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 show itself tackles an unfashionable form of entertainment. I mean, when was the last time anyone knew a ballroom dancer? I know precisely zero. Everyone I know doesn't know a single person who likes to break out into a pasodoble or whatever.
Add to this, a bunch of Q List celebrities who are going on the most tenuous of journeys - notably, they aren't very good at dancing but with practise they might get better - and on paper, the show shouldn't work at all.
The music is rubbish, the judges are annoying and surely it all adds up to something that anyone with a working brain should be switching off in droves.
However, weirdly, the show does work.
Like the ubiquitous dance routine by the news readers on Comic Relief, Strictly Come Dancing seems to draw us in with a mixture of glee and horror. The whole spectacle, when broken down, feels hobbled together and pointless... yet... when you add it all together, it gives TV something that it has been missing for some time.
Glamour.
The shiny outfits and the awkward sexualising of sports personalities and soap actors brings simple cheer to a country all too aware of the recession. The snide comments from the judges gives us all panto-esque villains to berate and hoot at whilst they take the whole thing far too seriously.
It's obvious that Strictly Come Dancing is television steeped in yesteryear. It's good, clean fun that appears to be devoid of the cynicism of, say, The X Factor. It truly is one of the only things that seems to unite families on the sofa together. You pick your favourites, you hurl abuse at Craig Bag O' Revels (or whatever he's called) and fall off the couch laughing at Joe Calzaghe's Herman Munster moves on the dancefloor.
There is no reason why Strictly Come Dancing should work, but it does. Even a hateful, sneering idiot like me doesn't really mind when it's on the box.
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