Opinion: They know Brexit isn’t working, they get that the monarchy’s a teeny bit anachronistic and they can even acknowledge that their footy team lost the Euros to Spain. But there’s one institution Britons fondly thought was the real deal.
You’d as well tell 6-7 million small children that Santa’s not real as tell that many TV viewers their beloved Strictly is a hotbed of cruelty and abuse.
Alas, Strictly Come Dancing, a similar show to New Zealand’s Dancing With the Stars franchise, has been brought low by a bullying scandal.
Two of its professional dancers have been bumped after abuse allegations, one now admitting having kicked his celebrity partner during training. He now “deeply regrets” this, but new allegations threaten to enlarge the scandal.
A flagship BBC programme and serious moneymaker, Strictly has warmed hearts for 20 years, winning over even the highbrow with its restful, wholesome cheesiness. It’s been the show millions tune into for a break from daily biffo; something pleasant to discuss the next day rather than the latest prime minister or the weather.
Exasperated sceptics have exclaimed that surely everyone knew “reality” television was a contrived, edited and glazed confection and, as such, unlikely to be pretty behind the scenes. From cookery shows to survival challenges and the virtual pimping out of contestants on Love Island and the like, the genre is manufactured faux-reality.
The fly-on-the-wall-style footage is its most bogus aspect, edited to show plucky battling and chumminess behind the scenes – whether that’s what actually goes on or not.
Such shows can make or break people’s careers, so the smiles stay firmly painted on – ballasted by non-disclosure contracts should anyone’s tulle get crumpled.
Perennial public darlings such as comedian Bill Bailey and TV presenters Angela Rippon and Dame Esther Rantzen have foxtrotted beamingly among the sequins, saying they had the time of their lives. The shock at these bullying allegations could hardly be greater were it alleged that Sir David Attenborough had coerced and hectored wildlife.
The fatal crack in Strictly’s facade occurred when actress Amanda Abbington – of Sherlock and Doc Martin – bailed from the show. She later filed a suit alleging abuse by her dance partner, which she said the show’s management refused to address.
Her claimed post-traumatic stress was not helped by the public backlash she then copped for complaining about her partner, one of two wildly popular “sexy Italians” on the show, both now exiled.
Footage has emerged of an earlier (non-Italian) Strictly dancer calling his actress partner a lazy fatty, kicking a chair against a wall and threatening to “drag her across the floor” if she forgot her moves again.
Some professional dancers have been trained from childhood with abusive tactics and are inured to them, but the television bosses’ apparent failure to demand respectful boundaries will now be on trial in the court of public opinion.
Another beloved series toppled from grace earlier – Escape to the Chateau, about an English couple doing up a French mansion – after footage emerged of the sweetie-pie chatelaine tearing strips off staff using decidedly off-brand profanities. The show has been renewed, but viewers will now be craning for signs of spite.
The TV industry, heavily reliant on these lucrative shows, is terrified the other shoe will drop – not another sequined pump, but a sensible brogue from another national treasure. What if there’s been battery rather than just batter on The Great British Bake Off, shoving instead of shovelling on Gardeners’ World or bitching along with stitching on The Great British Sewing Bee?
If eternal reality TV hard man Jeremy Clarkson is exposed for secretly writing sonnets, that’ll be it for the whole genre.
