Episode 38 Strictly - It Takes Two

Live from London, this is Strictly: It Takes Two.

Hello and welcome to your Wednesday edition of It Takes Two.

We have a jam-packed show for you, my friends, so come join the party.

In our glittering green room tonight we've got Helen and Aljaz and Jay

We are still waiting for Helen to turn up!

With Blackpool just days away, tonight Ian Waite takes

an exclusive first look at all of our couples in training in the

But first, they opened the show last weekend and quickstepped

Alert! Anita, show me your hands! Tell me what happened. Is it his

fault? I got him back! I have a scar here. He's not stopped crying about

it. It is not - the headline is, it is not broken. The headline, it is

not broken. How did it happen? She was going through my legs and she

didn't close her thumbs... My thumbs ended up down here. Don't! You did

go to the hospital. Let's see what happened. There is no margin for

error or anything to go wrong, so I need to get this x-rayed to make

sure that it's still useable. The x-ray is clear. Excellent. It is not

broken? No. Gleb, you are one lucky man! What lovely metatarsals you

have(!) Is it going to be alright for the weekend? It will have to be.

The thing is, every single one of us have had some sort of injury. Yeah.

This feels like, oh yes, this is nothing compared to what my ribs

were doing in Week 3, or the fact my hamstring went. It doesn't matter.

You are talking like a dancer, it's a mere flesh wound! If you need a

plaster, Gleb, we can get some. Let's go back to Saturday night. And

another winning performance from the two of you. This was absolutely

beautiful. Look at you out there. The judges were full of praise for

you. Wonderful. And very complimentary about how consistent

you are. Starting this competition, having never been to stage school,

having never done any dancing, are you starting to feel like a dancer?

I don't know. It's really hard to say. Yeah, I'm a... Say yes! Yes! Am

I getting better? You are right, I entered Strictly with zero, nothing,

like, what, I don't know. Week on week, the fact that Gleb said to me,

I feel you are getting better, yes, it is, like, that, to me... She is

getting better every week. That is the biggest compliment. I loved

every second of that quickstep. I just loved it. You can tell when

someone's enjoying it because it oozes out of your every pore. How

was it opening the show? Do you like that? Is it more terrifying than

normal? We opened with the Samba. It is quite terrifying. It is quite

nice as well. You do it and you get the - if it goes well... It depends

on the dance. If you have tricks and flicks, you have to warm up. Yeah.

If it's a quickstep where you are always in hold, there is not much

going on. It is easier. always in hold, there is not much

going on apart from all of this and that(!) Gleb, you did have a bit of

quickstep classing from the master himself. Anton. Did that help or

were you being polite? It helped. He's a master of ballroom. So he

came in the room and I was, like, Anton, I have this step, what do you

think? He was, like, do that and change your foot. Oh, yeah, that

might work. I still didn't use it. Didn't you use it? Ah! Great advice.

Did you show him any rumba? I tried to. We did a little bit. He is good

at the rumba. Last night, Karen Hardy was on the show and she said,

what a lot of other people have been saying, she feels you are being a

bit undermarked. And she wants saying, she feels you are being a

see an end to that and see you getting good, good scores. How does

that feel to hear someone like Karen saying give them more marks!

that feel to hear someone like Karen support from Karen Hardy is immense.

I got loads of people on social media saying, yeah, for me, as long

as I'm improving, the scores - obviously, it would be incredible to

get amazing scores from the judges. I'm happy. Let's think about the

dance. It is all about the dancing. It is just about the dance. As long

as I can nail the dance every week, that is what it is about. Nines and

tens would be good at Blackpool! You are in the middle of the leered

board. -- leaderboard. It is getting tough, this competition. How does it

feel to be in there? If you get high scores, you are not so in danger? I

don't know. I don't know. I want to do the best that I can do on the

night. And enjoy it. And be able to nail the routine that we are

rehearsing. If people go, oh my God, you managed to do that! That is it.

That is it. That is all that matters. Off to Blackpool with a

paso doble. What more could you want? I'm so excited, I spat at you

there! This looks fantastic! Are you loving the drama of this dance and

how is the training going? I can't tell you how much I'm loving the

drama. It is different to the quickstep.

drama. It is different to the light and breezy, this is intense

and passionate and romantic and I love it! The training is the same as

every week. It is difficult. It love it! The training is the same as

starting from scratch. I'm looking forward to it. Now, with cape, let's

MUSIC with that.

