Within two years – maybe one – the pre-eminent mode of political discourse in our society will be things that did or didn’t happen on Strictly Come Dancing. This imperial phase for our culture was actually all predicted by Edmund Burke in a sealed section of A Vindication of Natural Society, viewable only by those with a pure heart and the sophisticated conviction that ballroom has always been war by other means. I think Burke also foresaw Gregg Wallace, whom we’ll come to in a sec.
As you may know, the top-rated BBC Saturday night show has once again been fitted with its “row” suffix. The latest incident to rock Strictly, in the parlance of these things, concerns pro dancer Katya Jones and Wynne Evans, the guy who plays the opera singer Gio Compario from the Go.Compare adverts. And if you gave in to even a twitch of a smile at the thought of contemporary sexual politics being litigated via those proxies, then you should be immediately reclassified into that least escapable modern category: Part of the Problem. As for the problem – is it very bad to have spent two days scrutinising the footage, watching the row mushroom, studying the two separate apology videos for something the pair insist was a joke, and still be distinctly unclear on what did or didn’t happen? If so, I can only apologise.
To briefly summarise, footage from Saturday shows Wynne’s hand slightly creeping round Katya’s waist, and her moving it back. There also seems to have been a declined high-five. As mentioned, both have since posted video apologies – e-pologies, if you will – saying it was just a silly inside joke. And look, I have a huge amount of time for formal statements containing the words “we were just messing around in the Clauditorium”. (Likewise, today’s official corporation statement about something said in a Mrs Brown’s Boys rehearsal, which declares the BBC “against all forms of racism”, and sounds like something Derek Zoolander might have on a T-shirt.)
The Strictly row has drawn forth all the forces of the preindustrial woo-woo complex. Take “body language expert” Judi James, doyenne of this venerated science, who is somehow yet to receive the nod from the Nobel committee. Judi was on hand in the Daily Mail to reveal the “true meaning” of the pair’s joint apology for the joke. “Wynne’s smile looks awkward and becomes a teeth-baring gesture when he opens his mouth to try to speak,” she decrees. “His ‘Yes, sorry’ looks penitent and he finishes with a lip-clamp with his mouth pulled down at the corners in a denial ritual. Katya leans into the camera with her brows raised and finishes with clenched teeth.”
Not to be in a denial ritual, but … sorry, what? I’m certainly looking forward to Judi being let loose on the concurrent Gregg Wallace videos. The MasterChef host also seems to be in some kind of – yes – hot water over on-set jokes, and has consequently felt the need to set the record straight. Has he succeeded? Well, we can probably all agree that none of us would wish to have been sitting in our home study yesterday with a selfie stick while saying the words: “These allegations were investigated by the BBC six years ago and my comments were found to be not sexual.” This sort of thing is normally the prelude to joining Substack. Then this morning, Gregg could be found yomping across a field with that same selfie stick, revealing he was stressed but sticking to “my healthy lifestyle choices … I really like a mango. I really like a pineapple. I really like a bowl of blueberries.”
Gregg has himself done Strictly, of course, such is the nature of light entertainment cross-pollination. He subsequently revealed of his stint on the show: “I was having a really tough time … The side of my face broke out into a rash, like cold sores but up the side of my face.” Unable to go on stage one Saturday night, he summoned a therapist to the studio – “I got parking for her” – only for her to fix him with the words: “Gregg Wallace, as important as you think you are, nobody gives a shit what you dance like, mate.” This wasn’t the line he went with after elimination, of course, but she arguably had a point.
Yet for something meant to be a bit of fun, Strictly can have the flavour of some totalitarian country’s state television, with its nutso apparatus of fervently expressed joy and gratitude, underpinned by beady-eyed artist chaperones and mandated apologies that typically resemble hostage videos. It is getting to the stage this season that I can almost imagine a contestant giving their minder the slip, and defecting to I’m a Celebrity in the dead of night. Press conference on the Gold Coast airport tarmac, in which they denounce the warped ideology of the glitterball and reveal the existence of a network of tango re-education camps.
Perhaps this is one of the downsides of the post-streaming wars world. There is just less television that people gather round at the same time now. Aside from sport, the formats that still retain the power to bring the nation together in serious numbers, live, also frequently seem to polarise it, or at least become freighted with vastly more meaning than they can possibly bear.
Strictly’s unasked-for status as the show across which most culture wars must be waged increasingly reminds me of those shudder-inducing stories about battery chickens. These unfortunate creatures are intensively farmed in order to scale them up at unnatural speed, but they still cheep like chicks and have legs unable to support the weight of their bodies. Without wishing to call it too soon, is it just possible that a dancing show is being forced to bear too much cultural weight?
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Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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