Don't diss 'the Morris' as it's one of the few ancient (it's really, really, really old) folk 'traditions' we uniquely still have in this country.
@Clive_ofthe_Kremlin, you’ve missed out pogo-ing, I would willingly sell my house and all its contents to see Krishnan Guru-Murthy pogo to ‘So What’ by the Anti-Nowhere League, as performed by Dave Arch and his band.
You've missed out the maypole! All that skipping around with long ribbons that I have to endure every spring in the playground at my kids' school.
The rowing dance was exclusively British I think. I remember watching a show where they explained how the Gap Band were perplexed when they performed in the UK and all the audience members immediately sat down on the floor.
Sure, because of the obviously clear causation between Strictly and fuel poverty. I agree that the BBC has dumbed down its content. But a show where celebrities learn or professionals illustrate predominantly foreign dances is extremely far from the lowest hanging fruit. In fact, I’d argue it’s pretty high brow compared to most shows on BBC1.
I don't watch it. It's a shame that people are obsessed with this tripe and other reality garbage. And celebrities. Look at the way current affairs and investigative and science programmes have been removed or cut in duration . David Attenborough said as much that there is a balance between entertainment and education but that it's swung to one extreme. Why not more programming so that the dummies that comprise most of the population are actually aware of what is going on in the world around them. The corruption, sleaze and inequity and what the future really holds. As I said in the past the BBC would have done a series on the history of dance in depth with performers and knowledgeable experts but not now.
The thing is that it’s not primarily about the celebrity and how popular they are (some of the professional dancers are probably more famous than some of the celebrities); it’s about their ‘journey’ in learning to dance either from no knowledge or quite a bit (in some cases). As @miked2006 says above, it’s really several steps higher than the Love Island type programmes. And most of us need some escapism now and then.
The smiles in this video remind me of what I used to see on Strictly, X Factor, BGT, you name it, then I stopped watching Saturday night "entertainment".
I was in the tiny Yorkshire Hamlet of Beck Hole about twenty years ago, watching some sword dancers, and it turned out that three of the dancers, all with northern teams, were Horns, as well as one of the musicians (a famous folkey melodeon player) and three or four of us non-participants in the crowd. When someone spotted my Vialli era shirt under my jacket, some one shouted out "f-ing hell, there's another one." You probably had to be there.
