Think Strictly Come Dancing with
more cartwheels; just as many new skills to master and even fewer clothes and
you've got BBC1's new prime-time Saturday night gymnastics show Tumble.
The fundamentals are the same; well
known faces are each partnered with professionals, they perform a routine
combining everything they've learnt over the week meanwhile a panel of four
expert judges provide a critique and give scores out of 10. The only real
difference is that instead of ballroom dancing, the ten stars are mastering a
variety of gymnastic techniques over just eight weeks in front of a larger live
audience.
The One Show’s Alex Jones who acts
as a Brucie-style mediator between the terrified celebs and slightly ruthless
judges with her usual cheerful positivity and glamour hosts all of this.
The stars of the series include Towie's
Lucy Mecklenburgh, EastEnders' John Partridge, boxing legend Carl Froch, Girls
Aloud's Sarah Harding, Ian 'H' Watkins of Steps fame, former Blue Peter
presenter Peter Harding (a late stand-in for injured Mr. Motivator), Andrea
McLean from Loose Women and the Sugababes' Amelle Berrabah. They each have to
learn to incorporate challenging apparatus into their gym-dance routines over
the next six weeks until just one celebrity is crowned top Tumbler at the end
of the series.
Deciding their fate are judges
Nadia Comăneci -
triple Olympic gold medal winning gymnast, Team GB legend & Strictly Champ
Louis Smith, Commonwealth gold medalist gymnast Craig Heap and circus
choreographer Sebastien Stella. They're a happy bunch that
really knows their stuff from their experience of the industry. At times
they're rather brutally honest in telling the stars what they fell short of,
but use a refreshingly small amount of reality show clichés!
Some celebs chose to tackle
apparatus in the series premiere last nght whilst others were more choreography
based. They'll all come face to face with a different challenging skill as the
weeks progress ahead of showing off what they've learnt each Saturday night.
Whatever happens though the two
lowest scoring and voted competitors will have to face the dreaded vault-off in
order to perform again in next weeks show. The stars will have to spend an
anxious week waiting to discover their fate at the start of the next episode.
The first episode highlights
included:
Easy on the eye Carl performing
topless to coca cola classic 'I just wanna make love to you'
Lucy Meck and her partner Billy
being told to get more serious in training by her serious coach after covering
their faces in chalk and taking funny selfies
Trained dancer John Partridge
closing the show with a somersault-tastic routine to Bastille, which saw him labeled
by Craig as the competition's 'best performer' and scored the highest of the
lot with 27.5 out of 40
A brilliant vault, pommel horse and
mat routine performed by judge Louis Smith and his fellow Team GB tumblers
Judge Nadia criticising fellow panelist
Craig's vault at the end of the show - you can't beat a good clash of
ex-professional award-winning gymnasts.
All in all, not a bad start to a
series that the beeb hoped would, if rumours are to be believed, be 'better
than Splash'. Not exactly a hard challenge but one well achieved nonetheless.
Bring on next week!
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