The ‘Dancing Pig’ quits while ahead
Thursday, November 20th, 2008John Sergeant has spectacularly decided to quit the BBC talent show Strictly Come Dancing, saying there is a “real danger” he might actually win.
Sergeant, 64 and the oldest contestant on the show, sparked mixed reactions from the audience and judges. Despite consistently finishing bottom of the judges’ rankings after a series of lamentable performances, the public kept voting the so-called “dancing pig” back into the show.
He said that he had decided to call it a day because his continued popularity with the general public was beginning to “irritate and annoy people”.
Today the BBC said that it had received over 2000 complaints from Strictly fans since Sergeant announced he would be quitting the show yesterday. By contrast only 377 people complained about his continual involvement in the sho before the announcement.
Messages of support for the corpulent political correspondent have also been flowing in from some of the biggest names in politics and media, including Jeremy Paxman and Peter Mandelson.
In a statement yesterday, Sergeant said “It was always my intention to have fun on the show and I was hoping to stay in as long as possible. “The trouble is that there is now a real danger that I might win the competition. Even for me that would be a joke too far,” he continued.
“The reasons for leaving; well it is like when do you leave a party? You leave before the fighting starts and I think that is what has happened on this occasion.
“We had fun dancing and dancing is a wonderfully enjoyable thing, but if the joke wears thin, if people begin to take things very seriously and if people are getting so wound up that is very difficult to carry on the joke, then it is time to go.”
Sergeant’s decision to leave the show will prevent a potential row between BBC bosses and the show’s judges, who were becoming increasingly frustrated that the general public were repeatedly going against their professional judgement. Len Goodman, the normally avuncular head judge, had complained that Sergeant’s success “made a nonsense of the show”, while earlier this week, judge Arlene Phillips accused Sergeant and his Russian dance partner Kristina Rihanoff of messing around while the other celebrities worked hard at perfecting their moves.
Bruce Forsyth, the show’s co-host, described Sergeant’s departure as “a bit of a shock” and said: “I feel sorry for John because he was put in the most awkward position. He looked at all the other dancers and knew they were better than him.”
The BBC has said that Sergeant and Rihanoff will appear one final time on Saturday’s live BBC1 edition of the show, in which he will give a farewell dance.
Unless you’ve not already done so, check out the video above for Sergeant’s plodding moves.
November 20th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I haven’t watched much of this series but I find it all a bit puzzling - none of the dances I’ve seen him do appear to be that bad.. Maybe not amazing but surely not bad enough to be news-worthy?!
Having said that, because of all this fuss I’ve seen far more of Sergeant’s dancing than any of the other competitors so perhaps he’s just not keeping up with their standard.