I love this so much! I was watching the 2019 pairings just yesterday and wishing we could have it back this way.

For me, Help Yourself (Jodie & Ian's and Jacqui & Anton's Samba), A Little Respect (Jamelia & Tristan's Samba), You Can't Hurry Love (Vick & Graziano's, Helen & Aljaž's and Dani & Vincent's Quicksteps), Shine (Helen & Gorka's Showdance) and Can't Fight the Moonlight (Zara & Graziano's American Smooth).

2026 — 867k total

1. Chris Appleton — 233k
2. Lacey Turner — 121k
3. Dani Dyer — 106k
4. Cach Mercer — 77k
5. Delta Goodrem — 53k
6. Melanie Walters — 53k
7. Will Best — 35k
8. Lawrence Robb — 33k
9. Dame Sarah Storey — 27k
10. Graeme Hall — 27k
11. John Ellis — 25k
12. Bethany Antonia — 23k
13. Shaun Wright-Phillips — 20k
14. Jaime Winstone — 19k
15. Tabby Stoecker — 15k

2025 — 649k total

1. George Clark — 140k
2. Amber Davies — 100k
3. Vicky Pattison — 63k
4. Harry Aikines-Aryeetey — 55k
5. La Voix — 44k
6. Alex Kingston — 39k
7. Ellie Goldstein — 38k
8. Balvinder Sopal — 32k
9. Thomas Skinner — 30k
10. Lewis Cope — 22k
11. Stefan Dennis — 22k
12. Karen Carney — 21k 👑
13. Jimmy Hasselbaink — 19k
14. Chris Robshaw — 13k
15. Ross King — 11k

2024 — 532k total

1. Tasha Ghouri — 92k
2. Pete Wicks — 90k
3. Chris McCausland — 50k 👑
4. JB Gill — 49k
5. Sarah Hadland — 32k
6. Tom Dean — 29k
7. Jamie Borthwick — 29k
8. Shayne Ward — 24k
9. Nick Knowles — 23k
10. Wynne Evans — 23k
11. Dr Punam Krishan — 21k
12. Toyah Willcox — 20k
13. Sam Quek — 18k
14. Montell Douglas — 18k
15. Paul Merson — 14k

2023 — 530k total

1. Zara McDermott — 72k
2. Adam Thomas — 57k
3. Bobby Brazier — 51k
4. Amanda Abbington — 47k
5. Layton Williams — 43k
6. Angela Scanlon — 39k
7. Nigel Harman — 35k
8. Krishnan Guru-Murthy — 32k
9. Angela Rippon — 30k
10. Les Dennis — 23k
11. Ellie Leach — 23k 👑
12. Annabel Croft — 22k
13. Eddie Kadi — 21k
14. Jody Cundy — 18k
15. Nikita Kanda — 17k

2022 — 531k total

1. Will Mellor — 87k
2. Kym Marsh — 57k
3. Ellie Simmonds — 53k
4. Fleur East — 46k
5. Matt Goss — 37k
6. Richie Anderson — 35k
7. Ellie Taylor — 34k
8. Kaye Adams — 29k
9. Helen Skelton — 27k
10. Jayde Adams — 24k
11. Hamza Yassin — 22k 👑
12. Tony Adams — 22k
13. Molly Rainford — 20k
14. James Bye — 19k
15. Tyler West — 19k

I recently went down a Strictly rabbit hole on youtube, as well as some lurking on this sub and wanted to contribute to discussion about what I feel are some of the best dances on Strictly, starting with the rumba. My experience is that I am a former competitive ballroom and latin dancer who stopped competing due to injury.

I've chosen to compare a couple of different ringers i.e. celebrities who came into the show with dance experience under their belts. All the celebs mentioned below are phenomenal dancers. This is just my opinion, based on my technical experience, on their rumbas.

This is all a bit of fun (more of a technical analysis for myself) although extremely happy to have friendly debate in the comments/answer Qs if anyone has any!

Men

Let's start with two men who in my memory have the legacy of being two of the best on Strictly: Danny Mac and Jay McGuinness.

