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Now the fun's gone out of Saturday nights
Robert Mendick19.11.08
So farewell then John Sergeant and Kristina Rihanoff, the funniest couple to grace Saturday night television since Morecambe and Wise.
Sergeant's decision today to quit Strictly Come Dancing will be greeted with dismay and despair in households up and down the country, who had been tuning in in their millions for a bloody good laugh. It is the greatest surprise resignation since Margaret Thatcher's, which of course Sergeant reported before he turned to ballroom.
His dancing was so bad, it was funny - and that had put him in danger of actually winning the competition. Week after week, the voting public had kept him in the contest against the better wisdom of Strictly's four judges.
Like a real-life version of Mel Brooks's hit comedy The Producers, Sergeant had become a huge success out of being truly terrible. Expect a motion picture with Jim Broadbent in the lead and Kate Winslet as Kristina.
No one really minded at first because Sergeant was surviving at the expense of other, not quite so awful dancers who were really hamstrung by having no personality. (Did someone say Gary Rhodes?) But in the last few weeks, incredulity rose as he prospered. As though the judges and others were somehow unaware this was a television entertainment programme - not the 2012 Olympics.
Now he's gone we Strictly addicts, while mourning his loss, can now get down to the real nitty-gritty of who will win. My money is on the divine Rachel Stevens and her lecherous dance partner Vincent Simone, whose rumba in last week's show was pure Dirty Dancing. I considered at one point switching the television off to protect the children but relented in the face of screams from the kids.
More of the same and they are a shoo-in. There are dangers lurking. The ghastly Brendan Cole and the nondescript Lisa Snowdon, apparently a model, lurk in the shadows. If not Rachel, then the Mendick vote is going to Jodie Kidd, who seems a good egg and can dance a bit. She's the female equivalent of Darren Gough, the ungainly England cricketer who went on to win in series three. The nation loves a game trier with a slice of charisma.
Sergeant had the latter. He just wasn't trying very hard.
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Reader views (4)
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The most distasteful aspect of this programme has been the way in which vindictive judges(Arlene & Craig in particular)have indulged in bullying & disparaging language even after the programme destroying the Saturday evening friendly family format.To see the BBC allowing this behaviour was sickening and it is interesting to read that the BBC will now refund the phone calls made in support of JSPreviously they had explained that it was too complicated to release the voting figures provoking questions as to whether this was another BBC fix.
- Alastair Cambell, angers france
It is your view and you are entitled to it, that Brendan C ole is ghastly but you dont expand your point. I thought that was the whole point of an article.
- Kevin Smyth, limalonges france
I think it is right for John to quit as the essence of the contest is surely to find the best dance couple.
He has, in my view, acted wuth absolute dignity and I salute him for what he has done.
- Bryan, London, England
