One might have thought that following a six-month investigation and the publication of a BBC report into the 17 complaints Amanda Abbington made against her Strictly Come Dancing professional partner Giovanni Pernice, that the matter was over.
End of? No way. Far from.
It is not mischievous to suggest that Amanda was hardly vindicated, despite what her lawyers suggest. Only six of the original allegations were upheld, and one of them was for Pernice swearing.
Another was for him apparently telling the Sherlock actress she was ‘better than this’ when she mucked up during a rehearsal. I am imagining Amanda thundering through her pasodoble like an ox, as Giovanni wept on the sidelines, but is that fair?
Only two people know the truth and both are claiming a moral victory. Miss Abbington says the report was ‘a vindication’ while Mr Pernice said he was ‘pleased’ it did not find ‘any evidence of threatening or abusive behaviour by him’.
And there the matter might have ended, two high-maintenance performers locked for ever in this fandango of utter farce – but that was before Amanda made further accusations against her former partner this week.
50-year-old actress Amanda Abbington made a surprise appearance on the Wednesday edition of BBC’s Newsnight
The 50-year-old actress made a surprise appearance on the Wednesday edition of BBC’s Newsnight. She sailed into the studio like a vengeance-seeking crusader but was dressed like a novice nun and had her expression set on full throttle victim mode.
She was even threatening possible legal action. ‘I am taking guidance from my lawyer every day,’ she said, quivering with suppressed – I’m taking a guess here – excitement.
Even the memory of her Pernice-fuelled rehearsal room ordeal turned her eyes into bubbling pools of sorrow. It was a terrible sight to behold!
Up in the Clauditorium they would have been passing the Kleenex while the judges lifted their 10 paddles and applauded the sheer bravado of this career-defining performance.
For Amanda went on to detail yet further allegations against Pernice – including claims of sexual misconduct, verbal abuse, sexual innuendo and sexual gestures. According to her, he once ranted at her for 35 whole minutes when she got things wrong. When she got things right, it was even worse.
Strictly pro Giovanni Pernice wiped a tear from his eye as he expressed his relief on being cleared of the more serious allegations made by Amanda Abbington.
She claimed he even made a ‘shocking sexual gesture’ and ‘pointed to his groin’ when he was happy with her dance training.
Holy Stromboli! This kind of behaviour is perhaps entirely in keeping with a very retro idea of how a highly strung Sicilian ballroom dancing teacher might behave, had he missed his equal opportunity training and the entire last quarter century’s contribution to global emancipation.
And that is a pretty accurate resume of 34-year-old Pernice’s life to date. He is clearly no choirboy, but she is hardly singing the immortal Hallelujah herself. And there is something about Amanda Abbington’s belated affront that is also hilarious.
Why hasn’t she publicly mentioned this godforsaken trouser-tingling trauma before? I’m sad that she feels so victimised by her experience on a glitter-rich television reality show, but her Newsnight attack does suggest that she is going to carry on making bigger and bolder claims against Pernice until the mud sticks – or she feels better about herself. Whichever comes first.
Perhaps it’s a generational thing. I remember interviewing Debbie McGee when she partnered with Pernice in the 2017 Strictly series – and she had nothing but kind words for him. ‘My Giovanni,’ she called him. ‘He got me through a lot,’ she added.
Her husband Paul Daniels had died 18 months earlier, just five weeks after being diagnosed with a massive brain tumour. McGee had nursed him though those final weeks, never letting him see her devastation. ‘I decided I couldn’t let him spend the last days of his life looking at me crying,’ she said.
For her, the brutal training with Pernice plus the distraction of rehearsal and showtimes helped to combat ‘the waves of grief’ that threatened to push her under. ‘It was just dance, dance, dance,’ she told me. ‘That was all I could think about.’
For Amanda Abbington, it was very different. Where Debbie saw challenge and the defiance of her limitations, Amanda only saw abuse and affront.
That is not to say one woman’s experience is more valid than the other’s, but it is always bogus when one-note campaigners say: I’m not doing this for myself, I’m doing it for other people.
‘I’ve worked for 32 years as an actress in a job that started the #MeToo movement,’ Amanda said this week. ‘And I have never had to leave a job or had to experience anything like I did in that rehearsal room.’
The MeToo movement! Amanda has also claimed that mothers have come up to her in the street and said thank you for making the world a safer place for our daughters. May I repeat myself here – we are talking about how women are treated on a popular television reality show, not what is going on in the streets of Iran or on Epstein Island.
Giovanni Pernice and Amanda Abbington
Look. No one doubts that training for Strictly Come Dancing is tough and difficult. Most contestants accept that.
They’ve seen A Chorus Line. The hit film Dirty Dancing taught them that nobody puts Baby in the corner. And via Flashdance, they understood that being a welder by day and a dancer by night equals wrecked hips for ever.
The professional dancers on Strictly, like all professional dancers, are a formidable crew, many of whom have danced their way out of poverty in tough corners of the world.
Amanda had a bad experience, and we have to take her word for it. But she has made her point, she has taken her scalp. Isn’t it time to move on and end the dance before it becomes a ridiculous witch hunt?