title: Aryan

text: In ancient Sanskrit literature, the term "Āryāvarta" (आर्यावर्त, the 'abode of the Aryas') was the name given to the cradle of the Indo-Aryan culture in northern India. The "Manusmṛiti" locates "Āryāvarta" in "the tract between the Himalaya and the Vindhya ranges, from the Eastern (Bay of Bengal) to the Western Sea (Arabian Sea)".


title: Aryan

text: The stem "airya-" also appears in "Airyanəm Waēǰō" (the 'stretch of the Aryas' or the 'Aryan plain'), which is described in the "Avesta" as the mythical homeland of the early Iranians, said to have been created as "the first and best of places and habitations" by the god Ahura Mazdā. It was referred to in Manichean Sogdian as "ʾryʾn wyžn" ("Aryān Wēžan"), and in Old Persian as "*Aryānām Waiǰah", which gave the Middle Persian "Ērān-wēž", said to be the region where the first cattle were created and where Zaraθuštra first revealed the Good Religion. The Sasanian Empire, officially named "Ērān-šahr" ('Kingdom of the Iranians'; from Old Persian *"Aryānām Xšaθram"), could also be referred to by the abbreviated form "Ērān", as distinguished from the Roman West known as "Anērān." The western variant "Īrān", abbreviated from "Īrān-šahr", is at the origin of the English country name "Iran".


title: Aryan

text: "Alania", the name of the medieval kingdom of the Alans, derives from a dialectal variant of the Old Iranian stem *"Aryāna-", which is also linked to the mythical "Airyanem Waēǰō". Besides the "ala"- development, *"air-y"- may have turned into the stem "ir-y-" via an i-mutation in modern Ossetian languages, as in the place name "Iryston" (Ossetia), here attached to the Iranian suffix *"-stān".


title: Aryan

text: Other place names mentioned in the "Avesta" include "airyō šayana", a movable term corresponding to the 'territory of the Aryas', "airyanąm dahyunąm", the 'lands of the Aryas', "Airyō-xšuθa", a mountain in eastern Iran associated with Ǝrəxša, and "vīspe aire razuraya," the forest where Kavi Haosravō slew the god Vāyu.


title: Aryan

text: Old Persian names derived the stem *"arya"- include "Aryabignes" (*"arya-bigna", 'Gift of the Aryans'), "Ariarathes" (*"Arya-wratha-", 'having Aryan joy'), "Ariobarzanēs" (*"Ārya-bṛzāna"-, 'exalting the Aryans'), "Ariaios" (*"arya-ai-", probably used as a hypocorism of the precedent names), or "Ariyāramna" (whose meaning remains unclear). The English "Alan" and the French "Alain" (from Latin "Alanus") may have been introduced by Alan settlers to Western Europe during the first millennium CE.


title: Aryan

text: The name "Aryan" (including derivatives such as "Aaryan," "Arya, Ariyan" or "Aria") is still used as a given name or surname in modern South Asia and Iran. There has also been a rise in names associated with "Aryan" in the West, which have been popularized due to pop culture. According to the U.S. Social Security Administration in 2012, "Arya" was the fastest-rising girl's name in popularity in the U.S., jumping from 711th to 413th position. The name entered the top 200 most commonly used names for baby girls born in England and Wales in 2017.


title: Aryan

text: The word Arianus was used to designate Ariana, the area comprising Afghanistan, Iran, North-western India and Pakistan. In 1601, Philemon Holland used 'Arianes' in his translation of the Latin Arianus to designate the inhabitants of Ariana. This was the first use of the form "Arian" verbatim in the English language.


title: Aryan

text: In the aftermath of the Islamic conquest in Iran, racialist rhetoric became a literary idiom during the 7th century, i.e., when the Arabs became the primary "Other" – the Aniran – and the antithesis of everything Iranian (i.e. Aryan) and Zoroastrian. But "the antecedents of [present-day] Iranian ultra-nationalism can be traced back to the writings of late nineteenth-century figures such as Mirza Fatali Akhundov and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani. Demonstrating affinity with Orientalist views of the supremacy of the "Aryan peoples" and the mediocrity of the "Semitic peoples", Iranian nationalist discourse idealized pre-Islamic Achaemenid and Sassanid empires, whilst negating the 'Islamization' of Persia by Muslim forces." In the 20th century, different aspects of this idealization of a distant past would be instrumentalized by both the Pahlavi monarchy (In 1967, Iran's Pahlavi dynasty [overthrown in the 1979 Iranian Revolution] added the title Āryāmehr "Light of the Aryans" to the other styles of the Iranian monarch, the Shah of Iran being already known at that time as the Shahanshah ("King of Kings")), and by the Islamic republic that followed it; the Pahlavis used it as a foundation for anticlerical monarchism, and the clerics used it to exalt Iranian values vis-á-vis westernization.


