Monday 5th March 2013
As the
final heats for this year’s Let’s Dance for Comic Relief arrived, it was
not only iconic dances that were running low, but celebrities to perform them:
one contestant was making his second appearance, whilst another was the
landlady from the backstage bar. Guy Levy
Nevertheless,
this week arguably showcased the best dancers so far, in talent if not
necessarily in comedy value. Luckily, Arlene Philips was on hand to lend some
gravitas to the panel, alongside Greg James and Lee Mack (who evidently hadn’t
got the memo about being unreservedly positive about everything on stage).
Following
the great tradition of BBC newsreaders embarrassing themselves for charity, Newsround
presenters Sonali Shah and Ore Oduba took on Outkast’s Hey Ya.
Similarly, in the great tradition of BBC dance programmes, the braces on Ore’s
trousers broke the second he began dancing, meaning that the pair deserve extra
credit for executing several lifts without a) Ore’s trousers falling down or b)
Sonali getting whacked in the face by errant buckles.
Keith Duffy
was scheduled but unable to appear, and was replaced by Jodie Prenger,
West End star and ‘landlady’ of Shenanigans. Her performance suggested she had
been physically restrained from launching herself onto the stage every week,
such was her evident enthusiasm and step-perfect routine to Word Up. She
may have been called upon at the last minute, but she had definitely been
rehearsing that one for a while.
Comedienne/ventriloquist
Nina Conti performed a decent jungle themed routine, vastly improved by
an elaborate costume designed to look as though she had been kidnapped by a
giant monkey. It sounds bizarre, but didn’t even come close to being the
weirdest thing we’d see tonight. A surprisingly graceful Lee Nelson
turned up for a second shot at glory. The brief clip we saw of his previous
performance mysteriously showed him in his pants, so this year was a definite
improvement as he teamed up with Britain’s Got Talent contestants Twist
and Pulse to do a ballet/hip-hop fusion that was remarkably slick.
Just as I
was musing on the high standard of dancing we were witnessing, Vanessa Feltz
unveiled an homage to Cher which was somewhat less concerned with choreography.
Not that it mattered, for she had incorporated flying, a giant cannon and a
very revealing leotard into her routine. Top marks for bravery, but as Feltz
herself admitted, you weren’t really sure you wanted to see it again.
Let’s Dance may have missed out on big name contestants, but they
did manage to secure Nicole Sherzinger and Justin Bieber to provide the music -
probably the first and last time Bieber will be sharing the bill with Vanessa
Feltz. After much filler, Jodie Prenger deservedly reached the final on public
vote, reacting like someone who had simultaneously won the lottery and been
punched in the stomach. Lee Nelson was rewarded for his choreography by an
Arlene still misty-eyed for her Strictly days, and so the final line-up
was complete. With no runaway favourite this year, the only guaranteed winners
are Lycra and wig manufacturers.
