Week Three is Movie WeekThe first of the special weeks (Hallowe'en and Blackpool the other two), everybody goes a bit mad. The costumes are even more flamboyant, the professionals come up with outlandish numbers and judges often get brought along in the hysteria and give a few extra marks. We can expect the person who tops the leaderboard to get 32. I'd go as far as to say we may well see our first nine tomorrow.
We are looking for less of this...
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and more of this...
It's two hours of big, camp craziness. Logically, this favours the more energetic dances.
As if to prove a point, the Coralol Odds Compiler put his prices up at 6:45, while we had yet to see a few of the performers' latest footage on It Takes Two. Brave move, sir. By 7:30, the top two had drifted and he'd nicked a bit off the rest. I mean why bother sticking the prices up in the first place? Anyway...
The Top of the Market - Highest ScorerTough to get this right, because everyone still has weaknesses that are all too easy to spot, so it's a case of working out who might have the fewest.
Ok, so let's start with his Peterness. Dressed as a pirate, with one of the best choreographers on the show as his partner, we can expect all sorts from Cap'n Pete. However, his paso footage is all footwork and no shape. Ian Waite was critical on the Wednesday/Thursday Warm Up and the footage from yesterday we saw this evening has no sign of improvement. He doesn't look the part to me at all. He won't be on last this week (surely!), so no pressure on the judges to overmark him... 3/1? No thanks.
Jay - who has gone from Mick Hucknall to Howard Donald, after his barnetectomy - has great feet and his weight in his jive footage looks very good. It's tough for taller, stronger people to jive (ever tried it at a wedding? Hard enough spinning auntie mavis to Jailhouse Rock. Try doing a full routine with Aliona Vilani who is dressed as Uma Thurman). I like that I keep seeing him in dance shoes and Aliona can play to his strengths for sure by putting lots of spins in it. He deserves to be joint favourite, but 3/1 is about the money. He may tire late on and his flicks aren't that good.
Helen is third at 9/2. She looks excellent and Aljaz has a reputation for working his dancers hard, which Helen complained about today on the sofa with Zoe! It shows, though, and she would not surprise anyone by topping the leaderboard with her foxtrot. It's the hardest ballroom dance to do, but early weeks favour the women in ballroom, because the pro men can lead and cover up a multitude of sins.
Katie joins her at 9/2. Now I think she also looks good and those legs will be doing good things on the dancefloor, no question. Anton being top of the leaderboard in a latin number? I'd want more than 9/2 for that. The judges might save their nines for a quickstep, methinks.
Georgia May Foote is doing a rumba. It's a very difficult dance and she is being pushed to do some intricate moves. She has complained about a lot of spins and Giovanni has said he has put a double spin in, which is pretty serious. It also suggests there will be a lot of light and shade in it, where there's fast bits and then slow bits. That's incredibly hard to pull off. Week three? Hmmm... There is also the fact this will be a slow, sensual dance in a sea of lively, penguin-fuelled hyperbole. It could easily be a bit out of tune with the rest. Darcey and Craig will be critical if she misses a note. 9/1 is not attractive to me at all.
That leaves us with more before we get into the no-channers...
Anita is dancing to Ghost's Unchained Melody (not Robson and Jerome). It is an American Smooth, which is normally done as a foxtrot, but can be any ballroom dance. Gleb has chosen a Viennese Waltz. Whilst there are only four actual moves in a Viennese Waltz (natural turn, reverse turn, Fleckerl and Reverse Fleckerl), it's probably the hardest version to do as an American Smooth. Now, he has danced as a pro on the American and Russian versions of this show, so he knows what he is doing. There is only one reason he has chosen to do a Viennese Waltz: because he believes she can do it. Her footwork looks good in training and she has been threatening to turn a good one in, in the first two weeks. This may be her week. 7/1 might be a spot. My only notes of concern are we have yet to see her in hold in the show and, going by the training footage, there seems to be a fair bit of - to use a Len-ism -
fannying about. If that happens, she might get three favourable judges' scores and get just a severrrrn from Head Judge.
The one I really like is Kellie. She has coped really well with two tough routines so far. Kevin likes to test his partners and that can work both ways. He does excel in the theme weeks, though: remember Frankie Bridge last year doing "I Want To Be In America" as a Paso Doble last year? This week: Star Wars Charleston? Amazing. More importantly...she looks absolutely fantastic in training. We all love a Charleston and we all know what Craig wants to see: swivel. There's tons of it. If she swivels any more she'll break her ankles. They look in sync, they have a ton of work to do in one of these, but it's a fun week and everyone will be on their feet if she nails it. 8/1 is a corking price. I'd be happy to back her at 5/1.
Kellie Bright is my value tip for the top this week.
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