title: Aryan

text: The word "ārya" is often found in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain texts. In the Indian spiritual context, it can be applied to Rishis or to someone who has mastered the four noble truths and entered upon the spiritual path. According to Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru, the religions of India may be called collectively "ārya dharma," a term that includes the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent (e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and possibly Sikhism).


title: Aryan

text: The word ārya is also often used in Jainism, in Jain texts such as the Pannavanasutta. In Avaśyakaniryukti, an early Jaina text, a character named "Ārya Mangu" is mentioned twice.


title: Aryan

text: The term 'Aryan' was initially introduced into the English language through works of comparative philology, as a modern rendering of the Sanskrit word "ā́rya". First translated as 'noble' in William Jones' 1794 translation of the "Laws of Manu", early-19th-century scholars later noticed that the term was used in the earliest Vedas as an ethnocultural self-designation "comprising the worshipers of the gods of the Brahmans". This interpretation was simultaneously influenced by the presence of the word "Ἀριάνης" (Ancient Greek) ~ "Arianes" (Latin) in classical texts, which had been rightly compared by Anquetil-Duperron in 1771 to the Iranian "airya" (Avestan) ~ "ariya" (Old Persian), a self-identifier used by the speakers of Iranian languages since ancient times. Accordingly, the term 'Aryan' came to refer in scholarship to the Indo-Iranian languages, and, by extension, to the native speakers of the Proto-Indo-Iranian language, the prehistoric Indo-Iranian peoples.


title: Aryan

text: During the 19th century, through the works of Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), Christian Lassen (1800–1876), Adolphe Pictet (1799–1875), and Max Müller (1823–1900), the terms "Aryans", "Arier", and "Aryens" came to be adopted by a number of Western scholars as a synonym of '(Proto-)Indo-Europeans'. Many of them indeed believed that "Aryan" was also the original self-designation used by the prehistoric speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, based on the erroneous assumptions that Sanskrit was the oldest Indo-European language and on the linguistically untenable position that "Ériu" (Ireland) was related to "Arya". This hypothesis has since been abandoned in scholarship due to the lack of evidence for the use of "arya" as an ethnocultural self-designation outside the Indo-Iranian world.


title: Aryan

text: In contemporary scholarship, the terms 'Aryan' and 'Proto-Aryan' are still sometimes used to designate the prehistoric Indo-Iranian peoples and their proto-language. However, the use of 'Aryan' to mean 'Proto-Indo-European' is now regarded as an "aberration to be avoided". The 'Indo-Iranian' subfamily of languages – which encompasses the Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and Nuristani branches – may also be referred to as the 'Aryan languages'.


title: Aryan

text: However, the atrocities committed in the name of Aryanist racial ideologies during the first part of the 20th century have led academics to generally avoid the term 'Aryan', which has been replaced in most cases by 'Indo-Iranian', although its Indic branch is still called 'Indo-Aryan'. The name 'Iranian', which stems from the Old Persian *"Aryānām", also continues to be used to refer to specific ethnolinguistic groups.


title: Aryan

text: Some authors writing for popular consumption have kept on using the word "Aryan" for all Indo-Europeans in the tradition of H. G. Wells, such as the science fiction author Poul Anderson, and scientists writing for the popular media, such as Colin Renfrew. According to F. B. J. Kuiper, echoes of "the 19th century prejudice about 'northern' Aryans who were confronted on Indian soil with black barbarians [...] can still be heard in some modern studies."


