Strictly Come Dancing 2019

Probably because it's considered good for their ratings. ITV and BBC quite often feature each others shows as long as they are not competing in the same time slot.

Another contestant has been announced. I can’t remember his name.

Wash your mouth out!!! There are words that polite society frowns on saying in company and you just used two of them on a public forum. And you spelt his name correctly (shudder). 🤮

I think calling her a "celebrity" is stretching the meaning of the word more than a little bit...

Struggling to muster any enthusiasm at all for this series so far.

I agree with some sentiments expressed here about losing interest in the show. Some of that magical sparkle is gone for me. The last maybe 2 years I have not cared if I missed an episode. Whereas years ago, I would quickly catch up if I missed anything. And I suspect I will miss Darcy this year, but I'm Looking forward to see what Motsi is like. (Afraid I still have not warmed to Shirley.)

I suppose time moves on, things change. No doubt I'll enjoy it and be a little hooked again this year.

Speaking of Darcy, do you think she the last big dance star that would have mainstream fame/appeal? That people not too well up on the dance/entertainment world would still know about? Obviously years ago dancers like Margo Fonteyn and Wayne Sleep were very well known, perhaps treated like superstars when they went travelling etc. But nowadays, I doubt any of the royal ballet dancers or ENB dancers or contemporary dancers etc, would be widely known. Perhaps Carlos Acosta got some media attention a few years back, but nothing too major. I think it's such a pity dancers are not more mainstream today. I suppose Strictly did put a lot of Ballroom dancers in the public eye.

The Strictly "Celebs" all get the same standard fee I believe, those who make it to Halloween get extra, those who make it to Blackpool get some more. No idea what the exact figures are but might be 30k, 40k and 50k etc. I don't think the winner gets any extra.

Whether some celebs get a promise of the tour if they go so far in the series, I don't know. But I'd guess they'd be sounded out about tour availability. The tour figure is rumoured to be about as much again as the ones who get to Blackpool earn. So a celeb could make say 100k gross from doing series and tour plus all the other spin offs they might get

Hopefully Emma Thynn's father in law Lord Bath may show up in the audience, he is quite a character..

Michelle Visage (who she?) is the latest announcement.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49186435

So far, I'd heard of two of the 'celebs' before (David James and Emma Thynn.) Other years, even if I've felt a bit flat about the choices I've ended up enjoying the series, but this seems particularly uninspiring. I guess the bookers must have had a hard time.

Yes I must say this line up so far seems to be stretching the 'celebrity' aspect of it. Hopefully they are saving the more well known names until last! Will still watch the series though!

This is the only contestant so far that has got my interest. For those who don't know her, she's one of RuPaul's best friends and is a judge on the hit TV show "RuPaul's Drag Race". She was also on Celebrity Big Brother and recently made her London stage debut in "Everybody's talking about Jamie".

I'm not a fan of Michelle Visage at all so her booking is putting me off this series even more than I already was by some of the others.

None of the signings so far are giving me any reason to want to watch, particularly as given how dreadful last year was I have very little hope for the standard of dancing and dances actually resembling what they're supposed to be without inappropriate costumes and themes.

I'm intrigued by Motsi Mabuse as a judge but that's about it. Not sure that's enough to persuade me that my Saturday nights won't be better spent on Netflix...