When the presenter Tess Daly high-kicked off the first episode of Strictly Come Dancing in 2004, warning viewers, “Don’t let the beautiful costumes and fancy footwork fool you, because behind those smiles it is blood, sweat and tears”, she could not have envisaged how darkly apposite those words would seem today.
The hit BBC series, which returns next month, is celebrating its 20th anniversary but now finds itself in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Two of its dancers, Giovanni Pernice and Graziano Di Prima, are missing from the lineup after allegations of abusive behaviour, which they deny, and the BBC is investigating conduct and culture on the show.
The review was prompted by Pernice’s dance partner, the actor Amanda Abbington, quitting last year’s series after five weeks and subsequently making a complaint about his teaching methods, alleging that she had been subjected to “inappropriate, mean, nasty bullying”.
Pernice rejected “any suggestion of abusive or threatening behaviour” and left Strictly, believing he will be cleared by evidence given to the BBC investigation.
Away from the show, police are looking into alleged death threats made to Abbington after her complaint was made public. She told Channel 4 News that she had also received “rape threats towards not only myself but my daughter and … threats of death to my son”.
Abbington’s complaints about Pernice prompted another of last year’s stars, Love Islander Zara McDermott, to come forward with allegations against her partner, Di Prima, and video footage that allegedly shows him kicking and spitting at her during training sessions. Di Prima has admitted kicking McDermott, according to a spokesperson, but denies spitting. McDermott said she had not complained before for fear of a public backlash.
It is all a far cry from Strictly’s usual family-friendly spangle and joy. While the summer normally brings a rash of tabloid speculation about who will be in the next season, this year barely a week has gone by without a front page questioning the show’s future.
One insider said the fate of Pernice and Di Prima has put the other professional dancers on their guard, with them thinking: “‘Oh my God, what’s going to happen to me?’ So will they have the same rapport [with celebrities] as in previous years?” The production team is determined to prevent any more controversies. As another Strictly insider said: “There will not be any complaints this series. And you’re not going to get any over-zealous dancers.”
The BBC has now introduced a celebrity welfare producer for the 15 contestants and a professional dancer welfare producer for the dancers. It will also ensure that a production team member is present at all times during training room rehearsals. In the show’s early years, all the training was filmed, but that changed because of cuts and the increasing number of contestants. Crew members are also being given extra training.
Unveiling the additional measures, the BBC’s director of unscripted, Kate Phillips, said: “While we know our shows have been positive experiences for the vast majority of those who have taken part, if issues are raised with us, or we’re made aware of inappropriate behaviour, we will always take that seriously and act.”
Last December, before the latest row, the BBC had already updated its wider contributor wellbeing guidance, which includes advice such as: “To ensure all angles are covered, it is useful to think about contributor wellbeing in terms of ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ making the programme.
“Sometimes contributors are already vulnerable due to mental health issues (or other reasons) and require specific support and adjustments. Other times it’s the format or nature of the programme which can impact a contributor’s wellbeing (ie competitive, high stakes, exposing, immersive, a sensitive topic). And sometimes it’s both.”
But why, after 20 years and 307 contestants (excluding Christmas specials), has the format stumbled?
In many respects, Strictly has pushed boundaries in terms of inclusivity and diversity. It has featured same-sex couples, was won by the actor Rose Ayling-Ellis, who is deaf, in 2021 and this season will feature its first blind contestant, the comedian Chris McCausland. But some associated with the show are now asking whether the high-intensity, sometimes brutal training regime that the professional dancers learned at dance school is out of step with more modern working practices. They also wonder if the post-show rewards (tours, bigger social media followings that can be monetised) are now so big that contestants and profesionals put themselves under far too much pressure.
Two incidents last season illustrate Strictly’s increased striving for perfection, and the fear of reputational damage if something goes wrong.
The first was the West End star Layton Williams (who once played aspirational dancer Billy Elliot) being cast as a contestant. Some who work on the show confessed they were uneasy about it, as the series’ original premise was of amateurs learning to dance and Williams’s inclusion immediately set the bar extremely high.
Then, last October, Angela Rippon injured herself just before she was due to go live on air.
Her agent, Sue Ayton, says that the production team was “incredible”: “Angela’s 79 years old, she’s about to go on stage in front of how many millions of people, she has just cut her leg with her heel with blood on the floor. She calmly lets everyone do their job, the medics strap her up, wardrobe cut off her costume, put on a new costume and she calmly walks on that stage with [dance partner] Kai … who was being brilliant … and gets the highest number of marks she’s ever got.”
Ayton thought it “was a great story” for Rippon to write about in her Daily Telegraph column, but says the BBC press office wanted to “scale back the whole incident” and were “worried talking about how she had hurt herself. And I said, ‘Surely how brilliant to say that Angela did this and the team did all this?’ I couldn’t understand it.”