title: Aryan

text: Racially-oriented interpretations of the Vedic "Aryas" as "fair-skinned foreign invaders" coming from the North led to the adoption of the term "Aryan" in the West as a racial category connected to a supremacist ideology known as Aryanism, which conceived the Aryan race as the "superior race" responsible for most of the achievements of ancient civilizations. In 1888 Max Müller, who had himself inaugurated the racial interpretations of the "Rigveda", denounced talk of an "Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair" as a nonsense comparable to a linguist speaking of "a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar". But an increasing number of Western writers, especially anthropologists and non-specialists influenced by Darwinist theories, came to see the "Aryans" as a "physical-genetic species" contrasting with the other human races - rather than as an ethnolinguistic category. During the late-19th and early-20th centuries, a fusion of Aryanism with Nordicism - promoted by writers such as Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), Theodor Poesche (1825-1899), Houston Chamberlain (1855-1927), Paul Broca (1824-1880), Karl Penka (1847-1912), and Hans Günther (1891-1968) - led to the portrayal of the Proto-Indo-Europeans as blond and tall, with blue eyes and dolichocephalic skulls. Modern scholars reject those views and remind that the idea of a Vedic opposition between "ārya" and "dāsa" underlying a racial division remains problematic, since "most of the [Vedic] passages may not refer to dark or light skinned people, but dark and light worlds".


title: Aryan

text: Arthur de Gobineau, the author of the influential "Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races" (1853), viewed the white or Aryan race as the only civilized one, and conceived cultural decline and miscegenation as intimately intertwined. According to him, northern Europeans had migrated across the world and founded the major civilizations, before being diluted through racial mixing with indigenous populations described as racially inferior, leading to the progressive decay of the ancient Aryan civilizations. In 1878, German American anthropologist Theodor Poesche published a survey of historical references attempting to demonstrate that the Aryans were light-skinned blue-eyed blonds. The use of "Arier" to mean 'non-Jewish' seems to have first occurred in 1887, when a Viennese physical-fitness society decided to allow as members only "Germans of Aryan descent" (). In "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century" (1899), which Stefan Arvidsson notes is identified as "one of the most important proto-Nazi texts", British-German writer Houston Chamberlain theorized an existential struggle to the death between a superior German-Aryan race and a destructive Jewish-Semitic race. The best-seller "The Passing of the Great Race", published by American writer Madison Grant in 1916, warns of a danger of miscegenation with the immigrant "inferior races" – including speakers of Indo-European languages (such as Slavs, Italians, and Yiddish-speaking Jews) – allegedly faced by the "racially superior" Germanic "Aryans" (that is: Americans of English, German, and Scandinavian descent).


title: Aryan

text: Led by Guido von List (1848–1919) and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (1874–1954), Ariosophists founded an ideological system combining "Völkisch" nationalism with esoterism. Prophesying a coming era of German (Aryan) world rule, they argued that a conspiracy against Germans – said to have been instigated by the non-Aryan races, by the Jews, or by the early Church – had "sought to ruin this ideal Germanic world by emancipating the non-German inferiors in the name of a spurious egalitarianism".


title: Aryan

text: In the meantime, the idea that Indo-European languages had originated from South Asia gradually lost support among academics. After the end of the 1860s, alternative models of Indo-European migrations began to emerge, some of them locating the ancestral homeland in Northern Europe. Karl Penka, credited as "a transitional figure between Aryanism and Nordicism", argued in 1883 that the Aryans originated in southern Scandinavia. In the early-20th century, German scholar Gustaf Kossinna (1858-1931), attempting to connect a prehistoric material culture with the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language, contended on archaeological grounds that the 'Indo-Germanic' () migrations originated from a homeland located in northern Europe. Until the end of World War II, scholarship on the Indo-European Urheimat broadly fell into two camps: Kossinna's followers and those, initially led by Otto Schrader (1855-1919), who supported a steppe homeland in Eurasia, which became the most widespread hypothesis among scholars.


title: Aryan

text: In India, the British colonial government had followed de Gobineau's arguments along another line, and had fostered the idea of a superior "Aryan race" that co-opted the Indian caste system in favor of imperial interests. In its fully developed form, the British-mediated interpretation foresaw a segregation of Aryan and non-Aryan along the lines of caste, with the upper castes being "Aryan" and the lower ones being "non-Aryan". The European developments not only allowed the British to identify themselves as high-caste, but also allowed the Brahmins to view themselves as on-par with the British. Further, it provoked the reinterpretation of Indian history in racialist and, in opposition, Indian Nationalist terms.


