Kevin Clifton has criticised Strictly Come Dancing viewers who are critical about women with dance experience before taking part in the show, suggesting that the public don’t see it as a major problem with male contestants.
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Chatting about the situation on his popular podcast, he opened up about Tom Fletcher, who has had dance training, joining the show, explaining: “
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I feel like the general audience of Strictly Come Dancing doesn’t mind it so much if a male celebrity has a bit of training, they don’t like it when a female celebrity has training. That is my experience of it.
“We talked about this a lot last year when Maisie [Smith] was on the show, and people were having a go, but everybody loved say Danny Mac, who had training. So whether [Tom] is trained or not I don’t think it will make too much difference for him.”
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Before finding fame with McFly, Tom attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School, and starred in several West End musicals, suggesting that he has had a good amount of dance training. Meanwhile, Maisie also received dance training at stage school, and studied musical theatre at college. The 20-year-old found herself in the bottom two on several occasions, despite receiving consistently high scores from the judges, and eventually came in as runner-up to comedian Bill Bailey.
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Celebs and dancing pros are already in training for the upcoming series, and John Whaite recently took to Twitter to discuss the experience so far. He said: “This week has been crazy. On Tuesday I met some of the team down at Strictly Come Dancing including the gorgeous gals in hair and makeup, and the brilliant wardrobe and costume team.
“I’ve never felt so awkward yet so excited as I thrashed around in front of glitter balls and sequin walls. I can't wait for you to come on this adventure with me and the other 14 celebs."
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