Please, no more sobbing on Strictly

This season of Strictly can only be faintly made out through all the tears, writes Kat Brown. So much for hoping that the ghastly reality TV trope ‘the journey’ had been consigned to the past. This year it seems to have got even worse

Eurgh, crying. Can we leave that in 2025, please? Admittedly, I’ve no liquid left in my body with which to emote: like many, I have been felled by a winter virus that is neither Covid nor flu nor a cold but a mysterious fourth thing, but as we sail towards the Strictly final this weekend, it does feel as though we’ve had to battle through a true vale of tears to get here.

I’m not talking about tears of pain, either. If last year’s Strictly season was about fallout from inappropriate behaviour, this year’s has been about injury. Good lord, so much injury. Dani Dyer had to leave before she’d started, then Stefan Dennis, La Voix and Alex Kingston were forced to quit due to injury sustained in rehearsal.

You can absolutely understand tears of frustration at hard work being apparently wasted and your body letting you down. By and large, those who have left early have been good-natured about it. But this has been one of the teariest seasons of Strictly yet, and for one of the most annoying reasons.

Strictly got caught up in the 2010s epidemic of “myjourneyitis” and despite its progenitor, The X Factor, having stopped airing in 2018, it remains in its grasp. Symptoms include heavy foreshadowing, slow-motion emotions, and crying when anything good, bad or average happens. Key to myjourneyitis are mentions of grandparents (does not matter if actually in their 50s and very fit, but bonus points if recently dead), someone they know who has been ill, an unsexy job, or A Stoic Mum.

Couples’ Choice dances on Strictly are invariably linked with attacks of myjourneyitis – Pete Wicks slightly overdid his last year with an emotional dedication to his late nan, who had actually died two years earlier – although they occasionally break confinement. This year, Movie Week saw an outpouring of tears, the reliable fountain of feelings Carlos Gu among them.

Carlos has apparently been compensating for his partner, footballer Karen Carney, for whom the subtextual requirement to participate in myjourneyitis has sailed right over her head. In fact, the pro dancers appear to have been given notes on “being more emosh” this year, with the hard-as-nails pros all having to take turns to squeeze out a tear in honour of how hard their celeb partner is working. Not so much fake news as fake boo hoo hoos.

Poor George Clarke, the personable YouTuber and recipient of this year’s “Strictly Mums” vote (this is an “ahh bless” state of mind, and anyone can be a Strictly Mum), meaning that he went through to the final with ease, was forced to crowbar in some journey into Movie Week, meaning that a perfectly fine rumba was dedicated to his mum who has cancer. She was subsequently seen in the studio audience, as so many Strictly parents do, looking straight-faced and absolutely mortified to be noticed.

‘Amber, with her brilliant musical theatre career, has simply not passed the smell test for what makes a good Strictly star’ (BBC)

But it’s Amber Davies and Lewis Cope, the last-minute replacements for Dani Dyer and Kristian Nairn, who have been subjected to myjourneyitis most of all. The Strictly Mums, who essentially control the audience vote like the Mafia, loathe ringers, and Amber, with her brilliant musical theatre career, has simply not passed the smell test for what makes a good Strictly star.

Like most men on Strictly (the Mums can also be quite sexist), Lewis fared slightly better – but then, he was only the best friend in Billy Elliott: The Musical as a child, of course, and audiences managed to gloss over the fact he’d come third on a Sky dancing programme in 2010 – but the fact he had 13 siblings and a seemingly bottomless well of niblings to call on, as well as his parents, for whenever some emoting was required meant that we saw more from the Cope family this winter than the Von Trapps.

Amber, sadly, had to fall back on crying. And so, there were tears of gratitude if she scored well (which she did, she’s a brilliant dancer) or got through another week, and tears for her dance partner, Nikita, all cried very prettily, and all rusting the Strictly Mums’ disapproval still further.

Last year’s winner, the comedian Chris McCausland, admirably refused to follow the party line on crying, or emotion, or “journeys” of any kind, which meant that when true feeling did appear, it was incredibly moving. A moment during his and Dianne Buswell’s routine to the Liverpool FC anthem “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, when the studio went completely dark, and revealed McCausland – blind since he was 22 – dancing alone, had every viewer in bits, no matter what team they supported.

Rose Ayling-Ellis’s Couple’s Choice, dedicated to the Deaf community, complete with silent choreography, was another stunning moment. When emotion is earned, it is incredible. To move to another show, briefly, witness the amounts raised for Mencap by The Traitors viewers after Alexander Dragonetti was banished by his fellow Faithfuls during the final. Viewers have since donated over £95,000 – more than the prize pot – because Alexander’s honourable gameplay and straightforward, joyful memories of his late brother, James, drew people to his side. No tears, but a lot of emotion and wanting to support him.

Strictly Come Dancing is hard, hard graft, as any number of past celebrity contestants will acknowledge. It’s at its best when viewers are treated like adults and not spoonfed a story. Making contestants partake in A Journey, with crying and wobbly family members and late nans is a pantomime TV that feels very old-fashioned in the mid-2020s. Let’s hope it gets cleaned out next year, when new hosts – and a new broom – are brought in to liven things up.