Do you remember the days when standing ovations meant something? When the simple act of standing up and doing some clapping meant you’d seen something really truly fantastic? Yes? Well, last night’s Strictly Come Dancing was out to crush those memories. Crush them to pieces.

Because last night wasn’t just any Strictly. No, it was the semi-final, which meant that the five remaining “celebrities” had to dance twice and the audience had to give every single last one of the performances a standing ovation just to really destroy any meaning the tradition may have once had. They even gave Alex Jones two ovations. Alex Jones.

Yes, that’s right, she was still there.

It turns out that the producers don’t believe in “foregone conclusions” and so still made the poor girl perform her two dances even though everyone knew she’d be going home at the end of the weekend. They should’ve just let her save her energy so she could use it to try and muster up some personality.

But no, those evil nasty producers forced James Jordan to drag her around the dancefloor twice; once in what was meant to be a waltz, and once in an impression of a samba. Neither of them were particularly good, but everyone stood up anyway. Perhaps the producers had electrified the audience’s chairs? That completely explains it.

Also spectacularly subtle were the songs that Harry McFly and partner Aliona danced to. First up they did a Charleston to a song about being “wild about Harry”, and then they waltzed to “This Year’s Love”. We think they might have been trying to tell us something. Y’know, just in case we hadn’t picked up on the ridiculous sexual tension.

The judges clearly weren’t bothered with the subliminal messaging and gossip-mongering though, as they actually paid attention to the dancing. The fools. Apparently it was absolutely faeces-hot though, as Harry scored 39 out of 40 on both dances and promptly topped the leaderboard.  Which was nice for him. But probably gut-boilingly annoying for Chelsee.

Chelsee, you see, managed to get herself the first 40 of the series with her paso doble, despite spending the entire first part looking quite a lot like she was going to fall over. And yet she had to settle for second on the leaderboard. She got a perfect score, and she was SECOND. It’s a cruel, cruel world out there on reality TV.

And yet, somehow, there was more cruelty still to come. Poor Jason found himself getting a perfect score for his Argentine tango and missing out on the accolade and celebration of “first 40 of the series” through the horrors of running order and the linear nature of time. We’re not sure how he’ll ever recover. Especially as he looked like he was about to die on live television after exerting himself a little too much in the pursuit of those pesky 10s. There’s every chance his heart will pack up if he ever moves too quickly again. Which could prove problematic.

Somehow magically escaping from this week’s overriding theme of “cruelty” was Holly Valance. Presumably because having a partner who broke his actual back whilst dancing with you is cruel and horrorful enough. She performed her tango and Charleston without any badness befalling her. Which was a little bit disappointing. Until, of course, the ultimate badness happened and she found herself booted out of the competition, alongside Alex Jones. Who we’d just about remembered.

And so, it’s Chelsee, Jason and Harry who’ve made it to the final and will next week be travelling to Blackpool to try and win a great big ugly glitterball. None of which sounds like a prize to us, but each to their stupid, glittery own. We just hope the producers remember to pack their electric chairs. Mostly because we’ll be hanging around the ballroom, waiting to steal them.

This week on Strictly, it wasn’t just the quarter finals. Oh no, that wouldn’t be anywhere near exciting enough. So the producers came up with a hastily-thought-up-and-not-at-all-stolen-from-the-X Factor theme.

And so we had Strictly Movie Week. Which was mostly an excuse for atrocious VTs featuring some truly, truly terrible acting. And some tights.

Oh yes, the wardrobe department was out to kill everyone’s mad sexual love of Harry McFly by putting him in pair of bright green tights and shoving him in a forest. Apparently it was because he was pretending to be Robin Hood, but really, we know it was because housewives all over the country had suddenly become deeply unsatisfied with their balding husbands thanks to Harry’s arms. And so, keen to avoid a spike in divorce rates, there were tights.

Unfortunately for pot-bellied husbands, the wardrobe folks forgot about their new aim when it came to the actual dance, and put Harry in some very, very tight trousers. He then proceeded to gyrate against Aliona, which everyone had the good grace to pretend was because he was doing a rumba. We know the dirty truth.

Considerably less erotic was Robbie Savage, who donned a suit and danced on the theme of Pulp Fiction. But nobody cared about that, because his partner Ola was also be-suited. Even Brucie pointed out that she was wearing far too many clothes for anyone’s liking, which was a bit like watching your Grandad perving on some poor innocent.

Apparently he even said it twice, but we missed the second one because we were too busy trying to swallow vomit.

Also bringing inappropriate levels of sex into some family programming was Holly Valance, who performed a Zorro-themed pasa doble and got herself her best score of the series for being such a sexpot. We were waiting for Kara Tointon to burst out of the audience and punch her in the face, but alas, they’d sneakily placed her a few rows back so she couldn’t lunge at her rival. Which was disappointing all round.

Much like Alex Jones, who disappointed all and sundry by getting her heel caught in her dress and then not falling over. It was a perfect opportunity for her to stack it spectacularly and slide across the floor on her face, but no. Instead, she just carried on as normal. Her dance was Pretty-Woman themed, which the judges seemed to think brought out her “sexiness”. Because apparently that’s all that matters to those filthy-minded reprobates.

Which presented a bit of a challenge for Chelsee Healey, who was performing a Shrek-themed number. Yes, Shrek. That giant green ogre, who is obviously one of the most sexual of beasts. Annoyingly, Chelsee was dressed as Princess Fiona before she turned green, but Pacha got into the spirit and stuck some weird green ears on his head. They performed a jive and everyone thought it was amazing. Again.

And so, for once, we found ourselves agreeing with Craig Sourface-Aussie when he declared after Jason Donovan’s dance that it’s boring now because everyone’s good. Even Jason managed to remember all his Singing in the Rain steps.

And he frazzled his brain with drugs!

