2022 Strictly Partnerships

Late to the party I know, but I haven't had the chance yet to get my head around this year's partnerships. I was a bit surprised that some of the newbies have a celeb in their first Strictly season. I know Kai has been a backing dancer on the show for years before getting his own partner last year.


Ellie Simmonds and Nikita Kuzmin

Ellie Taylor and Johannes Radebe

Fleur East and Vito Coppola

Hamza Yassin and Jowita Przystał

Helen Skelton and Gorka Marquez

James Bye and Amy Dowden

Jayde Adams and Karen Hauer

Kaye Adams and Kai Widdrington

Kym Marsh and Graziano Di Prima

Matt Goss and Nadiya Bychkova

Molly Rainford and Carlos Gu

Richie Anderson and Giovanni Pernice

Tony Adams and Katya Jones

Tyler West and Dianne Buswell

Will Mellor and Nancy Xu

The stand-out new professional for me is Vito Coppola. He seems well-grounded and has formed a promising partnership with Fleur East. I like this couple a lot already despite not knowing anything about either of them.

Ellie Taylor and Johannes Radebe also seems like a budding strong partnership.

Also liked the match-up of James Bye and Amy Dowden.

Time for others to grow on me.

Sorry, sorry, I know I'm late. By a whole week.

I'm blaming the trains.

So....where are we? Second week, that's where. They've been partnered up, wildly overmarked (for the most part) for their first week's offerings, and an impostor stood in for C raig. Everyone super-happy and gushing like a burst water pipe about the experience and their amazing partner.

But now we've reached the business end. Grumpy C raig is back (I suspect his other hip is giving him gyp) and everyone is feeling emotional and overwrought. Because someone is going to GO.

Before I give my impressions, I just need to do a bit of housekeeping... I feel I should disclose my Afors and Agins in case they have any bearing on proceedings.

AGINS: to be honest, In the first week I only had one s leb,and that is Kym. Borderline were Ritchie and Matt. Pros were Kai (as last year), Karen and Katya (as ever) and Carlos (for the creepy exchange about the Rumba with Claudia). But now I find Jayde has stepped right up to the border and has one foot over it. And Molly went from bordeline Afor to borderline Agin in the space of a week

AFORS: Helen, Hamza, Ellie S, Ellie T, Tyler (who I am sad for, because he has SO much potential but Dianne isn't the teacher to unlock and unleash it) for the S lebs. Will is borderline with one foot firmly over and the other foot almost in. And Jowita, Johannes, Giovanni and Nikita for the pros. Oh, go on then, Graziano too, as he's such a sweetheart. Nadiya is borderline, but sady she has Matt bringing her down.

And so to tonight's impressions..

Ritchie and Kaye not as awful as I thought, but Ritchie was overmarked and Kaye undermarked.

The routine Katya did for poor Tony was an aberration (also overmarked).

Love Hamza and Jowita - wonderful partnership - but he lacked retraction and bounce.

Ellie S - just gorgeous. I know there were technical thingies like a lack of heel leads, but I basically tweeted the nice bits that C raig said before he said it, which was beautiful hands and arms and she has a wonderful flow

Ellie T and Will were both disappointing for me. Ellie was too soft and Will was too.... I dunno. It just wasn't right.

Fleur and the contempo waft VW was meh.

Matt was SHOCKING! I had to cover my eyes (some people actually hid behind the sofa). And for all the thrusting in the horrible tighty whities he seems really reticent and unsure of himself on the dancefloor. But Nadiya rocking the Studio 54 vibe was a GODDESS.

Helen... well, I'll be honest, I didn't really see Helen. Someone was dancing with Gorka though, and I assume it was her. What I did see, when I momentariy glanced away from Gorka, was that she didn't have a straight cha cha cha leg.

Tyler can dance. He has natural ability. But Dianne needs to focus more on teaching him technique (there was little retraction in his kicks n flicks) and less on the bazillion stupid props.

Molly - I didn't like it. It was the song. It was a stupid song for a quickstep.

Jayde - no, no and no. If she cotinues to channel her inner Adele then she is all the way over the border into Agin Land. But even though I am agin Karen I thought she looked fantastic.

James -I like James. He has Afor potential. But I forgot his dances, both this week and last week, the instant they finished. Very, very meh.

If that isn't all of them, it jolly well should be.

Tess looked nice (shock) and Claud's pink trousers were horrible. But her joke about the pound made up for them.

I shall leave it there (I know! Quite brief for me) as I have work in the morning and I got back from Norfolk minutes before Strictly, after a six hour drive (and an unnannounced road closure just three miles before I need to turn off, and with no diversion signs in place until about a third of the way along the diversion; fortunately I am a genius with a road map and had worked out the route without any help from signs. It added 30 mins to the short trip to Dusseldorf ) I am therefore shattered.

Lovely to be back - I'll catch with all your posts and comment tomorrow.

Meanwhile.... keeeeep posting! x

(Can I just clarify that it most definitely was NOT a short trip to Dusseldorf, but a very log trip back from Norfolk to Cumbria. The jolly jokey mods, who have well and truly deserted us, certainly made sure they left their legacy before abadoning ship.)