Strict Analysis

Have you been swept off your feet? What is it about Strictly Come Dancing (BBC Television, new series every October to December) that gives it top ratings? Is it just because so much else on television is poor in the days of multiple digital channels and trash content on the internet?

I think not. Speaking for myself, I love the program, but in the same way people love their spouses of twenty years, despite annoying habits, which they would love to change, if only they could.

Since this article is listed under The Arts, the question we deal with here is this: Can a television (TV) program ever be a work of art in itself, as opposed to a program about the arts? This article will attempt to grapple with the question by using Strictly as an example, in the same way dissecting one body teaches anatomy in general.

What is it that makes a good TV program? Is it the ratings or viewer approval? Is it studio-audience satisfaction - a highly relevant question in Strictly, as it turns out? Is it commercial success or rave reviews?

From the outset, back in 2004, the Strictly format and its execution both were good, but not perfect. However, its good points outweighed its flaws.

The show was rich in so many ways, rich in visual terms - a visual treat, rich in its variety of different aspects and methods of presentation and so much else.

The theme tune was great, essentially a samba rhythm which lifted the spirits no matter how many times you heard it, except that the recent addition of audience clapping has ruined it. The title was awkward, though I struggle to think of a better one myself. It is not inspired, while the American equivalent Dancing with the Stars is not suitable for down-to-earth Brits.

Lighting and special effects have got better and better. Long may that continue, as long as they do not distract from watching the dancing itself.

Broadcasting live added no merit; I would rather I saw the best performance each competitor could produce without mishaps. But having said that, pre-recording would not have put the pressure on dancers to practice and to perfect, couples knowing they could do many 'takes' later - and what a nightmare that would have been for the producers, crew and any studio audience. So going live was not the best choice, it was the only choice.

Good marks for the concept of matching an amateur so-called celebrity, with a professional dancer. Although similar programs (where the presenter was taught some basic skill) had gone before, Strictly took it to a new level, demanding that complete beginners be judged by the same standard as lifelong professionals - and it does take a lifetime to master ballroom dancing or any dancing. Other producers might have gone back to showing professional couples competing, as they did in the program's old predecessor, Come Dancing, which had run for many years. They would have been wrong. Although ballroom dancing itself is an art, the world of competitive dancing has become sterile, and any such TV program would have died the death, and rightly so.

In Strictly, so-called celebrities added an unexpected element of artistic interest, questioning what art is, where to draw the line between art and technique, who can be an artist, whether anyone can be taught, as well as adding human interest for large numbers of an audience who might otherwise have switched channels. This was the very essence of the show, to put forward a proposition that anyone could learn to do it with very little instruction, a valid thesis for argument. Full marks then for a program which brought art to such a big audience.

Even so, for every transmitter there has to be a receiver, and just because you are broadcasting art does not mean that all viewers will see it as art, or even see the art in it.

For the more sophisticated mind there were pluses and minuses. The pluses were the dance element, of course, the orchestra and the singers - always superb - and the identification most of us felt with a common mortal trying to achieve self-expression through art, or just a degree of competence where no such ability existed in the first place. I do wish the judges felt the same when they handed out cruel comments, way beyond valid criticism, to those who had tried but had no talent for it. There is a difference between saying you should not smile in the Tango, and saying your face lacks all expression - one of numerous irrelevant criticisms, more like personal attacks, which can inflict much unnecessary pain. There is a difference between correcting and condemning. All kinds of judges feel at liberty to overstep the mark, and these ones are no exception.

Good to see there was no snobbery in the program and it was right not to prejudice the show with any demand for pre-existing talent from the competitors. While this is a good thing, it does not change the fact that dancing is not like aerobics. All the lessons and all the mastery of technique amount to nothing, if not used for artistic expression. The technical should only be there to facilitate, to serve, the artistic, not for its own sake, but some people will never go beyond doing a taught routine.

Despite having four judges in the show, not one of them watches from the perspective of musical interpretation. This is probably because it is others who write the choreography, not the so-called celebrity being judged, but even so, there is enormous room for artistic expression in the amateur's performance. A great example was the last jive of Ainsley Harriott (24 October 2015), which may have lacked technical precision but all to the good - he was interpreting the music with his body, a talent very few have. If the only criterion in judging art is obeying the rules, then it is nothing more than painting by numbers. It leaves no room for individual expression through body language. The gifted dancers would have broken the rules to that end.