Alas, it turned out that remembering his steps wasn’t enough to stop Jason finding himself in the bottom two with Robbie. Which everyone was INCREDIBLY SHOCKED ABOUT. It was a travesty, and awful, and evil and a bit wrong. Even Robbie said that he should be the one to go, and Jason’s partner Kristina did some really overdramatic crying. And then Robbie got sent home, which was not at all surprising.

And so next week it’s back to usual, with no theme, and no Robbie, and with the inevitable eviction of Alex Jones. We miss Russell Grant. And we never thought we’d say that.

Wasn’t last week’s Strictly jolly exciting, what with all the thousands of people and the being at Wembley? Who cares that they finally got rid of World’s Happiest Man Russell Grant; it was WEMBLEY and that is supposed to be AMAZING.

Everyone, everywhere was talking about it. If by “everyone”, you mean the Strictly contestants. And by “everywhere” you mean backstage at Strictly.

Still, plastic-faced Brendan was clearly very unhappy about missing out on Wembley after Artem’s miraculous recovery. So unhappy that he launched a despicable plan to get himself back on the show this week. But rather than attacking Artem, he decided to go for Artem’s evil twin Robin. They said on the VT that Robin was in hospital with a “severe foot infection”, but we all know that Brendan injected him with nasty foot plague.

And so, Anita Dobson found herself partnered with Brendan and his evil plans for world domination. Unfortunately for her, it seemed that Brendan was a bit too busy trying to work out who he could take out next to actually teach her that much of a dance. She just walked around the floor to ‘Uptown Girl’ whilst we wandered around after her, singing along far too enthusiastically for our liking. At least the Duchess of Cornwall told Anita that her dance was good.

Nobody else may have liked it that much, but it came with Royal approval.

Thankfully HRH didn’t stick around for the live show, because Robbie Savage’s routine may have landed him in the Tower. Because after a few weeks of not shoving his groin in everyone’s faces, he decided that it was definitely time to bring the cock-thrusts back. Nobody else agreed. Especially not Craig. The poor man’s still scarred from that extra-special desk-leaping cock-thrust. And who can blame him?

Also incurring Craig’s wrath was Alex Jones, who performed a “goofy” Charleston which was neither very good nor in time. Len found it funny though which was something. Although we’re not sure if that was because it was funny on purpose, or because the whole thing just looked a bit ridiculous. Either way, he liked it. The fool.

Len wasn’t so happy with Holly Valance, though. Her and Artem performed a foxtrot to music that apparently isn’t foxtrot music, and old purist Len thought it was a bit of a silly move. Everyone else thought it was great though. Except the audience, who were too busy being mesmerised by Ms Valance’s cleavage. Good to see someone is carrying on the tradition of overexposed bosom after Chelsee Healey’s costumes became more demure in the wake of Titgate. In fact,  Chelsee’s just more demure in general. Her routine was demure, and her costume was demure, and we were bored. She’s apparently good though. Shame we can’t bring ourselves to care.

Unlike Jason Donovan, who probably cares a bit too much. After totally cocking it up in front of 6,500 people at Wembley last week, the pressure was on to make this week’s routine perfect. Which he didn’t. We’d say it was a shame, but we’d be lying. After all, everyone knows the best bit of Strictly is when people mess up or fall over. So Jason, we ask you to carry on buggering things up, please. We could do with a laugh.

Sort of almost closing the show were Harry and Aliona who performed a ridiculously good quickstep and scored 39 out of 40. Apparently they had really good sway, whatever that means. All hecklerspray knows is that Harry was wearing far too many clothes, and we were not happy about it.

Still, Harry got a second chance to dance around naked with the Strictly Swingathon, which involved all of the couples doing swing dancing all at once. Which was the first time all week that we’ve missed Russell Grant. IMAGINE him trying to swing dance. Just IMAGINE it. Unfortunately, imagining is all you can do, because he obviously wasn’t there. But Jason Donovan was, and he was messing up his steps again. Well done, Jason! You’re doing just as we asked!

After three minutes of ridiculously enthusiastic dancing, Harry and Aliona emerged the victors, even though Harry had disappointed the entire female population by wearing clothes. They were given an additional 7 points to add to their total, and Brendan Cole immediately flew into an incredibly restrained and not at all visible jealous rage.

Especially after he and Anita got booted off on the results show.

We expect he is now sat at home plotting a way to take Harry out of the competition. Because it doesn’t matter how many times he gets booted off; BRENDAN MUST WIN.

Next week’s Strictly is going to be really exciting. Not this week, next week. Next week they’re all going to Wembley Arena, where they’ll have the chance to fall over in front of a live audience of 6,000 people. Next week. Not this week.

This week was just the boring week where Len was back and they talked about Wembley a lot. All the celebs wanted to get to Wembley. None of them were actually there yet. Tess Daly informed us of this fact a lot. Everyone pretended to care.

With no Jennifer Grey and no massive live audience this week, the producers had to come up with some other drama to keep the audience entertained. And so they conspired with Kara Tointon to break poor Artem’s back. Because that’s what last week’s mystery injury turned out to be. A fractured spine.

Of course, they didn’t mention this on the show in case it scared the grannies; they just put Brendan Cole on a horse and pretended he was saving the day. He and Holly danced Artem’s specially choreographed dance whilst Artem watched on looking both pained and completely whacked out on very strong drugs. It was a special time.

Less special, inevitably, was Audley. He and his massive feet attempted to do a samba, but ended up just stomping around the dance floor after partner Natalie like a Scooby-Doo mummy. Craig expressed everyone’s annoyance with him for still being there and gave him a 3, whilst everyone else tried to resist the urge to tell him to just sod off already.

Alex Jones finished what Jennifer Aniston started back in Friends, and proved that grown women in cheerleader outfits look ridiculous, not sexy. And just to really crush the fantasies of teenage boys up and down the country, her dance started with her playing with a creepy rag doll. It was almost as disturbing as Russell Grant and that teddy bear. Almost, but not quite.