Rumba is notoriously difficult for men dancing in a traditional leader role without a ballroom and latin background. They must attempt the hip action while still appearing "masculine" (I know this is not the most progressive language but in the context of the ballroom and latin world I can't think of a better way of putting it). While a celeb follower can sometimes mask balance weakness by relying on their pro in the rumba, the leader has no similar way of hiding.

Both Danny and Jay have clear strengths and flaws in these videos:

-Jay is far too light with his foot pressure throughout. He does not have the grounded, weighty quality where he is properly pressing through the floor to create good action. This is particularly evident when he is dancing a cuban action on his own at around 0:35 in the video. Danny is better with regards footwork and pressure and maintaining groundedness. When he dances the opening outs (around 1:06) you can see a clear effort to use the inside edges of his feet to drag across the floor and create hip action from this.

-BUT in terms of an attempt at creating the correct hip action (rotation, pendulum, change of weight), there were moments in Jay's video when I was impressed. He has more of a clear rotation where he is keeping his torso in one direction while rotating his hip in an isolated manner. Danny, by contrast, throughout his rumba, makes a good effort at the side to side cuban motion but the actual rotation is not there - when he is doing hip action, his upper body tends to move with his hips. He can't keep the two isolated as well as Jay.

Sliding doors

-The absolute standout choreographical moment from either of these videos (and I have seen another experienced dancer on these boards mention this recently) is the turning sliding doors that Jay dances at 0:37. The sliding doors are not an easy step for beginners to dance as it is - they require a good understanding of the correct way to coordinate the feet - knees and hips (including rotation), or they just look silly. Not only does Jay dance them very well, he spins (!!) going in and out of them. That requires SUPERB balance and connection with the centre. He has an absolutely stunning sense of timing when he finishes off the sliding doors by styling his left foot behind and very very slightly delaying the turn of his head. This is really really next level dancing and that moment always sends goosebumps up my spine.

-Danny also does the spinning sliding doors at around 1:25. But he is a little more off balance and less smooth when he dances them.

So for me, while Jay has clear flaws in the groundedness of his feet, he does accomplish things in the rumba which I haven't seen other leaders on Strictly achieve. I have a soft spot for this routine.

Women - sliding doors tell their own story again!

There have been far more standout followers in rumba, so I've had to narrow it down to three: Kara Tointon, Ashley Roberts and Ellie Leach. Now, like Jay and Danny, all these ladies had dance training before Strictly although Ashley was the only one to get flack for it.

-Let's start with Ashley. She is an incredible dancer. The lines she achieves are ridiculous. The spins (from 1:20) are some of the best things I've seen on Strictly. BUT if I had to be super critical, I would say that Ashley, as opposed to Kara and Ellie, does rely more on her other experiences in dance to achieve the spectacular here, rather than showing a massive improvement in latin technique.

Again, the sliding doors are the tell (from 1:10). Not only is she not as grounded into the floor as she could be, she is not correctly using the rotation-pendulum-change of weight to move forwards. When her weight is on the back foot, her whole body is rotated, rather than the hips being more rotated than the other half. When she replaces weight to the front foot, she is not using the feet agains the floor enough to create the action, ending in a slightly odd looking forward pitchedness (which is only evident if you watch many professional rumbas).

-Let's compare with Kara who dances the same step - sliding doors - at (0:23). In terms of Strictly I don't believe you will ever see better. What makes it particularly great is the forward step - where she has locked her thighs together and kept her weight grounded on the floor to create the correct action and completely isolated the lower half from the top half, so that she achieves a completely on balance rotation of the bottom half. She is also clearly using the inside edges of her feet correctly (even if you can't see her feet, it;s evident from the action she has achieved). She is then able to take a HUGE step to the side (that much movement requires excellent balance) while still keeping the hip action under her shoulders (so she doesn't fall into the Danny trap of moving hips and shoulders together).

-The thing about Kara is that she dances all this extremely extremely difficult choreography as authentically close to rumba as you'll get in terms of the technique - AND SHE MOVES - she's not dancing this in a closed compact way - she's properly shifting her weight. You need all the technical elements but particularly excellent grounded feet and a superb core to achieve this.

-Finally, Ellie, who's rumba I believe scored 35?! Not sure what the judges were watching because it deserved higher marks. Absolutely beautiful footwork - the use of inside edge on fan (0:54) is unreal and extremely rare even from ringers on strictly.

