week four nobody really cared about her...Mais non, I think, like Alesha, Austin has personality and charm to carry him through too. I'm not an Erin fan (as you know - and I know I said I would cut her some slack so here we are...) but that was a super song choice and a nice zippy routine. I thought it had zing. Frankie's being a doughnut.

Mark and Hayley
Beautiful dress for Hayley, we love a bit of flamenco! And what a song choice too, it went with Mark’s serial-killer face rather well. Ok it wasn’t the best tango ever, but I think 5s were a bit harsh.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Zzz.

Gary and Karen
Deary me, Gary Rhodes might be a bad dancer but there was no need to put Karen in such a horrible dress! I hope he stays this week though so they can finally let him do some ballroom, it only seems fair.

Karen, Karen, Karen, now you know we love you, right? Look! You're top in our poll...just over there to the right. But, please, I beg you, please stop POINTING. I didn't notice this until my wonderfully Strictly-obsessed colleague Clare, um, pointed it out to me. She points at her partners, she points at the judges...in the merengue last week, she even pointed at her shoes...as though to make sure that, we, the audience at home know what shoes actually are. Note, Karen, we do and we love. Not sure what the Quality Street wrapper dress was about either.

John and Kristina
Dress of the night, oh my word it was lovely! John’s great big grin for most of the dance spoilt the drama, but since the cuddly old man thing has become his USP it wasn’t the end of the world. Surely its time for some Latin next?

Looooooved the dress. John is such a sweetheart I don't think I can imagine him ever being able to pull off an authentic tango. But yeah, Frankie's right, if all goes well (and he definitely shouldn't be out this week although I do think he was over-marked) he will be dancing latin next - probably a paso doble or a samba. Now paso would be a problem but I can actually imagine him with a pair of maracas (he's old, we can forgive props) shakin' his thang to Ricky Martin or similar.

Andrew and Ola
I find Andrew quite endearing, which is rather odd for a GMTV presenter, but I don’t think I can excuse that utterly random headbanging! Poor thing, he swerved from looking like a vampire to being totally scared throughout. The song choice was a bit strange too; it could have worked as an instrumental but it was rather distracting with the singers going on about moving like cats and talking like rats…

Song didn't work. Don't remember much else about it.

Tom and Camilla
My favourite dance of the night! I loved how they looked like a team doing an actual routine, with a great song and outfits to match. Gotta love Camilla and her inventive moments with choreography and musicality. And she loves making her men slide around the floor doesn’t she?! Alas, not a Gethin Jones melting-trousers moment, but still rather good fun.

Now Camilla's another pointer, though not as much as Karen so we'll forgive her. I think Camilla was trying to recreate the magic of Gethin's jive last year but the magic of that was that it was unGethinlike. But definitely matched Austin - it's a two horse race at the moment the girls are going to struggle to catch these two fiercly competitive guys. Camilla likes fringy dresses, doesn't she? This one may be the fringiest yet.

Dom and Lilia
Dom’s pout! I don’t care what the judges said about atmosphere, his trout-pout ruined it for me. Saying that, another cracking routine from Lilia, who had a rather fabulous pair of shoes on too! Very nice way to throw the results show wide open…

Yes, he did look a little bit like a fish but I LOVED this. For starters, the Gotan Project's remix of 'Whatever Lola Wants' is one of my favourite EVER tracks so that made me sit there and go 'ooooooh' before a step had even been taken. I thought this was wonderfully choreographed and I'm glad CRH gave Lilia some praise for that (the girl is good - she made Dom Littlewood look OK for three weeks running - that kind of genius deserves New Year Honours) I wouldn't go crazy, Lilia fans, thinking that this couple could win however; of all the dances, I think this is the one that he was always going to do well. I can't see any others making the same impact - but on the strength of this they may stay in longer than we thought.

Group swing
Oh what a clumsy thing poor Jodie Kidd is turning out to be, I dread the poor girl doing Latin. I genuinely don’t think it’s because she’s tall but rather that she’s really heavy footed or something. Other than that I can’t really muster much enthusiasm for the group numbers anymore, I want more proper dancing!

What's wrong with group dances? I loved this and I agreed with Len - it was fantastic! Cherie seems to have taken to swing well - if she can manage the latin dances as well then she will go far. Jodie hmm, she's the only one who stood out for me - for bad reasons anyway - maybe because of her height, I don't know. It's a shame because I do still think she is seriously cool. No one really stood out apart from that and I see that as a good thing - that's what made the dance so great - it was a real formation team effort.

If I had my way I'd have two of Mark, Gary and Andrew in the dance-off - and Gary to go, I'm afraid. Shame for Karen - hope she wouldn't be too disa-point-ed ( ha ha).