“The Grant” meanwhile, truly excelled himself. Not content with his usual technique of stomping around the floor with a massive grin, he decided that this week required something more special. And so he did a costume change. Thankfully it wasn’t a Bucks Fizz-style skirt rip; he stepped behind a screen and put on a gold sequined suit. Absolutely nobody had any idea what to say, presumably because they were too busy wondering if somebody had slipped some of Artem’s crazy strong painkillers into their drinks.

Also potentially on drugs was Chelsee Healey, who continued being disappointingly good. We suspect the producers may have slipped her some Ritalin, and maybe also a little bit of valium, just to get her to calm the fuck down. We miss her manic tassle-shaking and ballroom frenzy. It was far more entertaining than this kind of good dancing stuff.

Elsewhere, Anita Dobson carried on being both 62 and pretty good, whilst Jason Donovan recovered from last weeks’ apparently dreadful rumba and did a very pretty but really quite boring waltz. But the real drama of the show came from Harry Judd.

Apparently, Len wasn’t convinced by the passion in Harry’s Argentine tango. Which quite possibly makes him both blind and senile, because everyone else watching managed to catch onto the fact they Harry and partner Aliona were basically having sex on prime time national TV. There was a big debate between the judges about the appropriate level of filth in a tango, whilst Harry stood there looking nice and awkward. Presumably because he just wanted to get off stage and whack one out.

In the results show Anita and Audley found themselves in the bottom two, which nobody was happy about. They were fine with Audley being there, of course, but Anita’s appearance was both shocking and also wrong. And so nobody gave anything even vaguely resembling a shit when Audley and his feet were sent home.

Although they didn’t dare say that, obviously, just in case he punched them in the face.

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This week on Strictly, somebody cocked up and let Len go on holiday in the middle of the series. So, to replace him, they brought in the star of one of the biggest dancing movies of all time. No, it, wasn’t the reanimated corpse of Patrick Swayze but rather, Jennifer Grey and her unrecognizable face!

If they hadn’t told us who she was SO MANY TIMES we would never have believed them. Even when she referred to herself as “Baby” we were still confused.

Whilst we were trying to work out if Jennifer Grey and Lulu shared the same plastic surgeon, and what the hell he’d done to the both of them, some celebrities did some dancing.

After causing 300 complaints to the BBC with the incredible power of his hip-thrusts last week, Robbie Savage decided to be poised and fully dressed and did a waltz. It was boring and according to the judges he had no chemistry. We may lodge a complaint about the dullness just to really baffle him.

Thankfully, one of the other celebs stepped up to the sexual harassment mantel, as Lulu continued the grand tradition of attacking Craig by giving him a snog. She also spent a portion of the VT dancing around her kitchen with her hair in rollers and a balloon, so we can safely assume she’s completely cracked.

Audley and his giant feet tried to be romantic by waltzing round the room to Avril Lavinge. The most exciting part of his entire dance was the fact that they took the lyrics literally and actually put a bridge in the studio. As soon as they’d moved on from that, we forgot to pay attention. Again.

Upping the excitement factor were Harry Judd and his incredible arms. After needlessly covering him with clothes for the past few weeks, the costume department decided to put him in something see-through and sleeveless. Women throughout the country were grateful, but the judges didn’t seem to think this went far enough. They all wanted him to “let go”. By which we assume they mean to just dance around entirely naked and entice everyone with his swinging member.

Elsewhere in the flasher fantasy-land of Strictly, Craig thought Jason Donovan exposed himself. Not in an indecent exposure kind of way though, thankfully. Apparently his rumba was entirely lacking in passion, and for the first time ever ol’Jasey found himself in the bottom half of the leaderboard. Housewives everywhere squealed in indignation.

Alex Jones quickstepped her heel into her own dress and then promptly fell over. Which wasn’t actually as ridiculous as it sounds. Unlike Russell Grant’s performance, which was so ridiculous that words cannot describe it. He started off wearing glasses on a bucking bronco, and then stomped round the studio doing what was apparently a paso doble. We had to double-check our drink to make sure nobody had slipped a hallucinogenic in there without us noticing.

Holly Valance’s partner Artem was suffering from a mystery injury. So mysterious, in fact, that it took them until the results show to decide that it was a back injury, which leads us to believe that it’s a case of Kara Tointon going all Nancy Kerrigan and attacking her own boyfriend so he won’t have to keep dancing with Ms Valance. Unfortuntely for Kara, they just dosed Artem up on a shitload of very strong painkillers and her plan failed.

And so, we were left with two ladies (we use the term loosely) and their Charlestons. Anita and Robin rehearsed for theirs by dressing up as gangsters and attacking each other with shaving foam, whilst Chelsee and Pacha went all Karate Kid. Neither of them fell over, and nobody’s tit fell out, so we were a bit disappointed. Unlike the judges, who loved them both, the fools.

So we came to Sunday night’s results show, which was hugely predictable although everyone tried to pretend it wasn’t. Audley found himself in the bottom two once again, because that’s where he lives now. Joining him was Lulu, who clearly freaked everyone out with her weird balloon dance and got sent home to continue her decline into complete insanity.

At least her delusions will provide ideas for Russell’s next dance though. That’s something.

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Ah, the Strictly Come Dancing Halloween special. The BBC’s annual chance to horrify the entire nation with overly made-up celebrities, horribly acted VTs and Craig Whatsit-Thingy taking part in the most obvious joke of all time and flying into the studio on a broomstick.

October just wouldn’t be the same without it.

But this year it wasn’t all about the hastily thrown together scariness. No, the horror came from something far more terrifying; Robbie Savage’s genitals. He’d clearly taken the praise of his hip-thrusts to heart, and spent his entire routine grabbing at his own crotch and thrusting Lil’ Savage towards the cameras. He ended his routine by leaping on the desk and shoving his cock in Craig’s face. Nobody quite knew what to say.

But the horror didn’t end there; we also got treated to close-ups of Russell Grant’s waggling backside as he pranced around to Kylie. DURING THE FIRST DANCE OF THE SHOW. Really, shots like that should’ve come with some kind of health warning, but alas, the director evidently wanted to give us a special nauseating Halloween treat.