I was at the show’s launch 20 years ago and remember a very different atmosphere as Bruce Forsyth twirled his co-host Daly and some of my fellow journalists around the ballroom of a smart London hotel.
Strictly grew out of the old Come Dancing, a professional ballroom team competition hosted by Terry Wogan. It had been retired in 1998 but journalists would routinely ask, almost jokingly, at press conferences if it might return. Unbeknown to us, the BBC executives Jane Lush and Fenia Vardanis had been working on reviving it, but with modern twists: celebrities and audience participation through phone votes. This would be an amateur dance competition with profits from the voting going to charity, although those donations were stopped after a few series.
Lush says: “We were in a little team meeting and struggling to come up with ideas. And Fenia said, ‘Why don’t we do Celebrity Come Dancing?’ And I thought, ‘That’s so simple: genius’ and said: ‘Why don’t we do pro-celebrity Come Dancing?”
Rather than use the word celebrity in the title, they recognised the popularity of Baz Luhrmann’s 1992 film Strictly Ballroom, introduced the tension of the judges’ scores shown on paddles, and Strictly Come Dancing was born.
Lush says that many thought she had “lost the plot: ‘What is she doing bringing ballroom dancing to Saturday night?’” But she had remembered Rippon dancing on Morecambe and Wise in the 70s “and the joy people got from that … and seeing somebody so unlikely kicking their legs in the air. Hence my desire to persuade [the eventual first winner] Natasha Kaplinsky to take part. It was the joy of seeing the ‘fish out of water’: you don’t expect to see Ed Balls dancing. And it’s always been the joy of the programme.” Which is why Lush thinks the ex-footballer Paul Merson is a “great booking” this season – he’s “that person that you least expect”.
Rewatching the very first episode illustrates her point. Made in a small BBC studio with four judges crammed round a desk (the BBC originally wanted only three but could not agree which ones) the opening film sets the intended tone. It shows the eight celebrities (almost half the number that compete now) falling over and injuring themselves in rehearsals. The actor Claire Sweeney wails in frustration: “I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing”, antiques expert David Dickinson looks persistently cross and Kaplinsky says: “Turn the camera off.”
That series, it took Kaplinsky until week five to be awarded the show’s first ever top score of 10. Last season, after six 10s were awarded in the first five weeks, her former dance partner, Brendan Cole, said the judges are now often giving out the top score too soon.
When the idea of Strictly was pitched to Forsyth in the unlikely setting of an empty Italian restaurant off the A40, he never expected it to aim to match the high standards of the original, professional Come Dancing. Lush said he started laughing.
“He said, ‘That’s the funniest, best idea I’ve ever heard.’ He always saw it more as a comedy, with celebrities being really bad dancers, it being silly. What he never bargained for was how competitive they would be. And they rehearsed far more than we had ever imagined.
“Also, the professionals were people who had spent their whole life literally competing; they were competitive from day one. Even though it was obviously entertainment, it turned into a competition that people really cared about right from the start.”
Lush says she never envisaged that Strictly would become “one of the most successful series ever worldwide”, but thought it would appeal “because you could describe it in three words – pro-celebrity Come Dancing”. Children “love the glitz of it and the glamour, it can appeal to anybody, and the language of dance is international”.
Under the name of Dancing with the Stars, the BBC’s commercial wing (now BBC Studios) sold the show around the world, where it is now in more than 60 markets. BBC Studios not only benefits from making the show for BBC One and selling it abroad, it also makes money from the brand’s merchandise and tours. Dates for Strictly’s live UK tour next year are to be announced soon.
Only a few shows have made the corporation really big money: Strictly, big natural history BBC series such as Planet Earth, Top Gear, The Weakest Link and Doctor Who. At a time of intense competition with global streamers, the BBC cannot afford to lose one of its jewels, particularly with Top Gear being rested in the UK following Freddie Flintoff’s crash in December 2022.
However, the head of television at Enders Analysis, Tom Harrington, thinks the current row is unlikely to damage Strictly’s global appeal.
“I don’t think anyone in Belgium or wherever is reading the press here and thinking: ‘I’m less likely to watch the Belgian version.’ It’s very well insulated. Other than maybe the problems that they’ve allegedly had in the UK could be happening somewhere else.”
Harrington said that selling formats is estimated to make up about 20% of BBC Studios’ revenues but that the big formats are “very, very high margin … and incredibly lucrative”, which helps to explain Strictly’s importance to the BBC at a time when it is facing cuts because fewer people are paying the licence fee and, the BBC argues, 14 years of funding cuts by Conservative-led governments have reduced its budget by 30% in real terms.
The format has survived rows before, notably the behaviour of Seann Walsh in 2018, the unexpected exit of John Sergeant in 2008 and a racist comment by Anton du Beke in 2009. But at a time when the TV industry as a whole is under the microscope for working practices and power imbalances – most notably in the recent cases of Huw Edwards, Jermaine Jenas and Phillip Schofield – many will be watching to see if Strictly’s glitter ball has been tarnished.
