Last night’s Let’s Dance for Sport Relief saw an unlikely group of celebrities who were, to be frank, vastly different from one another. I mean I have never imagined a prime time BBC show with Amy Childs from The Only Way is Essex with Radio 4’s favourite, comedian Miles Jupp.
Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards was the first to kick-start the show off with an impressive homage to Austin Powers. He looked the part perfectly with the pinstripe suit, wig and notable teeth. All in all a solid start.
Next up was comedian Miles Jupp, or sometimes better known as Archie from kids show Balamory. The sketch before his performance poked fun out of Jupp’s middle class nature noting that he would be more likely to knit than to dance. It was hard to think what Jupp would dance to, especially as male contestants on the show are expected to dress as women and this seemed unlikely. But somehow he chose the perfect song as he danced to The Prodigy’s Firestarter, a new look in the making I think and instantly my favourite.
Then Alice Barry, an actress from Shameless, danced to controversial George Michael track Let’s go outside. However, she was remembered more for grabbing Steve Jones’ bottom and then a cheeky grab of his crotch.
Comedian Ava Vidal did a serious dance, where it looked like she had actually take the time to learn her moves. The fun of these performances is when they throw to the judges is looking at them how to react when somebody has taken this competition seriously. But seeing as she isn’t that known, unfortunately her performance was a little forgettable.
And then the serious competition came on to the stage. Amy Childs and Harry Derbridge, from the show The Only Way is Essex, were making fun of themselves which was refreshing. The pair decided to do Madonna’s and Britney’s Me Against the Music with Childs making a good Madonna and Derbridge made an extremely good Britney. Their performance was impressive, and with the popularity of their show it seemed that they were the obvious favourites to go through.
During the 15 minutes of voting, were on-screen they fill time with videos of why we should help out Sport Relief and the awkward ‘banter’ in the bar where Steve Jones seemed to scare the singer Ed Sheeran by asking him for formal ID to enter a pub. Thankfully this was over soon.
The results were tense, and I was resigned to my favourite, Jupp, being forgotten about. But this is where the show took an unexpected turn. The overall winner was Eddie the Eagle for his groovy performance. This left the celebrity judge panel to choose their favourite between TOWIE stars and Jupp. And to my shock they sided with Jupp.
This means Jupp and Eddie the Eagle will be in the final. Before then more contestants need to dance their way into the hearts of the voters next Saturday. In the meantime catch up with the rest of the series on iPlayer.
TV Talk 