Also starring, it turned out, were Chelsee Healey’s breasts. Not content with being upstaged by her dancing last week, and Russell and Robbie this week, her funbags decided to make a bid for freedom and launch themselves out of her top. Chelsee immediately burst into tears whilst the entire British viewing public rewound her dance to try and see some nipple.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the filth scale, Alex Jones gave up all attempts to be sexy and donned a wedding dress to dance with a vampiric James. Who thankfully kept his mouth shut this week and didn’t make a total dick of himself.

Nancy Del’Olio, however, was as gobby as ever. After being criticised for doing the same lift over and over and over again, she decided to launch a stinging critique of Anton’s choreography. Or stand there belligerently whilst pulling some daft faces. Same difference. Either way, the pinnacle of her dance was her lying in a coffin. The rest of it was obviously shit.

Elsewhere, the soap actresses of the show appeared to be using the Halloween theme to try and re-launch their acting careers. Anita Dobson pulled funny faces at the audience and everyone called her a wonderful actress. Holly Valance tried to channel Black Swan and dance to Swan Lake, and managed not to make a total fool of herself. She got spun around six times, and managed not to vomit. Everyone was very disappointed.

Also digging into her bag of Halloween tricks was Lulu, who did a Widdecombe and flew into the studio. Obviously, once she’d landed she had no idea what the hell she was meant to be doing and just tottered around the floor after Brendan. One of these weeks she’s just doing to wander out of the studio and into the road. And no one will be able to stop her.

And so, we were left with the two supposedly “talented” men of the competition. Harry Judd put on a lot of eyeliner and got another inexplicable 10 from Alesha, presumably because she wants to have sex all over him. Jason Donovan did a quickstep and “returned to form” after last week’s carefully orchestrated attempt to make it seem like less of a foregone conclusion that he’ll win.

In the results show, the otherwise entirely forgettable Audley found himself in the bottom two with Nancy, who as always, seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that she’s a terrible, terrible dancer. She thought the judges were too mean to her. The viewing public did not agree, and sent her home.

And so, Anton du Beke found himself free from the horrors of the Del’Olio. And promptly upstaged every other actor who has ever been on the show by – almost believably – declaring he would miss her. Somebody give the man a leading role in a film. He clearly deserves it.

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Ah, reality TV. Don’t you just love it? With its endless orchestrated arguments and the potential to watch celebrities make total and utter knobs of themselves, it’s one of the wonders of the modern age. And this week, Strictly lived up to all its monstrous reality to potential.

Yes, after last week’s Broadway show, this week Strictly returned to having no theme whatsoever. Which clearly was not to the satisfaction of professional dancer James Jordan, who used his complete lack of imagination to launch his very own theme of “fight night”, and spent most of the evening yelling at the judges about how they were talentless little gits who are not appreciative of his skill and talent at choreography.

He was on a crusade to appear as stupid as possible, possibly to detract attention from the fact that he’d tried to make Alex Jones look sexy by making her dance to “Run” by Snow Patrol. That most sexual of all the songs.

Also engaged in a fight to the death were, inevitably, Nancy and Anton. They did a dance based on a bullfight, and nobody had any idea if Nancy was meant to be the cape or the bull. You’d think it would be obvious, but apparently not. Anton did his best to thwack her head on the floor at the end of the routine, but unfortunately Nancy’s vice-like leg grip around his waist kept her just clear, providing a whole world of alarming mental images for us to try and kill with excess gin and Domestos shots.

Harry “good arms” Judd, meanwhile, disappointed women the world over by wearing a complete outfit. He danced a waltz with partner Aliona, caused a fight about a kiss on the cheek, and then got inexplicably given the first ten of the series. We expect Jason Donovan will be waiting for him backstage, ready to attack him with some heroin and ruin his chances in the competition.

Because good ol’ Jason had a bit of a rubbish week this week, he got over-excited about his Spanish theme, and spent his time hanging around Tescos in fancy dress rather than actually practising. And so, for the first time in the series, he vacated the top of the leaderboard. And left it open for Chelsee.

Yes, that’s right. Chelsee tassle-tits Healey was top of the leaderboard. She dressed up as an air hostess and took enough Ritalin to calm down for a few minutes and get through her dance, and it turns out she’s actually quite good. Hopefully the costume department have learnt their lesson and will keep her outfits on the more sedate side from now on. She clearly just can’t resist as tassle-shimmy.

Also dressed kind of classily was Anita Dobson. Who’s 62. Did you hear that? 62! Everyone on Strictly would like to see someone else her age perform with so much excitement. 62! Who would’ve thought it? We have no idea what her dance was like because we were busily making sure that we remembered her age. Which is 62. Just so you know.

Of course, in all this fuss, the judges had forgotten that they had another 62 year old in the show – Lulu – who set out to prove that she’s still freakishly youthful by performing a samba, which all the judges loved. It turns out, you see, that her weird tendency to stomp around the stage seemingly at random wasn’t because she had no idea what was going on, but was actually a wonderful samba. That’s us taught.

Competing with Lulu for the title of “best natural blonde on Strictly” was Robbie Savage, who performed a nice little jive and landed himself solidly mid-table. Much like his footballing career then. Alesha Dixon thinks he should get a shampoo campaign. The rest of the world thinks he should get a haircut. With a hacksaw. From the throat upward.

Also sporting interesting hair this week was Russell Grant, who seemed to have dyed his hair a strange dark colour just for the occasion. We were briefly baffled by it, but then we realized that his dance started and ended with him in bed. Yes, that’s right. They brought a bed onto Strictly. We will be having nightmares about him and his teddy bear for years to come.

And so, we were left with the two unlikely men, Audley Harrison and Rory Bremner. Audley destroyed any credibility he had left by attending ballet lessons, but at least he didn’t trip over his feet this week. And poor Rory suffered the same fate as Alex Jones, and utterly failed to be sexy. Even though he completed a number of eyeball-scarring hip gyrations.