It's going to be amazing. APPLAUSE

You look like you are putting the APPLAUSE

duvet on! You showed the entire routine! Do that, it is a winner. It

is huge, this weekend, it is Blackpool, you are doing a paso

doble. We are looking forward to the Gleb special moves that he is going

to throw in. There will be plenty. Good luck this weekend. Thank you.

Thank you. Anita and Gleb! APPLAUSE I like the chain!

Now, how about a first look at our couples in training for Blackpool?

The result of yesterday's iVote is in.

We asked you to vote on what Blackpool style costume you would

The votes have been counted and verified, and I can now reveal

APPLAUSE I have to say, we could have

splashed out a bit more on a proper donkey outfit! I come on live

television for you to make an ass out of me! I have you a special

wand! I will eat that later! It is a snack. It is Blackpool, it is upon

us, there is a frenzy in the air. We are all so excited. What excites you

the most about Blackpool? It's - the professionals love it. We have

danced there all our lives. It has the biggest competition in the world

there. It has that history in the ballrooms there. You can't beat the

history that it has. It is so special to go back there. What about

the floor? Everyone talks about the floor. The floor is so - I nearly

dropped my carrot! It goes up-and-down about six or seven

inches. That is the floor, ladies and gentlemen! Jay and Aliona in

training, they had a hiccup on the floor on Saturday. They are dancing

the salsa to Cuba. It is a classic. Could this be the best salsa we have

ever seen? I think it will be awesome, Zoe. I think it is very

fast and frenetic. If you look at all this fast armography, it looks

immense, especially with Jay's long arms. Oh, yeah, lovely, long limbs.

He makes it look effortless and good. But... There is always a but!

It can always go wrong. This area here is what I would like him to

work on. Oop! The end of your carrot has come off! Excuse me. Do you want

your old wand back? I can do it with my finger. This area here, his hips,

they have to be like... Like that - loose! They have to oscillate and

move. With all of the armography that is going on, he's forgetting

about his hips, so he needs to make sure that he's using those as well.

Let's move on to Jamelia and Tristan. They have broken history by

being in the dance-off and surviving for the fourth time. It takes a lot

of guts to still dance with a smile on your face. She has a quickstep.

How is she doing? Hasn't she done amazing to survive all of those

dance-offs? Here, as you can see, sometimes they are out of sync and

the quickstep is so fast. There are so many steps involved, it is so

easy to just take one step and then be completely out of sync, you are

going down whilst he is going up. This is an example of that. As you

can see... You are struggling with your tail and your carrot! As you

can see here, we need to see her over here rather than disappearing

because she's sort of gone down there. She needs to banana her body

into Tristan's right side so that she needs to be seen from behind.

Alright. We want to see her face over his lovely shoulders. Anita and

Gleb, they are excited about their paso doble. This could be quite

awesome. How is it looking? It is. I have got a bit of insider

information. Do tell. There will be three boys with capes as well. Ah!

This is going to be very dramatic and it will be wonderful, a

wonderful piece of music to Malaguena. This is the place where I

want to highlight. Look at her... What is going on with your tools

today? Hang on. There you go! I want to highlight this. She has lovely,

curved hands, even with that sore thumb, she's doing very well with

that. It looks fantastic. I think all she needs to do is shape it a

bit more and she will be there. More exaggeration. On to Katie and Anton,

the rumba was full of drama and intensity. They go to Blackpool with

an American Smooth, which they are dancing to Ain't That A Kick In The

Head? This will be perfect for them. It is a typical Anton, sort of

old-time, old-school, big band number, and we are at Blackpool. How

could it be any better? It will be perfect. She is doing some lovely

fall-aways, I would like her to release her toes a bit. She is in

the perfect place on him. Isn't he a pretty donkey? Peter and Janette are

doing a jive. He did so great at the Charleston. They are dancing to Tina

Turner, could this be a goody for him? A brilliant song. A classic

jive number, River Deep Mountain High. He is light on his feet. He

goes for it. The jive is perfect for him. What I would like him to do, he

does this flick-ball changes and he is very upright. Janette is further

forward in the chest and she's picked up from behind. Yes. She's

picked up from behind, tucked under and she is flicking like this - do

it with me! It is like this, like that, and then you go like that. I

always wanted to be the back end of the donkey! OK, let's move on to

Georgia and Giovanni and their Viennese with an American Smooth

twist with it. Top of the leaderboard. Can they stay up there

this week? Such a great dance last week. I loved it. That