This aspect is constantly ignored now, to the point where the judging is plain blind at times. Can those judges not see how this dancer (there have been a few examples) actually moved a million muscles to every nuance of the music, yes the music, not just to the rhythm and to the rules? You cannot teach that to someone, if they do not have it. Jamelia's Cha-cha and Charlston, in the same year as Ainsley, were other examples, full of interpretation and meaning, but were under-marked, pushing her towards a perpetual 'dance-off' (where the judges rescue one of the lowest scoring couples from elimination), even if she was rescued subsequently. It is ironic that she ended up against Ainsley Harriott on the night he had danced his brilliant jive, when he was told to become "more technical" and then was eliminated, these two great interpretative Latin dancers ending up bottom of the heap.

When those with natural talent, Pixie Lott was another example, are being eliminated - by the head judge, no less - this diminishes the value of the program, it does not create excitement. And you cannot blame the viewers for how they voted.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE MARKING?

The elimination system regularly deprives viewers of good dancers, the very stuff such a program should be made of. A points system sounds less dramatic, but would in fact create greater suspense. It would be more like a race with constant overtaking and suspense rising towards the finish. Graphs could be used to compare individual progress - so much more could be done. Pandering to the few who like to see people humiliated does not reflect high production values. So-called 'shock exits' do not create drama, only frustration in most viewers. It is deflating, an anticlimax, it is not a reason to keep watching but a put-off which viewers have to overcome in order to keep watching.

Of course, without any eliminations, we would be stuck with poor dancers for three months, and also with an extremely lengthy show, both probably unsustainable. But we could still have eliminations, e.g. the bottom two of the table eliminated every month, as in relegation, creating more suspense as deadline approaches.

The current system means that one mistake changes the program's content for the rest of the series - not only unfair to the dancers, but also to the viewers. All judges are guilty of emphasis on tiny mishaps at the expense of far more important things.

In November 2015, the professional partner of Jamelia placed a guitar on their dance path, then led her to step on it. It ruined her confidence and what would have been an excellent performance. Such accidents should not have a disproportionate effect on the entire series.

Also, who wins the final comes down to the last steps of their last dance and the final bars of their chosen music. Not only unfair, but as deeply unsatisfying as a bad novel which makes you wish you had never picked it up. Once again, this deflates viewer experience.

In a newspaper interview, Ola Jordan, one of the professional dancers, accused the show of bias but blamed it on the judges. There is no question that they do often over or under-mark, but not due to bias. And they would cancel each other out anyway, over time - it is clear they disagree between themselves - so there is no chance they would conspire to keep the good dancers in, as she claims. One might argue that they should. Ola Jordan said that her winning amateur partner of 2009, Chris Hollins, could not have won now, but Chris Hollins should never have won. Judge Len Goodman voting Pixie Lott out was proof of no such bias, and I can think of other examples. Elsewhere in this article we illustrate how the judges often make errors of judgement which do not amount to bias.

If there is bias, it is the other way round, that the producers like to keep popular characters in, at the expense of good dancers. Any such bias, whether from the producers, judges or even the public, would not be conscious. It reflects the British obsession with popularity, with being 'liked' and social integration, over and above being right, truthful, gifted or good, attitudes so deeply ingrained as to be transparent. But this is a dance competition, not a popularity contest, and good dancers should be favoured. However, it has to be said that manipulating the result one way or another is not the way to bring this about. The process should ensure that.

The voting system itself is an aberration, essentially demanding that each voter telephones for every couple, except the one they want to eliminate. Conversely, it is mathematically impossible for the top of the leader board with so many dancers to be in a dance-off, so what is the point of voting for them at all? Voting to eliminate would have seemed cruel, of course, but this only serves to show that public voting is not suitable for such programs.