Clearly, the public was upset by Rory’s magical moving genitals, because they voted him off. Everyone looked incredibly upset, and started giving fellow bottom two dweller Nancy the dirtiest stink eye you’ve ever seen. Because she is obviously dreadful. Still, she lives to dance another week, and will be back on screens next week for the Strictly Halloween special.

Although we defy them to come up with anything even half as terrifying as Russell and that bear.

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Thanks to the joys of BBC budget cuts and misguided enthusiasm, this week was False Advertising Week on Strictly Come Dancing. The show claimed to be “going to Broadway”, but as the BBC has an annual budget of about 17p and they clearly can’t actually be arsed to fly a load of idiot celebrities to New York, they didn’t go to Broadway at all.

No. They stood in the usual studio, and they wore some wigs, and they danced to showtunes. It was basically exactly the same as it always is. Just with worse hair.

Not that that stopped the judges from attempting to create some Broadway-worthy drama. For it turned out that “bad boy” Brendan Cole had talked Lulu into doing an illegal lift during their routine. That heartless, evil bastard. Craig Giant-Surname got very annoyed about it, but nobody else gave a shit. Perhaps because they wouldn’t know the rules of ballroom if they wandered up, shagged their daughter and set fire to their house.

Elsewhere, the drama continued as Audley tripped over his own ridiculous clown feet and managed to stay disappointingly upright, and Holly Valance got her heel caught in her skirt for all of about half a second. Who would’ve thought that feet would turn out to be the villain of the show?

We were convinced that professional dancer Robin (aka Evil Artem) was going to be this week’s evil swine, but alas, he just had an extra-dodgy wig on. And didn’t seem any closer to snapping and killing everyone in the studio on live TV. His partner Anita Dobson still looks like a housewife in the middle of a nervous breakdown though, as she threw herself about the dancefloor with the manic grin of the heavily medicated. So she clearly knows about Evil Artem’s evil plan.

The men, meanwhile, were prancing about the floor completely oblivious to the evils of feet and wigs. Rory Bremner performed a quickstep, which was apparently “his dance”. Dan Lobb was entirely forgettable and still not anywhere near as funny as he thinks he is. And Robbie Savage appeared, looked entirely ridiculous with slicked-back hair and a waistcoat but no shirt, and did a little dance to Abba. And everyone loved it. He is the dark horse of the competition, apparently.

The strictly costume designer was clearly having issues with shirts this week, because Harry “Strong Arms Good Sense of Rhythm” Judd was also devoid of some of his clothing. He danced a jive, and Bruno jizzed himself on live TV.

Honestly.

No such shirtless fate befell Jason Donovan, thankfully. He just went to Priscilla and put on the most horrifyingly camp outfit of all time, before donning a bright pink shirt and flouncing around the dance floor with pink feathers and a scary grimace. It was better than it sounds though, because he came out top of the leaderboard again.

Alex Jones performed a very simple but apparently very effective waltz or something. We’re not sure. We fell asleep a little bit. And then Chelsee Healey carried on being crazily overenthusiastic and overly tassled. She’s going to have someone’s eye out one week. Hopefully. Not Bruce Forsyth’s though because he has two glass ones.

And what of Nancy and her incredible powers of self-delusion? She announced that she was actually amazing last week, and then attempted to have sex with a chair. She tried her best to do an actual dance, and then got her revenge on Anton by shoving him across the floor. The whole thing was a little disappointing.

But perhaps that was because all anyone cared about was Russell Grant, who is fast becoming the HAPPIEST MAN IN THE HISTORY OF TIME. He carried on his tradition of prancing around the floor in a white suit with a massive, cat-like smile. We want to shrink him down to 6 inches high and keep him as a pet.

The results show saw Dan Lobb being voted off, which was not surprising or particularly interesting. We’re more worried about what will happen to Russell when he eventually gets voted off. His entire reason for living may be taken away, and he’ll top himself on live TV.

So please, everyone, for the love of God, keep voting for him. Otherwise you’ll be responsible for the death of a happy little fat man.

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After last week’s prancing about for no real reason, this week Strictly is gaining some tiny, pathetic little morsel of a purporse in this meaningless world. Yes, this week on Strictly, they remembered that it’s a competition and got round to actually throwing someone off.

Before they got dancing though, Bruce had to do an impression of a drunken camp dinosaur. We’ve no idea why, but what we do know is that that was the last point in the show where we bothered paying attention to him.

We were so distracted by Chelsee Healey that, for quite some time, we had no idea what was going on.

The VT informed us Chelsee (and her hair and boobs and general ridiculousness) couldn’t concentrate, so we were looking forward to a comically dreadful dance. Instead, she started off on the judge’s desk dressed like a mop and shaking in a most alarming fashion. And then she performed a fairly decent routine. It was hugely, soul-crushingly disappointing all round.

Edwina Currie attempted to be a cougar who danced the foxtrot. Imagine. A cougar and fox hybrid! Anyway, she purred at the camera and a nation threw up in unison (thousands drowned in sick) and her routine featured huge amounts of sitting down and a ridiculous daft grin like she’s been hit in the face with an axe. It was apparently set in a café. You know? Where all that dancing goes on?

Away from cafes and back in the land of dancing, Audley Harrison (guitarist from The Beatles) threatened to punch Craig if he didn’t like his salsa and then completely failed to follow through on his threat. Lulu disappointed everyone in the world by actually remembering her routine, and Holly Valance went fishing for compliments by announcing that she’s not sexy.

Russell Grant danced some kind of alarming salsa to Dancing Queen and looked like he was having more fun than anyone has ever had before. It would’ve been sweet if it weren’t so disturbing. Harry “from McFly” Judd disappointed women everywhere by wearing sleeves, and they were all more or less acceptable. Some more than others.

