It was the dire and the close to dazzling clamouring for attention on the second round of So You Think You Can Dance. Flawed performances by the first three couples were followed by bravura displays revealiing unexpected levels of talent.
In particular, Hayley and Drew, who both lost their partners last week, showed sides of themselves that had not been seen before. Hefty Hayley might be a first in having the strength to lift her man, though the slightly-built Drew did manage to lift her back: “Tonight Peter Pan turned into a man!” as Arlene so succintly put it.
But first, we had to sit through Yanet and Robbie performing a hip hop routine which Arlene called “about as synchronised as a British Raiways timetable,” while poor Gavin actually slipped during his Broadway number with the appealingly Ann Miller-ish Chloe. Alastair and Mandy were also disappointingly erratic - I agreed with Louise that they slipped between passionate and bland, and with Nigel that Alastair let down his very accomplished partner.
Arlene found Tommy “extraordinary - every ripple, every move” in his jazz number with Charley, though Nigel and Cisco felt they didn’t do enough. Considering Mark, with his street dance background, knew so little about the Viennese waltz that he thought it was a biscuit rather than a dance before he had to learn it, he and his partner Lizzie, also a hip hop dancer, wowed the judges: “You are the heart of what So You Think You Can Dance is all about,” they said, and I agree with them.
It was a shame to see both Chloe, with her huge personality, and Mandy, with her fine technique, in the dance-off, and surprising perhaps that Arlene disagreed with the other three judges that Mandy, the oldest contestant, should be the one to keep. “Chloe’s story-telling won my heart - and that’s what this competition is about,” she lamented, as Chloe tearfully tottered off.
But all four judges were unanimous about the guys - Gavin, despite having come along so far in four years of dancing, had been lucky to escape being in the bottom two last week, and it was inevitable he would never have made the final cut against such strong dancers in the current field.