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Dancing's Unlikely Star Quits Show

November 19, 2008 10:11 AM

By AMMU KANNAMPILLY, ABC News London

Visitors to Britain might be surprised by the reams of paper devoted recently to coverage of  “Strictly Come Dancing,” the U.K. version of “Dancing With the Stars.”

And they would almost certainly be shocked by the unlikely figure at the center of all the fuss -- a 64-year-old man more famous for his skills in the newsroom than on the dance floor.

In a sign of just how obsessed the country is with veteran political correspondent John Sergeant, today BBC News ran a breaking news banner announcing that the nation’s new hero had quit the show.

Before his shocking exit, Sergeant posed stiff competition to his fellow contestants. All this despite the fact that the man couldn’t dance to save his skin, much less to win the approval of the show’s judges, who have repeatedly panned his performances, calling him a "dancing pig" whose moves are “more ha ha ha than cha-cha-cha.”

But the British public couldn’t care less – viewers voted to keep him in the running each elimination round and their vote makes up half of the total score for each dancing couple.

Younger voters in particular have been quite keen on the former newsman, setting up Facebook groups called “John Sergeant to win” and “I love John Sergeant and want him to be my granddad.”

Until Sergeant’s decision to withdraw from the competition this morning, bookies William Hill had slashed the odds on him winning the top prize from 66-1 to 16-1, calling him “a genuine contender.”

So what lies at the heart of the portly journalist’s appeal?

Some have attributed his success to the British fondness for the underdog. As the London Times’ Giles Hattersley put it, “The less talented they are, the more we like them.”

TV presenter Esther Rantzen put it down to his “unbeatable” charm. “He may be a little older, a little heavier, and considerably slower than some of his rivals,” Rantzen wrote in the tabloid The Daily Mail, but, she added, he makes men “who, like him, are not as skinny as they once were, feel good about themselves,” and women “laugh and want to cuddle him.”

Everyone loves Sergeant, it seems, apart from the show’s despairing judges and a few disgruntled contestants.

Cherie Lunghi, an actress who was the most recent contestant to be voted off the show, claimed that Sergeant was turning the program into a “soap opera.”

Other contestants don’t seem to mind though, with model Jodie Kidd telling the London Times a week ago that the old newshand is “adorable.”

Television actor Tom Chambers, one of the favorites to win, spoke to the London Times Saturday, calling Sergeant “the man of the moment,” saying, “I think he has got the whole nation under his, um . . . charming spell.”

But the judges don’t agree: Craig Revel Horwood, a judge and a choreographer, told the London Times, “We are supposed to be voting for the best dancer, not the worst.”

And judge Arlene Phillips attacked Sergeant in an interview with BBC Breakfast News, saying, “There is nothing correct about his performances.”

“In terms of dance everything is wrong -- posture, movement, the position of his head,” Phillips said. “When [other celebrities] put hours in the practice studio they are constantly working. They do not sit down, and I know with John, he sits and reads the Guardian. A lot of time he and his dance partner spend fooling around.”

But for all the fooling around, Sergeant’s presence has made this season of “Strictly Come Dancing” a hit.

“‘Strictly’s’ ratings were down on last year,” Boyd Hilton, television editor of U.K. celebrity magazine Heat, told the London Times, “then suddenly last week it got a huge boost — and that’s down to the John Sergeant factor. How boring would these shows be if the good, talented dancers and singers just stayed in week after week?”

Well, viewers will now have a chance to find out after Sergeant’s withdrawal.

For all the hand-wringing, however, no one seemed to have a better time on the show than him, or have a clearer sense of its absurdity. Discussing his efforts to learn the tango, he joked, “It has all the characteristics people associate with me -- passion, rhythm and a raw sexuality.”

Even his statement announcing his decision to leave the show was not without humor.

"The trouble is that there is now a real danger that I might win the competition. Even for me that would be a joke too far."

For those who will miss him -- and there are many -- it’s been announced that he will return on Saturday's show for a "farewell dance.” And presumably, a tumble or two.

Read more blogs by Ammu Kannampilly

November 19, 2008 in Ammu Kannampilly | Permalink | User Comments (2)

User Comments

Posted by: carlos | Nov 19, 2008 12:55:08 PM

Posted by: Heliocracy | Nov 20, 2008 1:38:51 AM

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