It’s August, the peak of the summer – although some might say that’s stretching it a bit – and just one more month to go until the annual reappearance of Strictly.
This veteran of 20 years draws the highest audience for our national TV’s channel and is a Saturday night “must” for millions of us.
It is intended to gladden the hearts of all true believers and to cheer us up as evenings draw in and we say goodbye to the summer. It’s a way of bridging the gap between the outdoor months and the closing in and withdrawal into winter. That’s how I and my friends experience it at any rate. We look forward to it and feel just that much more cheerful and forgetful of the gloom outside.
This September, however, I suspect I’m going to need a bit more of a stretch of imagination to allow me to separate what’s presented to me via my TV screen and the accusations I’ve heard about of what really goes on behind all that glitter and glitz.
I was shocked when the story came out first of all, as well as a bit dubious. It was a drip, drip reveal with an Instagram picture of a pair of dance shoes all alone. Nothing to see here. Except everything. We were baffled. They were such a great team and so good together. What an earth had happened?
Then came the messages of thanks, including everyone except the former professional dancer. The plot thickened.
From my point of view and despite my natural curiosity, I’d made up my mind earlier on so I wasn’t put off the series. Like so many fans, I felt I’d got to know these people and I was fully invested in the tales I was told. Some, I know, were a bit of a stretch but that’s reality TV nowadays. There has to be a story behind it, we are told.
All this happened last year. The show went on, a bit of baggage left behind but all pretty okay.
And then an interview last month brought it all back. The celebrity performer gave her side of the story. (The pro had already issued some comments through his lawyer but nothing further since.)
I wasn’t going to watch the interview but, in the interest of fairness, I felt I had to. My job is about listening and about sometimes having to listen to painful stories that others may not want – or feel able – to hear. If I couldn’t listen to this, I would be a little questioning of myself and maybe feel a little disappointed.
I sat down, potentially sceptical and tightly determined that my viewpoint was right all along. It’s always a little satisfying to have such confidence in the self, I find. But then, listening to this actor telling her story, I started to feel surprisingly moved.
I began to see it from her point of view, her (reasonably) enthusiastic decision to try something different, her discovery that the challenges were far greater she had imagined – for various reasons – and how it had stirred up and triggered all kinds of emotions within her, some of which may have blurred into her past and others which she clearly connected with her experience within the show’s environment. I could see how she felt let down and I could see how she felt she had no support from people within the programme who should have been there to look out for her.
It made me also think about the other party and how they might see it. He is a professional dancer. He became a star in his own right through extraordinary talent, effort and single-mindedness. Those qualities are effectively ingrained in him. He can’t turn them on and off like a tap. I reflect how he was brought up in a different culture from ours. I wonder if he’s used to being the centre of their world, too. Maybe they bent to his will a little more than his celebrity dancing partner was prepared to. A woman of 50 who knows her own mind, has succeeded in a difficult profession and battled with her own demons might not see his style of teaching as acceptable, however well intentioned. Perhaps these two partners, however it looked to us, were never going to gel.
The best riders generally have a rapport with their horse and finding coaxing is the best way of convincing.
I moved on and forgot the matter until the shock revelation of how the star of the GB Olympics dressage competition behaved towards her horse led me to reflect once more. It’s hard to see how anyone could condone what the now-fallen hero did (I did watch the video, and I didn’t want to) but I also can’t help wondering how we all admired and loved the performance of her and her horse and believed that was achieved purely by perfect accord. I’ve read about trainers personally defending her, saying they, too, have made mistakes and are so lucky they weren’t filmed. The rider in this case has accepted blame and removed herself from the scene. The horse can’t talk but we can see how it reacts to its treatment so we have a clue about how it feels.
Just so you don’t think I glean all my formative experiences from television, I’m reminded of someone who put up a fence between her and her neighbour’s property while the neighbour was away. The fence erector had every right to do that but the neighbour was enraged. When I asked why she hadn’t been told the answer was that it was a gift from a friend and a surprise also to her. Now, of course, the neighbours no longer speak and it’s a painful and awkward situation.
While considering these stories, I’ve been reminded of the quote: “Walk (waltz?) a mile in my shoes.” It sounds so easy but not, if like me, you have what have been described as “neurotic feet”. That means they’re not keen on walking a mile in their own shoes, let alone anyone else’s.
Even so, I’m going to give it a try. I shall try to be slower to judge and quicker to try to imagine how the – to me – less preferred party may feel. I may come up with the same conclusion but at least I’ll have given it considered thought. It’s called judging, but in a good way.