Strictly Come Dancing live: Paul Merson’s Vindaloo nightmare leaves fans divided over week one dance
The pressure is on as celebrity contestants perform live for the first time this season
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Strictly Come Dancing has returned to our screens for the first live show of the series.
The new season kicked off last week with a dazzling pre-recorded show to mark the beginning of its 20th anniversary series after months of scandal surrounding the programme’s professional dancers.
However, the pressure will rise this week as the 15 celebrity contestants perform live for the first time before the voting – and first elimination of the series – happens next weekend.
This week’s routines include three cha chas, two foxtrots, two tangos, two sambas and a Viennese waltz.
Comedian Chris McCausland and his partner Dianne Buswell perform a cha cha to “Twist and Shout”’ by The Beatles, with TV doctor Punam Krishnan and Gorka Márquez performing the same style to Kylie Minogue’s “Love at First Sight”.
Former Love Island contestant Tasha Ghouri and Aljaž Škorjanec danced a cha cha to Sabrina Carpenter’s summer anthem, “Espresso”.
As announced last week, former Arsenal/England player Paul Merson paid homage to his sport by performing the intriguing combination of an American Smooth to the popular football chant song “Vindaloo” by Fat Les.
Gladiators star Montell Douglas and Johannes Radebe foxtrotted to “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?” by Dinah Washington, while Olympic Hockey player Sam Quek and Nikita Kuzmin also performed a foxtrot to The Supremes’ hit “Where Did Our Love Go”.
Tango-ing this week Olympic swimmer Tom Dean and Nadiya Bychkova danced to Harry Styles’s “Golden”, while Toyah Willcox and Neil Jones performed to Madonna’s “Ray of Light”.
In the samba corner were Shayne Ward and Nancy Xu, dancing to Stevie Wonder’s “Do I Do”, and Wynne Evans and Katya Jones performing Tom Jones’s “Help Yourself”.
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TOWIE’s Pete Wicks and his partner Jowita Przystał performed a paso doble to “Breathe” by The Prodigy.
EastEnders star Jamie Borthwick and Michelle Tsiakkas danced a Viennese Waltz to Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” and JLS’s JB Gill and Amy Dowden performed a classic waltz to “When I Need You” by Leo Sayer.
Wynne and Katya’s scores are in
It’s a 6, 6, 7 and 7 for our final couple. Katya looks genuinely shocked!
Let’s take a look at the scoreboard
Now that all 15 couples have danced, we have JB and Amy at the top of the rankings with 31 points, closely followed by Tasha and Aljaz and Sarah and Vito, both with 30 points. At the bottom, we have Toyah and Neil with 12 points.
That’s a wrap
And there we have it. The first live show of the season has now come to an end, and it felt pretty much like business as usual for the dance competition (with no references to the media storm that engulfed the show back in the summer and, interestingly, no nods yet to the bumped-up welfare measures behind the scenes).
JB, Sarah and Tasha are already looking like strong contenders (fans probably won’t fail to notice that they’re the couples with previous dance experience...) while Chris’s routine was another real highlight. I won’t say anything else about “Vindaloo”.
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