And then Rory Bremner appeared, and danced in an open-to-the-waist spangly shirt. He shook his chest about a lot which will keep therapists in work for decades as the nation attempts to forget Rory’s moobs clapping together.

That and the fact that evil Artem (they call him Robin, but we don’t believe it) forced poor, unsuspecting Anita Dobson to dress like a reject from a Timmy Mallet video and then dragged her around the floor.

Elsewhere, there was terrifying sexual harassment on display. Alex Jones got some electric shocks and then gave everyone nightmares by planting a kiss on John Prescott, who promptly jizzed himself in the front row. “TV presenter” Dan Lobb still wasn’t funny, except during a lift where he buried his face in partner Katya’s ladygarden. And we’re pretty sure that wasn’t intended to be comedic.

Letting us down on the sex-pesting though, was Robbie Savage. He came out dressed all suave and fancy in a suit, and not even the vast amounts of sideboob on display from Ola Jordan could distract him. He is a man reformed! He cares not for women, and football, and being a repulsive human! He is just here to dance!

We are bored of him already.

Everyone’s favourite druggie Jason Donovan announced that last week’s stint at the top of the leaderboard was one of the highlights of his career. Never mind having sex with Kylie. Those’re priorities for you. He gets to bask in the glow of his greatest achievement a bit longer, because he was top of the leaderboard again.

And that left Nancy. Ridiculous, ridiculous Nancy. You may remember that last week her partner Anton tried to kill her to death with a feather boa. Well, this week he was determined to drop her on the head, and make it look like a well-intentioned lift gone wrong. But not before she’d stood on the judge’s desk and shown everyone her gusset. It’s fair to say that it was perhaps the worst dance ever performed on television. Or anywhere, at any time, in the entire history of dancing. Obviously, everyone loved it.

And so we came to the results show, where Will Young came along and sang a nice song whilst walking down some stairs, and Claudia Winkleman continued to defy the laws of physics by wearing ALL OF THE EYELINER IN THE WORLD and still managing to keep her eyes open.

Edwina got sent home, pretty much purely because Nancy is funnier than her, and we got treated to a preview of next week’s “Broadway Special”. In which Anton will “accidentally” swap his stage pistol for a real one, and Nancy Dell’Olio will die on live television.

It’ll probably be worth watching.

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A few weeks ago, Strictly came back, with a lovely bunch of has-been celebs ready to don the sequins and sexually assault professional dancers on live television. You might’ve forgotten this, because they all had to sod off for six weeks and attempt to learn how to dance. Which really, is missing a trick. They should all be made to just dance immediately, whilst Bruce Forsyth stands wielding a taser and screaming “DANCE! DANCE!” at them.

THAT would be good telly.

But alas, Bruce’s main contribution to the show remains a sequence of utterly dreadful jokes. We know he’s a national treasure and all, but really, the whole thing would be a lot better if he’d just shut up and let us get on with laughing at Nancy Del’Olio. And oh, how we did laugh. For Nancy has been partnered with Anton du Beke, who quite clearly wants her dead.

Their routine began with Nancy faffing about on a chaise longue and refusing to partake in any dancing, whilst Anton gave her a “playful shove”. We say playful. Really, it was the shove someone gives their worst enemy whilst they’re standing above a vat of acid. Filled with spikes. On the edge of the grand canyon. He even managed to talk her feather boa into joining his evil plot to kill her by wrapping itself around her feet, but alas, Nancy remained upright.

We look forward to next week’s murder attempt.

And Anton killing Nancy might not be the only death. Because nobody else seems to have noticed, but it’s been brought to hecklerspray’s attention that professional dancer Robin Windsor – who’s partnered with the surprisingly good Anita Dobson, who has a history of being paired with evil bastards – is in fact Artem Chignywhatshisface’s evil twin. He’s clearly going to kill him and take his place, out of a mad jealousy that we can only hope has nothing to do with Holly Valance. Because she looked like a giant, sexless sequin, although the judges thought she was really good. Her dress must’ve blinded them. It’s the only possibility.

Elsewhere, the show was depressingly murder-free. In fact, it was so tame that nobody was even sent home; instead, they were greeted with the horrifying and panic-inducing news that their scores would be carried over to next week. Although they did have the challenge of listening to Alesha Dixon talk without dying of hatred, so at least there was some danger there.

And there was danger for Chelsee Healey too, who had the challenge of dancing without being dragged to the ground by her ridiculously giant tits. She succeeded, although the judges told her that her waltz was a bit mental. We’d stopped watching once it became clear she did have some balance.

The rest of them were pretty non-descript. Even Edwina Currie, which is probably for the best because she’s already disturbed enough people for one lifetime.

Alex Jones was still unbelievably Welsh, Harry Judd was still the member of McFly with the biggest arms, Lulu had no idea what show she was on and Robbie Savage wore an embarrassing sleeveless top with “Bad Boy” written on the back.

Dan Lobb, meanwhile, had clearly been told by somebody on the Daybreak set that he’s really funny. Which he’s not. But that didn’t matter, because nobody watches Daybreak, so nobody would ever have known. Now he’s ruined it by being pathetically humourless on prime-time TV. The fool. It all looked pretty unremarkable.

And then Jason Donovan happened.

It turns out that Jason Donovan is in fact the world’s most unlikely dancing god. He’d just been too busy spending his time shagging Kylie/being in Joseph/suffering some kind of breakdown and taking too many drugs to really try it out before now.

He stormed through his routine without once falling over or forgetting it – a miracle considering the amount of heroin he once packed into his veins – and got a whacking great standing ovation and the top score. They should just give him the trophy and be done with it. But they won’t. They’ll drag it out until Christmas, and we’ll all get to witness Anton du Beke snapping and killing Nancy Del’Olio on primetime TV.

It’s going to be great.

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The murky swamp of celebrity gossip has been threatening to drown Jada Pinkett-Smith or, at the very least, feed her to a float of hungry crocodiles with an agenda against the Wachowski Brothers.

