Throng

Actress Zoe Lucker tonight became the seventh celebrity to be voted off the seventh series of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing.

In week seven of the competition, all 10 of the remaining celebrity contestants and their professional dance partners took to the floor to perform a variety of dances.

After tonight's performance, the combination of the judges' scores and viewers' votes left Zoe Lucker and her professional partner James Jordan in the bottom two and facing the dance off with Ali Bastian and her professional partner Brian Fortuna.

Hello dance fans! This week our couples are dancing either the samba or American smooth. Nice.

Jade and Ian up first with a samba. Jade performs better in the latin dances, as she has the stamina to keep up with the energetic pace. She also gives it more attitude. Her samba looks great, and it has a fab ending with Ian swinging her round, then her swinging Ian round and then posing resting her leg on him.

Len thinks she had good control and rhythm throughout the dance. Alesha thinks that Jade had good movement around the floor and she had "the wow factor". Bruno was a little scared of Jade as she looked like she was driving Ian. Craig thought it was great, full of energy and confident.

SCORES: 8, 8, 8, 8 = 32/40.

Next up, Chris and Ola. They're dancing the American Smooth.

OH! A LIFT! IS THAT ILLEGAL? We'll see. Well I think Chris thinks he is a smoothie. Hmm. It's not bad, but nothing extraordinary.

Model and businesswoman Jo Wood tonight became the sixth celebrity to be voted off the seventh series of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing.

In week six of the competition, all 11 of the remaining celebrity contestants and their professional dance partners took to the floor to dance either a samba or an American Smooth.

After tonight's performance, the combination of the judges' scores and viewers' votes left Jo Wood and her professional partner Brendan Cole in the bottom two and facing the dance-off with long jumper and Olympic athlete Jade Johnson and her professional partner Ian Waite.

Britain's only undefeated world champion boxer Joe Calzaghe tonight became the fifth celebrity to be voted off the seventh series of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing.

In week five of the competition, all 12 of the remaining celebrity contestants and their professional dance partners took to the floor to dance either a Jive or a Viennese Waltz.

After tonight's performance, the combination of the judges' scores and viewer votes threw up a surprise result.

Hey dance fans!

Apologies first for there being no Strictly live blog last week. I had the flu. Maybe it was swine, we don't really know. MYSTERY. I am disease free now, as far as I am aware. HURRAY.

First up to dance tonight is Zoe and James. They did a paso doble last week, and she improvised some of it that she forgot, but they got a high score anyway.

Tonight they are doing a foxtrot. Lovely frock Zoe has on. White with sparkles. It's all smiles and grins, which is what comes when doing an elegant foxtrot. She is spinning well.

Actress and TV presenter Lynda Bellingham tonight became the fourth celebrity to be voted off the seventh series of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing.

In week four of the competition, all 13 of the remaining celebrity contestants and their professional dance partners took to the floor to dance either a foxtrot or a salsa.

After tonight's performance, the combination of the judges' scores and viewer votes left Lynda Bellingham and her professional partner Darren Bennett in the bottom two and facing the dance-off with Craig Kelly and his professional partner Flavia Cacace.

The News of the World has reported that Anton Du Beke has called Strictly Come Dancing celebrity Laila Rouass a "Paki".

Du Beke used the offensive term when he saw the actress after she had a spray-tan at the BBC. Allegedly he told Laila: "Oh my God, you look like a Paki." This was (again, apparently) heard by 15 other people including fellow pro dancer Brendan Cole.

A witness said: "Laila just stood there gobsmacked, as was everyone else. She just looked at him as if she couldn't quite believe what he'd said. Everyone in the room was just shell-shocked and nobody spoke for few seconds.

"Then Laila glared at Anton and just walked out - she was so upset. She just went to her dressing room, collected her stuff and went straight home. She felt totally humiliated."

TV presenter Rav Wilding tonight became the third celebrity to be voted off the seventh series of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing.

This weekend, all 14 of the remaining celebrity contestants and their professional dance partners took to the floor to dance either a quickstep or a paso doble.

After tonight's performance, the combination of the judges' scores and viewer votes left Rav Wilding and his professional partner Aliona Vilani in the bottom two and facing the dance off with actress and TV presenter Lynda Bellingham and her professional partner Darren Bennett.