Voters are also affected by other factors, whether the tune (chosen by others) is exciting, whether they like the person or even their professional dance partner, and other, simpler considerations. What else can they do? They even get married on the same basis, and they divorce shortly afterwards in the same way too; you cannot expect more from them when judging dancing, which they do not understand. In any voting system, it is inevitable that popularity and other weird factors will play a role. We have had examples of viewers subverting the program by voting deliberately for the worst dancers. John Sergeant was an obvious example until he chose to resign, and a couple of poor dancers went on to win. This does not enhance viewer satisfaction and does not create suspense, no matter what the producers think.

They would say, if this is what the viewers want, that is what we give them. But voters are not the same as viewers, only a certain type of viewer will want to participate. I have known cases of people voting for such programs without watching at all, they phone in later for whoever they like. They represent the lower spectrum of a television audience but do affect the outcome, effectively acting as the program's artistic editors. This is not right. The point here is that such issues debase the production and diminish the satisfaction for most viewers, while enhancing the pleasure of a minority who relish the brainless, YouTube aspect of it.

Forcing the judges to choose one of two dancers for elimination in the so-called dance-off does not solve the problem, as the judges themselves have said. They are often put in an impossible position, especially if a brilliant dancer throughout the series makes a small error under the extra pressure of the dance-off, which was how we lost Pixie Lott - the real winner of that series. Dancing should never be about how you handle pressure, it is about artistic interpretation.

Pixie Lott, Jamelia and Ainsley Harriott, each very different, all illustrate the point, and there have been many others.

Apart from an argument for a points system, these examples illustrate the need for two sets of marks from the judges, one for technical merit, the other for artistic expression, as they do in ice-skating. This may be asking a lot of a popular television program running on a tight schedule but they do it in other countries, in the equivalent of Strictly. Audiences learn how to absorb such things. I would prefer a second set of marks to replace the public voting altogether. As it stands, there is no recognition from any of the judges for the competitor's artistic side, when that displays itself at the cost of rules and technique. A second set of marks would force judges to consider artistic merit more seriously.

A points system would have one more advantage; it would rescue The Final from being an anticlimax. As it stands, public voting and eliminations result in only three couples left at the end, not necessarily the best dancers. Even if they were the best, repeating past dances destroys interest and expectation. A minimum of five or six couples should be left for The Final, those at the top of the league table, raising the standard and creating genuine suspense.

One must question why there has to be a winner anyway. Dance is not a sport where you win by stopping someone else from performing. Even in sport, you would not compare someone's high jump with someone else's 100m sprint and declare him the winner. And you cannot fairly compare someone's waltz to someone else's samba. You cannot say that couples really compete against each other even now.

JUDGING THE JUDGES

In general, the judges' opinion should be given greater weight over and above any public voting. I say this despite criticising the judging for undervaluing genuine, innate talent and artistic self-expression.

Do we have the right judges? The mixture is about right in 2015, now that Darcey Bussell has joined the four, even though, surprisingly, her own dance ability does not translate into great insights.

Those who are best at creating (e.g. art) are not necessarily good at analysing the work of others. Criticism is the exact opposite process. One is putting things together, the second is tearing things apart. Few people are good at both, because it takes a different kind of mind, or at least a different mind set. A great musician or writer might be able to tell you whether they like someone else's work, "whether it's any good", but analysing the reasons is much more difficult.

Arlene Phillips was the best judge in that sense, for a time, until she felt she had to assert herself against the others and she began shouting. Once we become self-conscious, we lose perspective. Her subtle, discriminating reasoning went out of the window, and so did she. Great loss. There was no need for her to change her pitch; we could hear she was right when the others were wrong, without her raising her voice.

While on the judges, Alesha Dixon should never have been judge. We do not know what lay behind that decision, but it suggested poor production values. It seemed like too much emphasis on popular appeal had blinded the producers and a grave error of judgement was committed. That was another production miscalculation about the target audience. The big mistake was to ignore the artistic dimension of a dance program, and treat it purely as popular entertainment. How wrong they were, and how surprised they became by sophisticated viewers, or large numbers of them, when the complaints flooded in.

WHOSE SHOW IS IT, ANYWAY?

