Strictly Come Dancing 2018: the final - as it happened (2024)

Out come the judges! Shirley has gone full Disney princess ballgown, and I love her for it.

Out come the stars! This is the last time you’ll hear “social media star Joe Sugg” like that’s a perfectly normal job. Good to see Joe has dyed his hair, as promised. It’s actually not too hideous.

It’s our final TESS AND CLAUDIA DRESS WATCH of the season! They’re going out with a bang, with Claudia in a glitter-tastic blue sequin pantsuit, and Tess in a tablecloth held on by a curtain ring.

Buble mention! DRINK!

Pro dance time! Giovanni and Graziano have both lost their buttons AGAIN, and it’s minimal coverage all round. ‘This is It’ by Melba Moore is an absolute banger.

Ashley, Faye, Joe and Stacey descend from the heavens, and this is all rather fabulous. Can Johannes have a partner next year please?

And we’re off! Let’s get this Grand Final party started. Time for a flashback to the first interviews, from way back in September when this madness started. What a phenomenal journey it’s been. I think this definitely counts as a montage. DRINK.

This year’s FINAL Strictly Come Bingo – a slug of sherry for any occurrence of the following:

• Recaps and montages
• Four tens
• Mentions of Christmas
• Previous contestant sightings
• Michael Bublé

High likelihood that we’ll all be a trifle by the end.

I’ve got the daughter with me this evening – her job is to keep me stocked with snacks and booze over the next few hours. She thinks Stacey and Kevin are going to take the glitterball, I’m leaning towards Joe and Dianne, because Maths.

So for me this year’s glitterball is a tussle between Stacey and Kevin and Joe and Dianne. Both couples have had a brilliant Strictly Journey^TM and have been wonderful to watch; Stacey is undoubtedly the better dancer, but Joe has a fanbase the size of Jupiter and knows how to put on a crowd-pleasing show.

I think it’s going to come down to the Showdance from these two, and how many of Joe’s YouTube fans actually take the time to vote during the allotted window. This is not a variable we’ve ever had to consider on Strictly before, so who knows what might happen.

On paper it should be Ashley and Pasha for being brilliant dancers and giving us some absolute showstoppers. Which of course means they won’t win because the best dancer rarely does – see also Faye and Giovanni, who have been consistently excellent and wonderful to watch since the beginning, which is the kiss of Strictly death. If we’ve learned anything in recent years, it’s that pretending to be a bit sh*t in the early weeks goes a very long way.

So who’s going to win this year? As usual I did a highly scientific survey on Twitter and the results were pretty conclusive – it’s a landslide win for Stacey and everyone else is just making up the numbers. The poll was bang on about Joe and Katya last year, but I don’t think things are quite that simple this time round.

Evening all, and a very warm and sparkly welcome to the 2018 Strictly Come Dancing Grand Final liveblog! After three months of quality dance and a touch of high drama, we’ve whittled our original 15 couples to a final four – Ashley and Pasha, Faye and Giovanni, Stacey and Kevin and Joe and Dianne. I’ve ranked them in order of dance ability there, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t where the glitterball is going, because that isn’t how Strictly works. That said, this series has gifted us a few surprises, so let’s see how the final three dances play out.

So here’s the plan for tonight’s show – all four couples are dancing three routines back-to-back – a dance picked by the Judges, an anything-goes Showdance and each couple’s favourite dance of the series. As in recent years, there is no elimination after two dances, and no break before the winner is announced, so buckle in for a 150 minute sparkle marathon. Mostly this will be padded out with pro dances, montages, musical interludes, more montages and plenty of recaps, but we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.

Kick off is at 6.30pm – it’s the last Strictly before Christmas and I have high hopes for it being an absolute cracker, so bring snacks, booze and your most glittery dancing shoes. See you shortly!