After rumours emerged that her fame is almost completely linked to being Will Smith’s wife, Pinkett-Smith was under close scrutiny to prove that she could still get work without water-skiing the afore-mentioned swamp, using Mr Smith’s coattails to keep herself upright.

Pinkett-Smith, currently appearing in the widely panned but yet renewed TNT series ‘Hawthorne’, has said that she is grateful for the support of her husband.

The actress had been romantically linked to her co-star Marc Anthony despite the man looking like an interrupted child’s claymation representation of what a human being should look like. These rumours were strongly denied by both Anthony and Pinkett-Smith but then, if you were having an affair, you would deny rumours like that.

Of course, Jada doesn’t understand some really simple concepts surrounding marriage and therefore, one would imagine, she’s incapable of carrying on an affair with anyone without announcing it on a billboard.

It seems that one of Jada’s primary worries about divorce is having to raise the two kids- Jaden & Willow- on her own. We’re not sure if the star of “The Matrix films that no-one likes” has fully understood the concept of a divorce to be honest. In a recent interview with Bang, she said:

“Thank goodness they have a father and I don’t have to raise them alone. Having been raised by a single mother I’m very clear on what the difficulties of being raised by a single mother are.”

That’s fine, yeah. The kids do have a father. The two of them getting a divorce wouldn’t act as a magical child-repellant on Will Smith, making him forget about his responsibilities as a father and returning to Miami to get ‘jiggy wid it’ with a bevvy of attractive women in fluorescent bikinis. This isn’t the 90s!

“It’s very hard when you don’t have a male component in the home to create balance and help in the decision-making. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to just pass the ball, like, ‘Tag, you’re it, you got this one’.”

Again we feel compelled to point out that divorce isn’t the same as not having a father. Given that the kids seem to have fledgling acting and music careers thanks to the connections of their Dad, it seems that somebody might be trying to lay the groundwork for a custody battle. Probably someone doing interviews at Bang Showbiz.

Shit-stirring. We like that.

Things aren’t looking so great for Tom Cruise’s big new comeback movie Valkyrie.

Apparently a big action film about a one-eyed Tom Cruise trying to batter Hitler to death with a suitcase isn’t all that. Who knew?

However, Tom Cruise isn’t going down without a fight. It’s been claimed that staff at a radio station were offered a free screening of Valkyrie – at Tom Cruise’s actual house – but only on the proviso that they all said that Valkyrie was a masterpiece, that Tom Cruise was a sexy virtuoso of acting and that Katie Holmes‘ dungeon actually didn’t look that uncomfortable really.

There’s a glut of big, big Oscar-worthy movies coming out at the moment, from Kate Winslet‘s moving portrayal of a Nazi in the upcoming adaptation of the acclaimed novel Holocaust MILF Sluts Go Wild to Meryl Streep‘s incendiary performance in Doubt, the follow-up to Mamma Mia that explores institutionalised paedophilia in the priesthood to the timeless beat of some of Abba‘s most beloved hits.

Our point is that it’s hard to get your movie noticed at the moment. Especially, as it turns out, if your movie is a dreary load of cock about Hitler that stars one of the most profoundly unlikeable actors in movie history. Which hobbles Tom Cruise’s new film Valkyrie from the outset, really.

To put it politely, Valkyrie has had a troubled birth. Germany tried banning Tom Cruise from filming there, then there were all the accidents, then its release got shunted around the calendar like a flaming dogpoo that nobody knew how to put out properly. And that was before the reviews started coming in.

The early word on Valkyrie is that it’s ‘unengaging’ and that Tom Cruise is ‘distractingly bad’ in it. But that doesn’t sit too well with Tom Cruise himself – after the disappointment of Mission: Impossible III and the fetid, unwatched abortion that was Lions For Lambs, Tom needs Valkyrie to be a great big hit. If it isn’t a massive, career-resuscitating blockbuster, then Tom Cruise will have insincerely apologised to Matt Lauer for absolutely nothing at all, and that would just tear him apart.

That’s why Tom Cruise has apparently been offering critics private screenings of Valkyrie at his house so long as they say something – anything – nice about the film. MSNBC reports:

According to a source with radio station K-Earth 101, the Cruise camp was willing to go to great lengths to garner some positive publicity. In fact, they went so far as to offer a screening for anyone at the station and their friends at the Cruise home, according to the source. “They offered to hold it in Tom’s home — they didn’t say if he’d be there or not. We just had to agree to say ‘nice things’ about the movie.”

Now, it goes without saying that this news is the last thing that Tom Cruise wants to get out. It makes him look like a needy, approval-seeking idiot desperately doing anything he can to save a movie that he knows stinks. It’s literally the worst publicity that Valkyrie could get – and since its publicity already includes the pull-quote ‘Tom Cruise is distractingly bad’ that’s really saying something.

But you know what? We’re willing to give Valkyrie a chance. Personally we’ve always found Tom Cruise to be an engagingly charismatic actor, plus he’s surrounded by a cast of exceptionally talented character actors and telling a story of enormous global significance. In fact, we’re going to confidently predict that Valkyrie will be one of the best movies made this decade. We can’t wait to go and see Valkyrie.

And, best of all, we’ll get to go and see it in the brand new sports car that Tom Cruise is going to send us for writing that last paragraph. Remember the contract, Tom. The boot has to be stuffed with jewels and prostitutes. Again, that’s jewels and prostitutes.

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New James Bond movie Quantum Of Solace faces an almost impossible task – could it be more well-received than Casino Royale?

It’s a tough job – because, as we all know, films don’t get any better than overlong Bourne rip-offs about a man who cries blood when he’s losing at cards – and it seems like it might have been too much of a tough job for Quantum Of Solace.

Early reviews for Quantum of Solace are starting to trickle in, and they’re all fairly scathing. But James Bond movies always tend to be a direct reaction against the previous one, so we can all relax. The follow-up to the emotionally bleak Quantum Of Solace – provisionally entitled Daniel Craig Punches A Laser-Shark In His Little Knickers – is sure to be a belter.