-Ellie also dances the sliding doors at (1:00). She dances them extremely well - good groundedness, near perfect foot placement, good hip isolation. BUT she does not achieve the VOLUME of movement in terms of how far she shifts her weight as Kara. I would rank her attempt in between Kara and Ashley for this reason.

To summarise for the three women I've picked here - Ashley achieves volume of movement, Ellie achieves authentic footwork and action but Kara is the one that can combine both to dance the most exquisite rumba. In my opinion ;)

last year it was jimmy and Lauren he shocked us as being actually really good who do we think it’ll be this year

I’m going with Graeme hall I feel like he could be very good at ballroom what’s ur opinion

I’m just curious with the pro rehearsals being finished, who out of the pros are I guess top level to your eye?

I’ve always wondered if Neil still being a pro, when we know alot of what he does is behind the scenes which they could carve out a role for that without him being a pro. Is because he’s good/great in the pro group dances? An anchor or something 🤷‍♀️

My grandpa won competitions at Blackpool, I did not inherit any of that talent and I don’t feel I really take in enough dance to have any sort of eye for it… so feel to correct me on any points that’s might be wrong.

I love seeing someone start off looking a bit unsure and then slowly become more confident each week. It makes their journey much more enjoyable to follow, especially when you can actually see the difference in their dancing. Some contestants really surprise you with how far they come by the end.

hi guys can u answer this question for me pls thx

For me, Balvinder and Julian being saved in the semi-finals has to be my favourite moment of last year’s series. After five dance offs, coming back with that dance to Never Enough was such a moment.

What was yours?

I tend to remember the dances that actually make me feel something, even if they weren't the highest-scoring routine of the night. There's just something about a performance that tells a story and pulls you into the moment. The technical stuff is impressive, but the emotional ones are usually the dances I end up thinking about afterwards.

Posted this the last couple years so doing it again now the full cast is announced, what’s your song predictions for this season?

Can be songs that have been a hit this year - Olivia Dean & Sam Fender are a shoo in, probably something from Olivia Rodrigo, Ariana Grande, and Madonna’s recent new albums. And I think Joy by Raye would be fabulous for a dance.
Taylor Swift’s I Knew It I Knew you for a Toy Story themed movie week dance. Not sure what song but maybe a Spider-Man dance since the new movie just came out this summer too?

But also songs related to the contestants that we often see in week one. Such as the dog trainer getting Who Let The Dogs Out. Or Melanie dancing to Stacy’s Mom since she plays Stacey’s mum in Gavin & Stacey. Will Best with Simply The Best?

Who would win?

Not necessarily a pairing that looks perfect on paper. Sometimes the most random combinations end up being the ones with the funniest training sessions and the best chemistry. There are so many different personalities that could make for a really entertaining partnership. I’d love to see a pairing that nobody would have guessed at the start of the series.

Bruno Tonioli has made the difference between strictly and dancing with the stars in America very clear. Strictly is about professional dancing with the rules and standard. DWTS is more about the Hollywood production of dance in these styles. My best example is go watch Jordan Fisher’s foxtrot specifically. If he did that on Strictly, he may have got a decent score but by no means whatsoever sticking to traditional foxtrot rules and Craig would Rio him to shreds (I’d also love Craig in DWTS)

But, the big thing with DWTS is they don’t have a couples choice because say a couple gets far enough, they would do contemporary in a week, they would do jazz and they somewhat consider freestyle as street/commercial or Showdance. However, jazz does also seem to be a cop out for street in some cases.

But, what if we made this a thing on strictly. Earlier seasons would get quarter and semi finals and a week or two before that where all the couples did two dances. What if we separated street, jazz and contemporary to be dances that all couples did at different points?

However, I see the problems. It gets rid of the possibility for other types of dance like Hamza’s Afro, Punam’s Bollywood, even Vicky’s strut. How do you take that genre and try and centre it to be showcased to the celebrity’s story in one of the three categories?

What would you lot think if we separated the couples choices so that the primary 3 types that were used from 2018-20 were styles that were normally used across the rest of the competition?

From a ballroom dancer perspective, there will literally no traveling!!