4th December, 06

Well now, that was a very interesting showing of Take Two by Claudia Winkelman

First we were taken to Head Judge, Len Goodman’s Dance Centre where he teaches children to dance, with tremendous humour. Then Judge Bruno Tonioli came on the show with Louise Redkapp, to defend his judging on Emma, Mark and Louisa on Saturday night.

Carol Smillie and Matthew Cutler, who were knocked out of the competition last Saturday by the public, were invited on the show to share how they felt about this after having received their highest score ever. They were at the bottom with Emma Bunton and Darren Bennett (The judges had put Emma and Darren at the top with a generous rewarding of tens, beating both Louisa and Mark and their partners, unfairly, many of us thought) last Saturday. Carol said she knew she was going that week but very happy to have earned her nine and thirty total, for which she and her partner had been aiming.

The really interesting part of the evening was when a panel of four public judges made up of friends of Judge Craig Revel Norwood, were asked to judge the controversial couples. The four public judges were dance performance coach, Doreen, theatre, TV and film director, Arthur, random friend Amber and West End stage and costume designer Christopher.

Some of their remarks were as follows, Emma not very Spanish, wrong dress, cleaning her hands down the front of her dress and Doreen hotly disagreeing with Arlene’s ravings of how wonderful Emma was, shouting ‘No way Arlene, we don’t agree with you’. ‘The judges must have been taking kindness pills’. They felt there was nothing Spanish about the dance and did not like some of her movements or her smile. (I think it was a grimace for the fierce dance). They also felt she did not tell the story. Matthew, they stated, was not allowing himself to be seduced, too much posing and a fixed smile. His upper body was too stiff and they had not seen him dance. They loved Mark’s whole performance, hip movements, etcetera and felt he had earned the nines but they would have liked to see a ten. Arthur emphatically stated ‘that was very nifty, I gave him a ten’ with nods of approval from the panel of public judges. They said ‘Louisa just lights up’ and ‘this is what a waltz should be’…Arlene was strongly against their fantastic, very graceful, interpretation of the waltz, wanting something more conservative but she stood alone there. Louisa definitely deserved tens especially compared with Emma who got three tens for two dances not that well performed. Louisa’s second dance brought the house down but once again she received only nines although the judges raved about their dance, as did everyone else, audience and fellow competitors.

As said before, judges, put your points where your mouth is.

THERE YOU HAVE IT, THE PEOPLES’ VERDICT FROM THE PUBLIC JUDGES.

This article was written by Evelyn Lewis. Thanks Evelyn.