The omens for Quantum Of Solace weren’t great from the outset. Following a success as big as Casino Royale was always going to be tough, but following it with a movie with the world’s worst name directed by a man whose last film was about kites, written by a bald Scientologist, featuring a theme-tune that sounds like an angry wasp smacking against the inside of an upturned metal dustbin and starring a 12-fingered woman doing an impression of a Torrey Canyon gannet probably wasn’t going to help very much either, to be honest.

Having said that, though, nobody thought that Casino Royale was going to be any good either, so maybe Quantum Of Solace could pull off the impossible and end up halfway decent too, couldn’t it?

Well, no. Not if the early stream of Quantum Of Solace reviews are anything to go by. Here’s the best of what we’ve seen so far…

Kim Newman from Empire says that “while it’s exciting, it’s not exactly anyone’s idea of fun. To keep in the game, perhaps the next movie could let the hero enjoy himself a bit more.”

Richard Brookes from The Times was especially unimpressed. “Bond is a boorish oaf who simply rushes from country to country with the manic speed of Jason Bourne, including sequences shot in Panama, Chile, Italy, Mexico and Austria, in a plot about holding a country to ransom over its water supply. Quantum of Solace lacks any wit, ironic or otherwise, which has been a strength of so many 007 films.”

The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw claims “I was disappointed there was so little dialogue, flirtation and characterisation in this Bond: Forster and his writers Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade clearly thought this sort of sissy nonsense has to be cut out in favour of explosions… I was also baffled that relatively little was made of the deliciously villainous Amalric: especially the final encounter.”

The Mirror‘s Dave Edwards thinks that Quantum Of Solace “doesn’t feel like a Bond film at all. Not once does Craig say: ‘The name’s Bond. James Bond.’ There’s no Q or his gadgets. Heck, we even see Bond in a cardigan.”

A cardigan? Well eff that. Anyway, it was always fairly obvious that Quantum Of Solace wasn’t going to be particularly amazing, because of the well-worn ‘one good, one bad’ James Bond formula. Casino Royale was good, so Quantum Of Solace has to be bad. Then the movie after Quantum Of Solace will be good, and the one after that will be about a man with a dream machine trying to saw the world in half with a space laser that only an invisible car can stop. That’s just how it works. Don’t shoot the messenger.

Anyway, just because the Quantum Of Solace reviews are bad, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun watching it. Why not do what we plan to do – every time you see a piece of jarring product placement in Quantum Of Solace, shout the name of the offending brand as loudly as possible. You’ll be thrown out by the twelfth “SONY!”, promise.

Last night at the O2 arena in London, something momentous happened – a bunch old men played some old songs and everyone wet themselves.

We're talking about Led Zeppelin, of course – last night marked the long-awaited, obscenely-anticipated, ticket website-melting Led Zeppelin comeback at the O2. But even though the band is now made up of Michael Winner, a curly-haired toby jug, a bank manager and someone's son, could Led Zeppelin match the hype? We've got a round-up of some of the best Led Zeppelin reviews from last night for you, saving you the trouble of wading through the foaming avalanche yourself.

Warning: the following article contains the phrase "Page dispensed powerchords like an aged Thor lobbing down thunderbolts for kicks." Seriously.

By now you know all the facts about Led Zeppelin's live return. 22 years after they buggered up a comeback at Live Aid – although it's easier to just blame Phil Collins for that one, like we tend to do for everything – Led Zeppelin decided reform for one concert as a tribute to their dead record label boss. It was a risk – not only were Led Zeppelin opening themselves up to criticism about everything from their age to the way that all their songs go on for eight hours, but also it'd mean they'd fall behind in their sideline of bitching about merchandise websites a lot.  

But last night Led Zeppelin got to show if they still had it in front of a tiny slice of the 170 trillion people who attempted to buy tickets for their comeback show. Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham's son Jason – whose father wasn't able to attend because it'd mean he'd miss Dragon's Den – turned up at the O2 arena in London to show what we could do. We weren't there, obviously, but that doesn't mean we can't see what everyone else thought of the Led Zeppelin comeback.

Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote: "The riff that powers In My Time Of Dying is authentically churning and queasy, Ramble On sounds not like a song that's been brought out of mothballs for a benefit concert but wrigglingly, obscenely alive; Trampled Underfoot's conjunction of jittering funk and squealing, metallic guitar seems more bizarre and beguiling than ever."

Ben Ratliff of The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Plant — the youngest of the original members, at 59 — doesn’t walk and gesture like an excited woman anymore. Some of the top of his voice has gone, but except for one attempted and failed high note in “Stairway to Heaven” (“there walks a la-dy we all know{hellip}”), he found other melodic routes to suit him."

David Cheal from The Telegraph wrote: "Then it got better still: Black Dog. Byzantine riff, pulverising drums, hollering vocals. Magic. And no sign of Jimmy Page's finger injury that had caused the gig to be delayed. 'Good evening,' said Plant."

And finally, since we promised, here's what Pete Paphides from The Times wrote: "Plant’s quick kick to the base of his mike stand sent it flying up into the path of his hand. Page dispensed powerchords like an aged Thor lobbing down thunderbolts for kicks. It had been good before, but something of the devil seemed to get hold of them at this point. Now sans shades, Page launched into a filthy seam of swamp guitar, from which a magnificent In My Time of Dying swelled to epic proportions."

Sounded good, but can those critics say that they've witnessed the monolithic rock spectacle of Chico from X Factor performing at Skegness Butlins? No, no they can't.

Now the biggest question is about the future of Led Zeppelin. Will they go on a world tour like that bloke from The Cult said? Or will they stick to their original story about only doing one show to honour the memory of Ahmet Artegun? Fingers crossed for the first one – because we get the feeling that a reformed Led Zeppelin could be one of the biggest live draws of all time. 

At least until Boyzone get their act together and start doing some shows, anyway.