A paunchy old bloke who made TV worth watching THE BIG question of the week? Did John Sergeant jump, was he pushed or did he just trip over his two left feet? The next big question: why do we care?
For those of you who cancelled your telly licence after the last BBC farce, let me briefly explain the ins and outs of Waltzergate.
The hoo-ha centres on a celebrity ballroom dancing show, a retired journalist, a panel of snooty judges and the Great British Public.
It turns out that when Sergeant took the floor of Strictly Come Dancing to dance it out with a bunch of other younger, slimmer, more glamorous, less baldy celebs to clinch the title, the producers were rather wrong-footed.
You see the GBP rather liked old John, despite his obvious lack of dancing talent. Despite a weekly slagging from the judges, who marked him last for three weeks running, the "dancing pig in Cuban heels" was always saved from the deciding dance-off by the public vote. Indeed, the nastier the judges, the more popular the porcine prancer became.
What was the harm in that, one wonders. This is entertainment, after all. The sequined hero had won the hearts of the nation. The public had spoken. Sergeant might have dragged his partner Kristina Rihanoff across the dancefloor like a sack of tatties, but in the eyes of the viewers, he was a winner.
SundayHerald
