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Semi-final action recappedLast night’s highlights are rewound on-screen. Bobby’s jazzy quickstep! Layton’s wafty rumba! Annabel’s spicy salsa! Ellie’s cheeky cha cha! Bobby’s powerful paso! Layton’s wow-inducing Charleston! Annabel’s elegant Viennese! Ellie’s poptastic but mildly disappointing Couple’s Choice!
That’s enough exclamation marks! Or is it?! Yes it is!
FrockwatchHere are our co-hosts, so time for the regular stylistic smackdown. Both in white. Tess Daly is in a wrap top. Claudia Winkleman in white tuxedo with black-trimmed shirt beneath. Claudia wins.
And a lovely waggy labrador. The dream.
Snow falls. Or is it Anton’s dandruff?
O come all ye festive dancesAs usual, we kick off with a group number from the Strictly professionals and this one’s a Christmassy romance, set to When I Fall In Love by Nat King Cole.
Love is in the air as Lauren Oakley decorates her Christmas tree but it’s bittersweet because she’s alone. She sees couples in the park, meets mystery man Graziano Di Prima, closes her eyes, dances with him and falls in love.
It’s American smooth in style with swooning lifts. A real couple’s number with dreamy partnering all over the floor. A romcom-style routine, full of winter magic. Feeling seasonally soppy yet?
And we’re off!Cue ba-ba-daa theme tune and roll clap-along credits. This is the penultimate time we’ll see these sort-of-famous faces, familiar moves and cheesy grins this year. Sob.
Turn on the tree lights, crack open the Quality Street early and take your sofa seats. We’re about to go back to the Elstree Studios ballroom…
Dance off is down to the couplesBecause they performed two routines apiece last night, the dance-off pairs can choose their favourite to reprise for the eliminator.
It should be a fairly easy decision for Bobby and Layton, who scored three and four more points respectively for one dance than the other. For Ellie and Annabel, there was only one point in it, so it might be a tougher call.
Just five minutes until sequin-spangled clapperboard comes down…
Concluding episode of Planet Earth III just drawing to a close on BBC1 right now. This one is dedicated to the conservation heroes fighting to save the world’s wildlife.
Good luck, Sir David Attenborough, the scores are in. And it’s four 10s. Just 10 minutes until we go from frogs to foxtrots, from rhinos to rumbas…
Another week, another maximum for LaytonFor the second week running, Layton Williams tempted Craig Revel Horwood’s 10 paddle out from hibernation and notched a perfect score for his blockbusting Singin’ In The Rain routine – hailed as the best Charleston ever seen on Strictly.
With last week’s 40-point paso doble carried over and his rumba notching all the nines, it meant an impressive accumulated score of 116 points out of 120. Surely that’s finalist form?
It’s 15 minutes until the glitterball starts spinning again…
Our Canadian correspondent writesAnother missive last night from Iain in Montreal, who wrote: “You’ve got ‘Claudia deliberately prompts one of Vito’s epic rambles about animals or obscure steps’ on your Strictly semi-final bingo card. Sadly, these are not in the clips that the BBC posts online for viewing outside the UK. I’ve seen clips from It Takes Two that give me an idea what an epic Vito ramble might be like. They seem quite endearing. I’m sorry to be missing them.
“On the other hand, I’m quite on board with ‘Anton making noises instead of commenting staying on the cutting-room floor.”
Us too, Iain, us too. Just 15 minutes to wait now
Take that and dance partyTonight’s musical guests are five-piece boyband turned three-piece manband Take That. Wonder if there’ll be jelly and bare bottoms involved, like the infamous Do What You Like video?
On that enduring image, it’s 25 minutes until showtime…
Annabel and Bobby in dance-off dangerThey’re the bottom two on the four-couple scoreboard, sp Annabel Croft and Bobby Brazier will be praying for salvation in the public vote.
Ellie Leach in the dance-off would be a major shock, while Layton Williams surely merits a final spot after that show-stopping Charleston, which means he’s now scored the only two perfect 40s of the series.
But could we see one last dance-off shocker? It’s half an hour until sequin o’clock…