First ever Strictly series (2004) starts tonight

That will be fun to watch,!

Thanks. I don't think I'll watch it though. The sparkle has faded

Thank you for that reminder. I’ll set my to box to record it. I didn’t watch it in the early years. I think I only started watching about 6 years ago.

Just watching it.

Never watched the first series as my mum was nearing end of life and I was helping look after her.

Goodness, it all looks very amateurish, compared to now. Bruce determined to be the star. Tess sounds very Yorkshire, (nothing wrong with that) and looks homely and unspoiled. Don’t recognise many of the contestants or the professionals.

The judges look so young! And Craig earmarked as the ‘baddie’ from the start.

It’ll all be done and dusted in the hour, unlike the marathons of today.

How times change.

I much prefer the earlier series of most things. Less of the bling, less inane chatter, it's not a target for those celebs who need to make a name for themselves by breaking something down, the people on it are actually happy to be on it and do something different.

Oh, Claire Sweeney (ghastly Cassie from Corrie) is on.

She looks very pretty but sounds like Cassie unfortunately.

I tuned in as a break from the Olympics.
Painful to watch 😱.

Well, that was interesting.

I've absolutely no recollection of some of the professional dancers.

Given they had 6 weeks training, the standard of dancing even for the first week was pretty poor compared to what we see now.

Not even a brief introduction for the judges.

The overall show was quite "lame" compared to the glitz and glamour we have now.

On the other hand, I much prefer seeing them do just 2 dances, it's much easier for the viewers and it's much fairer. You don't get lots of wow dances and then one couple has to come out and dance a slow rhumba.

It was a joy to see them performing to dance appropriate music. I've never reconciled to a tango being danced to a Black Sabbath song! And I had completely forgotten that the band was originally Laurie Holloway.

Some of the remarks would definitely be out of order today.

It was nice to see Bruce again.

Craig - well, some things never change

Yes, things have certainly evolved over 20 years.

Some better, some not so.

Who would have thought from these humble beginnings such a global dance show would have emerged?

It was interesting to see how far the show has travelled from it's original programme. It was very simple, wasn't it? I think the slick, smooth show it is now, has lost something along the way. Like others, most of the dancers names I have completely forgotten.

I didn’t watch Strictly in the early days so I recorded this first episode and watched last night. I felt for Claire Sweeney after her performance . Bruno was brutal in the way he spoke to her about having previous dance experience .

I’d forgotten all about Brendan Cole. As the saying goes “if he was chocolate he’d eat himself”

I didn’t recognise the comedian Jason Wood and googled his name. Sadly, he died in 2010 aged 38.

I watched it on catch up and flipped through it. I thought the dancers in recent series were far better even in the first show. Is this the result of more demanding training regimes I thought?

That was a blast from the past wasn't it. Really enjoyed looking back at how amateurish it seemed compared to the big budget extravaganza it has become.
The 4 judges squashed on a tiny table.
I didn't recognise many of the professionals although I do follow Hanna Karttunun on Instagram - she only stayed a couple of years. Paul Killick the professional was very harsh on his partner, the actress from Casualty. She looked close to tears.
Good old Lesley Garratt enjoyed every minute of it.

Calendargirl

Just watching it.

Never watched the first series as my mum was nearing end of life and I was helping look after her.

Goodness, it all looks very amateurish, compared to now. Bruce determined to be the star. Tess sounds very Yorkshire, (nothing wrong with that) and looks homely and unspoiled. Don’t recognise many of the contestants or the professionals.

The judges look so young! And Craig earmarked as the ‘baddie’ from the start.

It’ll all be done and dusted in the hour, unlike the marathons of today.

How times change.

I thought Tess was from Stockport?

I thought Tess was from Stockport

I stand corrected! I assumed (wrongly) she was from Yorkshire.

Apologies all round!