If the audience target was pitched low consciously, that could have been forgiven at the start, but not later. When trying something new, no one knows whether the viewers will watch the program at all, so the safe assumption is, the lower you pitch it, the bigger the audience. And so we got Bruce Forsyth, whose trademark bad jokes run for far too long, and Tess Daly, lovely lady but incapable of ever saying anything witty when she tries to ad-lib. Both also kept butting in with their worthless opinions, as if an extra judge. If Tess Daly toned down now, she would be much better; trying to hype things up does not suit her. Both were cast to avoid artistic elitism, but we know now that smart, witty and fun people like Claudia Winkleman and Zoe Ball would have done this just as well while being clever, without putting anyone off. If these two ever take over the show, Zoe should be the main host, as Claudia is best when improvising ad-lib in conversation.

Humour, in the form of genuine wit, will always add a special dimension to any TV show. Both the original hosts represented the humourless side of Anglo-Saxon 'no-nonsense.' British humour would have been a great advantage and only judge Len Goodman rescued us with his occasional puns and quirky phrases, until Claudia brought in a little wit at last.

But all of that was the result of targeting a wide audience.

Another great misjudgement was when, one fine day, the producers had decided to display the voting phone number during each dance, making it impossible to watch. Just as the couple had started to dance, their voting number would be rolled across the screen until they finished, when it was removed again. How blinkered can television professionals be? After all the effort that had gone into dance practice, the music, the set, the lighting, camera work, sound, costumes, and everything else, they told us, never mind all that, just note down the telephone number. This was distracting beyond belief, and it persisted for far too long. The decision, along with allowing rhythmic clapping from the studio audience, represented low production values. Again, viewers' fury eventually forced them to see sense and remove the number. Let us hope they stop that brainless clapping too.

AND THE WINNER IS…

The orchestra and the singers are the clear winners overall, through all the series. How they reproduce the original authentic sound of so many different styles is truly awesome. This is the kind of talent that should be celebrated over and above the pop stars or this world. Not one performance has been mediocre. Someone, please, give them a prize.

Going a step back, it has to be said they are being done a disservice: When the studio audience clap-clap-clap to the rhythm (not always on the beat) it ruins the music, as well as making it impossible for viewers at home to watch the dance performance. As if this orchestra's sound needed a bit of enhancing. No, that rhythmic clapping does not enhance anything, except the self-pleasure of some in the studio audience at the expense of viewers at home. Many times I have been forced to turn the sound off and watch the dancing in silence. Even the odd professional dancer has dared to express disquiet in public, complaining that they could not hear the music properly while trying to dance to it. I fear this is more a statement from the producers as to how they want to pitch the program, rather than any evidence that this clapping contributes anything. I find it pigheaded, as I feel it would not make any difference to the viewing numbers, if they banned this level of interference from the studio audience.

While on the music, the choice of song is not always suitable for the dance. I have heard superficial justifications so, clearly, there have been complaints, but no satisfactory answers. The choice of music is poor far too often. It does not have to be the same pieces over and over, it does not have to be traditional dance music, but it does have to suit the nature of each dance, otherwise it suggests that music is just there to supply a rhythm and ignores its numerous other dimensions, highly relevant to dancers whose job it is to interpret it. There is huge choice without repeating the same traditional tunes all the time. Latin America in particular provides infinite choice for rumbas, cha-chas and sambas, rock-n-roll can give infinite jives and, as for ballroom, the world is your oyster. There is no need to stick so closely to popular music. It should be the other way round, using real dance music of great quality, with the odd pop song thrown in from time to time. This also is a major letdown, and a fundamental error of judgement.

And when popular music is used, the dancers should be credited, if they dance differently to reflect that, like Kellie Bright and Kevin did in November 2015, dancing a Samba to a hip-hop song. So, let the music represent the nature of the dance, or otherwise let the dance represent the nature of the music. Far too often we get neither.

The dresses and costumes are worth a mention. There was an earlier year, around series 3 or 4, the "grown-up" year, when the dresses were awe inspiring. Vicky Gill is getting so much better in 2015, even though her frequent choice of what she calls 'pastel colours' is highly individual, a taste not easily acquired. This is haute couture, often at its best, an art in its own right.