Strictly Come Dancing is in danger of overkill. This weekend, three whole hours of the BBC's primetime slot was dedicated to a bunch of people dancing around to cabaret music.

In the head-to-head with The X Factor, I can only see one winner. You see, Cowell and Co look big budget and knowingly trashy. Every penny spent on the show pumps out of the gogglebox at a rate of knots. It is impervious to criticism and ploughs away with the glamorous girl judges in tow... not once apologising for them.

Strictly, meanwhile, toe-curlingly embraced the attacks on Alesha at the weekend with Brucie doing the TV equivalent of "Aw, give us a cuddle." Then, proceeded to stand there looking like he'd lost his meds for what felt like a whole weekend.

Hello again dance fans, it's Saturday night and we're back in the dance hall.

Did you see Brucie do his 'special dance' when he said he could have been the new Sugababe? I'll not forget that.

First to dance tonight is Phil Tufnell and Katya. He did great last night, and passed all expectations. you can tell he is taking is seriously, which the judges did not expect.

It's latin night tonight, so he is dancing the cha cha cha. I like his gold shirt coordinating with Katya's dress. He's not quite as good as last night, but he is happy doing it. I think latin might be slightly out of his comfort zone, but he could get more confident with it. Good effort for a first latin dance though.

Horse-racing legend Richard Dunwoody tonight became the second celebrity to be voted off the seventh series of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing.

This weekend the second group of celebrity contestants and their professional dance partners took to the floor.

On Friday night they each performed a ballroom number, while tonight (Saturday) the competition heated up as they danced a Latin number.

Happy Friday night dance fans. Tonight we are going to see the other half of the couples that didn't perform last week. Exciting!

This week the furore over Alesha the new judge has been all over. Bruce has just mentioned it. He wishes her luck with the whole series. I hope people come round to her soon. She's a nice girl.

The couples are coming down the stairs...

Tonight they are all doing either a waltz or a tango, both are ballroom dances. Tomorrow is hot latin night.

First up is Natalie Cassidy with Vincent Simone...

They are dancing a tango. Natalie is adament that she is not doing the show to lose weight, as all the papers have suggested.

I like her hot pink dress.

Have to say, she's a little better than I expected. Giving it the attitude that the tango should have, but she's an actress, so she should find that easy.

Strictly Come Dancing returned to our screens this weekend and, as ever, it did very well in the ratings and everyone was chattering about it. I too tuned in, for reasons that aren't especially clear to me.

See, I can't actually work out the appeal of the show.

In Bruce Forsyth, we have a host that reminds me of one of those old people who greet you upon your arrival at a supermarket. He's not especially useful and constantly looks like he could do with a little lie down as all the excitement is wearing him out.

This leaves Tess Daly looking like something of a homecarer who, between appeasing Brucie and he's rubbish catch-phrases, has to help him to the toilet and peels back the lid on his meals-on-wheels for him as he's simply not strong enough to do it for himself.

The nation's favourite dance extravaganza returned this weekend on BBC One and BBC HD and former professional tennis player and women's world No. 1 Martina Hingis was voted off Strictly Come Dancing – the first celebrity to leave the competition.

For the first time, Strictly Come Dancing kicked off with a live show on both Friday and Saturday nights.

This year, couples have to perform two dances in their first week – one Ballroom and one Latin – making this the toughest Strictly ever!

Hey dance fans, tonight it's latin night, so expect hot moves and hotter outfits. Expect the men to have low cut shirts showing a lot of tanned chest. Meow!

First to dance tonight is Jade Johnson who was a bit nervous in her waltz last night. She is doing a cha cha cha tonight.

She seems to be enjoying tonight more, as she's putting more into it. She's giving it more personality and attitude anyway. She's certainly pulling some facial expressions with OOMPH.

Len says that although her feet are flat her legs are well built. Alesha thinks the dance suited her, although her arms "were throwaway". Bruno thinks Jade's legs could crack nuts. Quite. Craig thinks she also needs to be careful with her arms, but he thinks she made a great effort.

SCORES: 6, 7, 7, 7 = 27/40.

Now, dancing the rumba is Ali Bastian.

She looks like Paris Hilton. The pink dress doesn't help.