For this week’s Strictly Come Dancing, Nigel Harman and Katya Jones face a significant task.
The couple are attempting the Rumba, which is notoriously tough – so difficult that it is the only dance genre on the BBC series that has not received a perfect 40.
As Strictly Come Dancing enters its 21st season, we’ve seen several celebs circle their hips, throwing in plenty of high kicks, spins, and floating arms while also displaying their best sensual smile on their face.
However, it has never been sufficient to persuade Motsi Mabuse, Craig Revel Horwood, Anton Du Beke, and Shirley Ballas (or earlier judging lineups) to all take up the ten-paddle at the same time. What are these folks after?!
Jay McGuiness and Aliona Vilani, AJ Odudu and Kai Widdrington, Kelvin Fletcher and Oti Mabuse, Rachel Stevens and Vincent Simone, Kara Tointon and Artem Chigvintsev, and Chelsee Healey and Pasha Kovalev are among those who have made it into the 39 club.
So near, yet still so distant! Could Nigel, 50, be the one to break the curse?
So far, his highest score has been a 34 in week eight for the Couple’s Choice dance to Bruno Mars’ Just The Way You Are, so it would be a bit of a leap, but we believe Nigel’s hips are up for the job. He’s also an actor, so he can develop the lovey-dovey tale that the dance normally necessitates.
They’ve got a terrific song to perform to, as It’s All Coming Back To Me Now by Celine Dion will have them leaving it all on the floor.
Katya, a professional dancer, teased her Instagram fans on what they may anticipate from the routine. When asked if it would be a’sexy rumba or friendly rumba’ in a Q&A, she said, ‘More of a tear-jerker.’
Bobby Brazier and Dianne Buswell have also promised an emotional dance in Saturday’s programme, so have Kleenex handy.
The couple have chosen a modern design, with ballroom aspects to Maxwell’s This Woman’s Work, and have indicated that it would be a memorial to Bobby’s late mother, Jade Goody.
Bobby, 20, acknowledged on the spin-off programme It Takes Two with Fleur East that the music choice touched him.
‘It is the perfect song, sung by the perfect man and it is the perfect tone. The lyrics are just profound and touched me at my core – it is gorgeous,’ he shared.
The lyrics include the lines: ‘I should be cryin’ but I just can’t let it show baby. I should be hopin’ but I can’t stop thinkin’. All the things we should’ve said that we never said. All the things we should’ve done that we never did.’
He also stated that Dianne, 34, will play a crucial role in the routine.
‘I am a child, well there is me as a child and I come out as me now. I have got Dianne, who replicates a woman let’s say my mother probably,’ he explained.
Bobby was five years old at the time of Goody’s death from cervical cancer in March 2009, and brother Freddie was four. Jeff Brazier, 44, reared them alone.
Strictly Come Dancing airs Saturday and Sunday on BBC One and iPlayer.