Every year, Strictly Come Dancing has early favourites – and they often soon prove themselves worthy of the label. This year, former Love Island star Tasha Ghouri quickly emerged as one to watch, scoring 30 in week one followed by a truly astonishing 35, placing her top of the combined leaderboard.
JLS singer JB Gill – dancing with Amy Dowden as she triumphantly returns after cancer treatment – and Miranda actress Sarah Hadland have wasted no time in impressing the judges either. But Saturday night’s live show saw another celebrity steal the show – and in the process, she proved there’s everything to play for in this year’s series.
In a Movie Week packed with incredible transformations and memorable routines, the performance sure to stick in viewers’ minds came from Dr Punam Krishan. The Morning Live doctor – who is, by the way, continuing to work for the NHS while on the show – delivered a Strictly first as she performed a Bollywood Couple’s Choice routine to “Bole Chudiyan” from the hit film Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.
It was clear from the introductory VT just how much the performance meant to Krishan, who took dance partner Gorka Marquez to her parents’ home for a family meal as he threw himself into the world of Bollywood for their training.
“I never saw Indian girls dancing on mainstream television, so to be doing an Indian dance on a platform like Strictly is huge,” Krishan explained, adding that the routine was in tribute to her grandfather who passed away during the pandemic.
On the dance floor, she thrived. The nerves of week one and two completely disappeared as Krishan made her way towards Marquez, confidently matching her partner move for move, and beaming as she threw herself into lifts.
Afterwards, she broke down in tears as she told host Claudia Winkleman: “That meant everything… I just went to four-year-old me, who would have loved to see something like this when I was growing up. But you can’t be something you can’t see.”
Krishan’s routine, and the poignant moments either side, is what Strictly is all about. It’s joyous to see a programme in its twentieth year still committed to show firsts. Especially as this was one which catapulted one of its most likeable and down-to-earth contestants up the leaderboard and into the Strictly history books.
The routine earned a comparison Krishan would do well to remember. Judge Motsi Mabuse – herself overcome with emotion and doing her best not to cry – likened the dance to Hamza Yassin and Jowita Przystal’s Afrobeats Couple’s Choice. That routine, easily one of the best to ever be performed on the show, was also a Strictly first and paved the path to Hamza lifting the Glitterball Trophy back in 2022.
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As was the case with Yassin, Krishan isn’t the most well-known star from her series but as he did, she’s proven that really doesn’t matter. Never mind who is favourites or has the highest number of social media followers. The best Strictly moments are when a celebrity seemingly comes out of nowhere surprises us all – and they have the power to turn the competition on its head.
Mabuse started a sentence during her critique that she didn’t quite finish as she said: “If you give us that energy for a couple more weeks…” Motsi, I hope you don’t mind but I’d love to tweak that for you. Punam, if you bring that energy to the rest of Strictly, the Glitterball Trophy could be yours. And who wouldn’t want to see that?