Strictly Come Dancing 2024, review: Chris McCausland injects fun into a random first live show

Paul Merson dancing the American Smooth to Vindaloo by Fat Les - not the outcome of a game of Consequences, but an actual thing that happened on Strictly Come Dancing. The producers are certainly working overtime to make us forget about The Thing That Must Not Be Mentioned (the bullying inquiry hanging over this series).

Also here in this first live show: the singer from the Go Compare adverts in a chef’s outfit for reasons that remained unclear, and the actress from Miranda doing a routine in a joke shop to the strains of 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton. Claudia Winkleman dressed as if she had just walked off the set of Star Wars. All very random. The song choices were particularly out-there. Well done to the Strictly singers, who were required to move effortlessly from When I Need You by Leo Sayer to Breathe by The Prodigy.

Merson, with the stricken air of a man who has signed up for the show by mistake, did his best. The choreography required him to head the ball without breaking his stride - which he did brilliantly - and ride an invisible horse, which is hard to do with dignity.

He is not the only absolute beginner taking part. The first half of the series was refreshingly free of ringers, with a hi-viz-wearing Nick Knowles setting the tone in his opening number: bags of enthusiasm and effort making up for a lack of expertise. This show has had far too many trained dancers in recent years - 2023’s Layton Williams being a particularly egregious example - so it is good to see a decent proportion of amateurs this time around.

Nobody is being sent home this week, which is good news for Toyah Willcox. She attempted the tango, shaking her head as if she was malfunctioning. “This dance has never met Toyah,” said Motsi, grasping for the appropriate critique. “You were leaping around like a springbok, darling. Quite an awful lot wrong with it,” said Craig. Willcox is bottom of the leaderboard, but greeted the criticism with good cheer.

With some contestants, though, their prior dance experience is obvious. Tasha Ghouri swooped straight in with a performance so accomplished that it merited an 8 from Craig. Former pop star JB Gill and actress (and trained dancer) Sarah Hadland also scored highly. Hadland may go far because she is partnered with the popular Vito Coppola. Goodness knows, this show needs an unproblematic Italian.

But the performance of the night came from Chris McCausland. Of course, everyone was rooting for him. But to execute a cha cha as well as he did, while being unable to follow partner Dianne Buswell by sight, was astonishing. “It’s like someone took all the fun out of dancing and replaced it with terms and conditions,” he joked of the training process.

For him, maybe. But for the Strictly audience, in danger of falling out of love with this show after months of scandal, McCausland is putting the fun back in.