The BBC will not say if it will mention the current row on the main show. Most producers I spoke to think it may depend on the result of the investigation but believe it is unlikely, though Daly and Forsyth did discuss Sergeant’s departure on-screen.
Welfare may be addressed, though, on spin-off show It Takes Two, which has previously featured executives talking about aspects of the series and often features training room footage.
Despite all the stories, the fans’ appetite for Strictly seems undimmed, with “a high volume of applications” already for the draw for tickets to be in the studio audience from 21 September, according to the BBC.
At the time of writing, the BBC’s report into the show’s conduct had not emerged, partly due to the sheer number of contestants to speak to, plus delays because of some people involved being away on holiday. One source claimed more audio evidence is expected in Pernice and Abbington’s case, and it is understood that Di Prima has a lawyer looking at his case.
Di Prima reportedly ended up “under medical supervision” after being told of the claims, telling the Daily Mail: “I was broken. Luckily, we were with my mum because I don’t know what would have happened if I’d been alone – maybe I wouldn’t be talking to you now. I didn’t stop shaking for a month. In those first days I had ugly thoughts [about suicide].”
Some seasoned BBC-watchers think the report might be published as quickly as possible to “clear the air”. However, others think the corporation will not reveal the results until viewers have emotionally invested in the new contestants.
As is so often the case with the BBC, questions will be asked about whether the appropriate processes were followed. As a licence fee-funded public service broadcaster, it is expected to observe particularly high standards.
Strictly’s contestants have a physical test to check they can cope with the rigours of the competition and are watched together before they are paired with their dancers. However, two sources who have worked with the series told the Guardian there needs to be more psychological testing for the celebrities when they sign up, to understand the show’s impact on them.
One former contestant said that every day of training was, “like doing a boot camp class”, with participants often taking part in six-hour rehearsals in addition to their day jobs and rising at 5am on live-show days. But they were prepared by their management for what would happen, so they went in with their “eyes wide open”.
A source who worked with Abbington claimed they realised early on she was becoming unhappy. The question is: when did the BBC know and what did it do about it?
The BBC’s editorial guidelines say: “We should consider the psychological impact (including psychological assessment and support) for all contributors when the format/nature of the programme means they’ll be put in highly pressurised or exposed situations, for example talent searches and reality immersive shows, even though they may not appear to have pre-existing vulnerabilities.
“It may not be apparent until part-way through pre-production/selection process that a likely contributor/contestant is vulnerable. Once this is established, this guidance should be followed when assessing whether to proceed and how to meet their likely needs.”
To the BBC’s credit, exit chats for Strictly contestants have always been standard practice on the show, so the participants can give feedback about their experiences and the series can make any changes.
However, a source who has worked with the professional dancers told the Guardian that some of them felt that, at times, they have “fallen between two stools of support”. Although the show has an experienced TV production psychologist available, as “the culture of everything has changed” it is claimed that the dancers have often not had enough training in how to manage people. The greatest dancers are not always necessarily the best teachers in terms of giving feedback. And they have to deal with the press and social media.
As one leading TV publicity consultant put it: “I’ve never seen a feeding frenzy on a story of this size before, mainly because the conditions have changed with social media.”
One of the key issues is that with the focus on the relationships between its participants, Strictly has partly become a reality show, albeit based on an artificial premise that all is joyous in the Strictly family. Mostly it is, and many former contestants had a positive experience, but some have told friends they are “frightened” of speaking up about that and being pulled into the current row.
But often there is “blood, sweat and tears” and, with audiences increasingly valuing authenticity, perhaps more of that might be shown this season. The gruelling hours and the toll they take are already highlighted in the Italian version – which Di Prima also worked on.
It is important to remember, though, that Strictly can lead to big business for the dancers. Pernice has a five-month tour for 2025 called The Last Dance, which is produced through Strictly Theatre Co, which is not affiliated with the BBC. It also puts on shows starring judge Du Beke and Widdrington, who partnered Rippon.
The publicity surrounding Pernice appears not to have damaged his appeal. Six of his tour dates for next spring have already almost sold out, and more than half the seats have gone for the final night in May at the London Palladium, including top price tickets at £93.
But has the scandal affected this year’s celebrity lineup? This year, Strictly has the lowest percentage of female dancers in its 20-year history – just six of the 15 contestants are women.
Two talent agencies I spoke to said they would have no qualms about their stars appearing on the show, which usually involves a three-year wait for celebrities to get into.
One TV critic said: “Strictly isn’t in crisis as such and it will carry on, but will it have lost its confidence? Is the BBC going to be confident enough to feel free to do a show that they want to make? Or are they going to be worried, and therefore you lose something from the show by playing safe?”
Only time will tell. But for now, as the show’s catchphrase goes, Strictly will “keep dancing”.