I’d been looking forward to Strictly all week, but mainly, I must admit, for a negative reason: I was desperate to see Gary Rhodes’ jive, which, judging by his training footage, was going to be a disaster. Yes, it was the turn of the “boys” again this week, but first Bruce nicked one of my Strictly Shit Lookalikes…

John Sergeant and Jo Brand. I did wonder if it was too obvious, but really, it’s uncanny!

Gary-baiting aside, I was also looking forward to Austin Healey’s jive because, in training, it looked, as Craig would say, Ah. May. Zing. And it was. It was confident. It was cocky (but in a good way) and, at one point, it made me squeal. I loved it. The only thing I think would have improved it would have been a more recognisable song (unless, of course, whatever it was they danced to has been number one for months and I just don’t know it cos I’m old and out of touch…). Frankly, it was a bit mean to have Austin out first, since I couldn’t see anyone coming even close to that.

Mark Foster was another who looked duff in training and, I don’t know, I wanted to like it because he seems like a nice guy, but it bored me again. He really doesn’t bring any personality to his performance at all. The judges were kind, even Craig. “An improvement” was really all they said. Arlene suggested he go to an acting coach, which was very good advice; look at the difference it made to Matt Dawson a couple of seasons ago.

Gary Rhodes was next. In training, you could see that Karen Hardy is absolutely losing patience with him, but he does seem to be trying his best – it just ain’t good enough. “Look, Craig,” he said in VT, with respect to Craig giving him a 1 in the first round, “I deserved more than one point.” You know, I’m not entirely sure he did. And it winds me up when the “amateurs”, particularly the really poor ones, argue with the pros. And his jive? Oh dear. Well, it wasn’t as bad as I expected, because I didn’t expect him to even make it through, but goodness it was very bad. He was counting the entire time, Karen was moving him around the floor and he didn’t even actually have that much to do.

But it did lead to the exchange of the series so far: Craig said he’d been praying for him, so Bruce said, “I didn’t see you on your knees.” To which Bruno responded: “Some people have.” Oh yeah. He went there. Bruno’s gonna get in trouble. Again. And, also – ha! Craig then, of course, went on to pull Gary apart, but did say it wasn’t complete “dance disaster”. 2 then? No, a 3. Len gave it a 6. Same as he gave Lisa Snowdon last week. Len’s judging continues to be a mockery of a sham.

John Sergeant seems like a lovely man and he also seems to have a good relationship with his professional partner, Christina, but he’s probably too sweet for the tango. He had a half-embarrassed, half-proud smile on his face throughout. In fact, I’m not even sure I’d have known it was a tango if I’d seen it without the music. In the interview afterwards, John said, “It had all the characteristics people associate with me: passion, rhythm and a raw kind of sexuality.” That comment might well keep him in the competition for another week at least.

Andrew Castle. Another duffer. So the duffer ratio is quite high with the men, isn’t it? I didn’t like his tango at all. I found the choreography to be a strange combination of boring and irritating and his bum was sticking out throughout.

Ooh, Bruce’s intro to Tom Chambers actually made me laugh, but then he ruined it by doing his stupid “doddery” catchphrase. Tom was jiving too and is, at least in his head, in competition with Austin. And, if Austin wasn’t on the show, Tom would be the best man (of an admittedly poor bunch), but for me it was nowhere near as good as Austin’s. The judges liked it though and his score was only one point behind Austin’s.

As a “respected Shakespearean actor”, there were high hopes for Don Warrington’s tango and, to begin with, I thought it was going to be the best of the night (which isn’t saying much, obviously) then, part-way through, I thought he was going to fall over backwards (in fact, I thought for a second he was actually having a stroke!) and his facial expression looked pained and constipated and, by the end, I was wincing. The judges really loved it though, so maybe it was me.

At the end, Austin was top with 34 and Gary bottom with 18, which was absolutely right.

The show ended with the “girls” group swing dance and it was fabulous. The women are pretty much all in a different league to the men. Even the weakest, Jessie, is still better than five out of the seven men.

So my prediction is that Andrew or Don will go out. I think John will be saved on charm and humour and Gary will be saved either for entertainment value or because people feel sorry for him (I don’t agree, I think he needs to be put out of his misery!).

Strictly Come Dancing Results Show, BBC One, Sunday 5 October, 8.10pm

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