Although dressmaking gets plenty of airtime on the daily companion magazine show It Takes Two, the dresses are almost overlooked on the main night itself. There is hardly a proper glimpse from the cameras when the couples walk down the stairs, often cutting above the waist, and you never get another chance to see the dresses in all their glory. During the dancing you watch for other things, of course, but even then, the directors cut between cameras far too often to see the dancing itself, let alone the dresses. And in the post-dancing chat the focus is elsewhere. I would have liked a three-second pause on the stairs when each couple first walk down, a full length shot while standing still. The dresses should be treated as another artistic aspect of the show. What a waste of months of effort and talent and hard work by so many gifted people, only for us to be cheated of relishing the result.

The directors' attitude to camerawork needs a major overhaul. In the USA version, Dancing with the Stars, they do not cut between cameras so often. In the UK the cameras join in, performing their own dance. Far too often they cut to unnecessary close-ups chopping the feet off, or to such a wide shot you can hardly see the couple. Cutting the feet off in dance is like cutting the heads off in a group portrait. On top of that, lights may flash into the camera, or dry ice pops up so that you lose track of the dancing. You become more conscious of what the directors are doing rather than the dancers. The dancing is broken up. This is amateurish. Effectively viewers are told, as long as you can see that someone is dancing, that is good enough for the likes of you. It is patronising. Most viewers would appreciate the unbroken continuous of a performance which is nothing when not flowing smoothly from start to finish, with fewer changes of camera angle.

The inclusion of non-standard dances, such as Salsa and Charleston, adds a fun element which does enhance the television show, but I am not sure about the so-called American Smooth. There is no such dance, if you can do whatever steps to whatever music or rhythm you like, it has no defining character, no basis in music, apart from the fact that lifts are allowed.

Instead, I would have liked to see the occasional professional couple, even guest couples, doing a demonstration performance, other than the group formation dancing. There is something sterile about so much formation dancing, even at its best, while seeing how professional couples perform can uplift. We had Vincent and Flavia perform Argentine Tango in the past, and other rare guest couples, so why did that element of the program die? And why not extend it to all ten standard dances, just occasionally?

Without stating the obvious, a television program cannot be a work of art if it has to take into account popular taste, unless it leads popular taste, like Shakespeare and Dickens did, responding to their audiences. Television is funded by the public, of course, and this does mean additional constrains, but the clue is in the word "additional". Most artists want their work to be popular, but the only way to do this is, first of all, to have integrity to one's own product, without compromising its artistic aims and quality; then, appealing to a wider taste can come on top of that, it must never come first.

IT TAKES MORE THAN TWO

The daily sister program It Takes Two, which is a magazine companion to the Saturday dancing, is such a perfect format. It has trivial gossip along with serious discussion of dance style and technique and artistry, and music, the dresses, and it tries to make you laugh, all perfectly suited for a bit of fun. It would be a mistake to carry the same attitude into the main Saturday show and treat the dancing itself as nothing more than a bit of frivolous entertainment. Dance is great fun, but not just a bit of fun, and no section of the viewing audience should be allowed to think that as a result of watching the main program.

My own experience from dabbling in a number of the arts as well as hours of public speaking (where the performer can see instant feedback,) is that you can take the wider public with you to any level of art or intellectual integrity, without coming down to anybody's level. How to do that is an art in itself, of course, just like there are good teachers and bad teachers, and gifted teachers. All teach the same subject-matter and put out the same information, but some transform information into knowledge in their viewers' heads, while others go way over their heads - or beneath them. It is all about how they structure and package that information. Good communicators make it easy for the most complex concepts to unwrap and be taken away. It takes talent, of course, but there seems to be no shortage of talented people working inside this great show, if only the right direction can be found.

Strictly Come Dancing could so easily become a work of art, even now, with a few changes, which would demand some viewer adjustment after so many years, but a brave hand could steer this expertly and raise the level, just when it is time for renewal and reinvigoration.

In art there is no room for compromise. That is what integrity means. The artist must reveal the truth no matter what, otherwise there is no point to anything he does. The craft of stitching a show together is different. And to achieve both is fantastic.

©Frances Reynard
London 2016

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