This weekend’s Instant Dance gamble was a success and a sign of more changes to come at Strictly
Change is afoot at Strictly – and I’m not just talking about the seismic, imminent departure of its longstanding hosts, Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman. This weekend producers introduced the Instant Dance, an improvised challenge that I thought would destabilise the whole show, but proved to be a runaway success.
On paper, the Instant Dance should not have worked. Contestants picked an envelope at random, which contained a style of dance they had already learned during previous weeks. Then, in an uncertain flurry of chaos, they raced to rails of costumes on the dance floor, picked a suitable garment and pelted it to the backstage changing area to get ready.
As tension mounted, they waited, terrified, for their turn, but fear soon turned to wild abandon as they locked into their partners and let themselves go. No rehearsal, only 10 seconds to confer and millions of eyes waiting to see how they coped.
Love Island winner and West End star Amber Davies threw herself straight into an upside-down lift, Eastenders actor Balvinder Sopal seemed to be channelling an electric current as she exploded into a genuinely brilliant paso doble, and Emmerdale’s Lewis Cope achieved remarkable syncopation with a dazzling instant jive.
This is not the Strictly way. The slick façade rarely drops, except in carefully chosen moments of spontaneity, usually involving Winkleman. Yet here we saw crew members smirking at suddenly being visible to the public, the celebrities’ heads popping up behind curtains, not yet dressed sufficiently to hit their interview cues, Claudia improvising wildly and reappearing in a fruit-covered hat to introduce the first dance.
The Saturday night experience that Strictly provides is always colourful and full of fun, but also reliably the same, every single week. This includes the presence of Winkleman and Daly. Their departure must be terrifying for BBC bosses, particularly as the show sits in a vulnerable position, beset on all sides by “controversy” and “scandal”.
The familiarity of Tess and Claudia symbolises the reassurance we need from this kind of shiny floor show: tune in every Saturday and things will be just as you left them. There they stand, week in, week out: Tess a glittering column of certainty and Claudia, blinking behind that inky curtain, firing gags around the ballroom like an automatic tennis ball machine. When they go, everything will change.
This new segment might seem like a small tweak, but it reads like a statement of intent. Change is coming and the people behind the scenes seem willing to take bigger risks than before, perhaps because they’ve been left with no choice. If this is the kind of change they’re willing to risk, who knows what a post Winkleman and Daly Strictly could look like.
We are still left with the knotty problem of who on Earth can step into their towering shoes. But perhaps the blue terror of losing them has inspired the producers to fire up new ambition for the what the show might look like in the future.
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When the Instant Dance was announced last week, I was braced for a failed experiment at best. But the scheme may have single-handedly proved how alive and kicking the Strictly format can still be with the right energy. Far from sticking to the slick Saturday night recipe, all bright veneers and perfect hair, the show benefited hugely from this burst of barely controlled chaos.
Daley and Winkleman’s departure could turn out to be the very thing that will bring Strictly back from the brink.
‘Strictly Come Dancing’ continues next Saturday at 6.50pm
