It's been another busy week in the Jordan household – with back-to-back panto rehearsals for this dancing couple. Ola Jordan's baby bump is getting bigger by the day but she’s managing to just about stay on top of her hectic schedule! "She's incredible," proud husband James says as they drive to their eighth rehearsal in as many days. "I've found it quite tiring as have the rest of the cast I can't imagine how poor little Ola chops feels." "I do feel tired but generally I'm good," the future mum reveals. "It's going well. I have a bit of baby brain - I'm worried I'm not going to remember my lines but I'm going to blame my baby brain!" "I'm going to blame my baby brain as well," laughs James. "I'm going to say I have the same thing, I'm all for equality!" Thankfully, despite their tiredness, the dancing champs managed to get home in time to put their feet up in front of Strictly Come Dancing's Musicals' Night on Saturday – and they're glad they did! Here's what they thought of the quarter-finals.
Karen and Chris opened the show on Saturday night
James: What a show! This week was really exceptional. I think the pros are doing such a great job. I was sitting there as a viewer and a dancer - and I'm normally very critical but honestly I just really, really enjoyed the show. All the professional dancers did an amazing job. Of course, the celebrities did too but the choreography, the preparation, that's all the pros and they're really doing amazingly this year.
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Ola: You can tell everyone's really lifting their game again. It was brilliant. You could see how much they've all trained. All of them – there's the two non-dancers against the three who have obviously had more training but all of them did a fantastic job.
James: This is a crucial stage of the competition – there are only five couples left they all have a chance of getting to the final so it means a lot – it's just one last big push and you can really see everyone's putting in maximum effort.
Ola: We definitely agree on that but we don’t agree on everything this week!
Kelvin and Oti were joint second on the leaderboard
James: Yeah - Kelvin’s performance with all the extra dancers was like a West End show for me. I don’t usually like all the extra dancers to be honest, sometimes I feel it detracts but that dance was amazing.
Ola: And it’s funny because I enjoyed Karim more. Because Kelvin's Viennese Waltz wasn’t technically that good.
James: You're right and I'm normally a stickler for that.
Ola: I know, and I don’t know what happened to you – but for me it’s definitely Karim that was better.
James: I know – I do agree, I’d give him a 10. If it was a proper dance competition I would have marked Karim higher than Kelvin, however, I found myself more drawn to Kelvin’s performance. I get why he’s getting more public vote than Karim – it's because he sells the character, he's more charismatic.
Karim received the first 10 from Craig
Ola: I mean I get it. I think Kelvin’s going to win. He’s got no competition. And that’s what people say when they say they thought Kelvin was better – because they’re looking at the same thing that James is. But strictly on dancing, I think Karim was better.
James: We’re not usually that into into Musical Week, so it was a bit of a surprise that we loved this one so much.
Ola: Yeah – the problem with Musical Week is sometimes the dances don’t really match the music, they’re just for the sake of doing it to a musical. I think Chris is a good example here. His Foxtrot wasn’t quite to the right music. In a Foxtrot, you want to use slow, quick, quick, slow, whereas Chris had all the quicks in his which to me isn't a proper Foxtrot. The whole performance was brilliant, he massively pulled it off and I think it’s great that the two non-dancers are holding their own. But if you really look at it, there was hardly any Foxtrot in there. That’s probably why it looked so good – because the Foxtrot is so difficult, so to make it look good is difficult.
Alex and Neil danced to Sister Act
James: You could say Karen’s being clever really because it’s about the public voting at home and if she can create a performance where the public picks up the phone and vote then she’s done her job. They’re not really that interested in whether they do a proper Foxtrot or not if people at home enjoy the performance they overlook that.
Ola: I don’t know why Shirley said that Emma had just danced her way into the final.
James: I know - why would she say that when Karim and Kelvin were clearly so much better? And she didn’t say it to them so maybe there's a little bit of favoritism there. Emma did a great job but she’s clearly middle of the leaderboard.
Shirley was particularly impressed with Emma and Anton's performance
Ola: You’ve got Kelvin and Karim – the two good ones at the top, the two non-dancers at the bottom and Emma sits nicely in the middle. Do I want them in the final? Yes! Just to see Anton get into the final but she’s not really close to the others.
James: It’s so great to see Anton this year - he's got his passion back. Thing is with him, he’s so good at dealing with getting not great dancers and he’s able to turn it into humour - and that’s been such a massive part of the show, but this year it’s all different. I see this grit and determination back – he's fighting for it. He's having fun, I love to see that, he’s out there, he’s competing with the rest of them and I'm pro Anton.
Ola: Yes, I agree but do they deserve and walk their way into the final? No – they've still got to keep pushing and fighting.
James: One thing that got a lot of attention last night was the voting issues.
Ola: Yeah a lot of people tweeted us that they couldn’t vote online so James put a message out saying you had to call to vote this week.
James: It gets everyone very stressed but the way I see it, it’s the same for everyone so it doesn’t really matter. You can have a conspiracy theory and say they’re trying to do this or that, and who knows what’s true but it is the same for every single person left in the competition. And the thing is, on shows like Dancing on Ice, they release and publish the voting figures, but the BBC doesn’t so you never really know anyway.
Ola: You loved that part didn’t you James!
James: Oh yes, I quite liked knowing I was favourite to win every week! No – I'm joking - It's not about that, I just find it fascinating that you’re able to watch every week and know the figures. I don’t understand why the BBC wouldn’t release that information. It would be great. But with the online voting going down, for me it wasn’t a big deal.
Ola: How about Alex and Neil – we haven’t spoken about them yet and we love Neil. People are saying it must’ve been hard to have him injured during the show but honestly, I think it wasn’t a problem. It meant Alex had two guys helping her so if anything she had extra help!
James: I think if she hadn’t had Neil, Alex would have only got to week three. Neil was really clever yesterday - again there wasn’t that much Samba in their dance but because Karen and Neil have got the non-dancers you've got to hide that and mix up the dances a bit. He mixed it with a more street kind of dancing and it worked! I think Neil’s very clever.
Ola: Really all the pros were really clever this week. It was a very exceptional week. But we do love Neil. I’ve known him for 20 years.
James: Yeah I’ve known him even longer than that and he’s a wonderful human being. We often send him a DM to say well done - he’s a lovely guy. When I was on Dancing on Ice he was a really big supporter for me, so I'll always support him.
Tune in next week to see what James and Ola make of the semi-finals – eeeek! To catch them in panto at Redhill’s Harlequin Theatre from next Friday, click here.
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