Strictly Come Dancing
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Television extravaganza Strictly Come Dancing debuted in May 2004 in the UK, bringing ballroom dancing to a whole new generation. Pairing celebrities with professionals, it has gone on to become one of the most successful TV competitions in the world. In several countries, it’s called Dancing with the Stars.
In 2019, co-creator and executive producer Karen Smith spoke to Ashley Byrne about the bright, shiny and glittery TV success story.
A Made in Manchester production.
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(Photo: Sir Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly from Strictly Come Dancing. Credit: BBC)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:09.3 | In 2019, Ashley Byrne spoke to executive producer Karen Smith about the creation of TV extravaganza |
| 0:18.2 | strictly come dancing. |
| 0:24.5 | The show would go on to wow audiences around the world, |
| 0:27.3 | pairing celebrities with professional dancers, |
| 0:30.3 | under the name Dancing with the Stars. In May 2004, a new Saturday evening show from the BBC full of sequins, feathers and spray tents launched onto TV screens across Britain. |
| 0:50.1 | I knew that it could be the most outrageous, sparkly, brilliant, compelling, romantic show. |
| 0:59.6 | Co-created by TV producer Karen Smith, |
| 1:02.4 | Strictly Come Dancing, saw professional dancers partner with celebrities |
| 1:05.8 | to battle it out on the dance floor, with a panel of judges critiquing each performance. |
| 1:11.7 | And having the live orchestra, that was a really important thing to me because I wanted to make it feel like you were going to see a Vegas show every week. |
| 1:19.0 | The mix of glitz, theatricality and celebrity glamour, plus the ability for audience members at home to vote for their favourite act, soon became a winning formula, not only in the UK, but across the globe. |
| 1:32.5 | So you can go anywhere in the world and play that theme tune, |
| 1:35.5 | and people will know exactly what you're talking about. |
| 1:43.1 | Strictly Come Dancing began as an idea to revamp an old and dated BBC television show called Come Dancing into a ratings-winning Saturday Night Family Show, an increasingly difficult audience to attract. |
| 1:56.3 | Producer Richard Hopkins approached Karen Smith to help develop the new series, which he'd initially |
| 2:01.3 | entitled Pro Celebrity Dancing. It was the rise of the celebrity competition. It was actually |
| 2:09.1 | on a list of ideas that Richard Hopkins had and he's like, you know, would you like to do this? |
| 2:13.6 | And I went, yeah, absolutely. And he kind of looked at me slightly, really? |
| 2:19.6 | You designed it as a family show, didn't you? |
| 2:20.2 | Absolutely. |
| 2:25.5 | For kids, it has that sparkle, that dress up, that magic, that romance. |
... |
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