title: Aryan

text: Through the works of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Gobineau's ideas influenced the Nazi racial ideology, which saw the "Aryan race" as innately superior to other putative racial groups. The Nazi official Alfred Rosenberg argued for a new "religion of the blood" based on the supposed innate promptings of the Nordic soul to defend its "noble" character against racial and cultural degeneration. Rosenberg believed the Nordic race to be descended from Proto-Aryans, a hypothetical prehistoric people who dwelt on the North German Plain and who had ultimately originated from the lost continent of Atlantis. Under Rosenberg, the theories of Arthur de Gobineau, Georges Vacher de Lapouge, Blavatsky, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Madison Grant, and those of Hitler, all culminated in Nazi Germany's race policies and the "Aryanization" decrees of the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s. In its "appalling medical model", the annihilation of the "racially inferior" "Untermenschen" was sanctified as the excision of a diseased organ in an otherwise healthy body, which led to the Holocaust.According to Nazi racial theorists, the term "Aryans" ("Arier") described the Germanic peoples, and they considered the purest Aryans to be those that belonged to a "Nordic race" physical ideal, which they referred to as the "master race". However, a satisfactory definition of "Aryan" remained problematic during Nazi Germany. Although the physical ideal of Nazi racial theorists was typically the tall, blond haired, and light-eyed Nordic individual, such theorists accepted the fact that a considerable variety of hair and eye colour existed within the racial categories they recognised. For example, Adolf Hitler and many Nazi officials had dark hair and were still considered members of the Aryan race under Nazi racial doctrine, because the determination of an individual's racial type depended on a preponderance of many characteristics in an individual rather than on just one defining feature. In September 1935, the Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws. All Aryan Reich citizens were required to prove their Aryan ancestry; one way was to obtain an "Ahnenpass" ("ancestor pass") by providing proof through baptismal certificates that all four grandparents were of Aryan descent. In December of the same year, the Nazis founded "Lebensborn" ("Fount of Life") to counteract the falling Aryan birth rates in Germany, and to promote Nazi eugenics.


title: Aryan

text: Many American white supremacist neo-Nazi groups and prison gangs refer to themselves as 'Aryans', including the Aryan Brotherhood, the Aryan Nations, the Aryan Republican Army, the White Aryan Resistance, or the Aryan Circle. Modern nationalist political groups and neo-Pagan movements in Russia claim a direct linkage between themselves as Slavs and the ancient 'Aryans', and in some Indian nationalist circles, the term 'Aryan' can also be used in reference to an alleged Aryan 'race'.


title: Aryan

text: Translating the sacred Indian texts of the Rig Veda in the 1840s, German linguist Friedrich Max Muller found what he believed was evidence of an ancient invasion of India by Hindu Brahmins, a group which he called "the Arya." In his later works, Muller was careful to note that he thought that Aryan was a linguistic rather than a racial category. Nevertheless, scholars used Muller's invasion theory to propose their own visions of racial conquest through South Asia and the Indian Ocean. In 1885, the New Zealand polymath Edward Tregear argued that an "Aryan tidal-wave" had washed over India and continued to push south, through the islands of the East Indian archipelago, reaching the distant shores of New Zealand. Scholars such as John Batchelor, Armand de Quatrefages, and Daniel Brinton extended this invasion theory to the Philippines, Hawaii, and Japan, identifying indigenous peoples who they believed were the descendants of early Aryan conquerors. With the discovery of the Indus Valley civilisation, mid-20th century archeologist Mortimer Wheeler argued that the large urban civilisation had been destroyed by the Aryans. This position was later discredited, with climate aridification becoming the likely cause of the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation. The term "invasion", while it was once commonly used in regard to Indo-Aryan migration, is now usually used only by opponents of the Indo-Aryan migration theory. The term "invasion" does not any longer reflect the scholarly understanding of the Indo-Aryan migrations, and is now generally regarded as polemical, distracting and unscholarly.


title: Aryan

text: In recent decades, the idea of an Aryan migration into India has been disputed mainly by Indian scholars, who claim various alternate Indigenous Aryans scenarios contrary to established Kurgan model. However, these alternate scenarios are rooted in traditional and religious views on Indian history and identity and are universally rejected in mainstream scholarship. According to Michael Witzel, the "indigenous Aryans" position is not scholarship in the usual sense, but an "apologetic, ultimately religious undertaking". A number of other alternative theories have been proposed including Anatolian hypothesis, Armenian hypothesis, the Paleolithic Continuity Theory but these are not widely accepted and have received little or no interest in mainstream scholarship.


title: Joe Strummer

text: John Graham Mellor (21 August 1952 – 22 December 2002), known professionally as Joe Strummer, was a British singer, musician and songwriter. He was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and co-lead vocalist of punk rock band the Clash, formed in 1976. The Clash's second album "Give 'Em Enough Rope" (1978) reached No. 2 on the UK charts. Soon after, they achieved success in the US, starting with "London Calling" (1979) and peaking with "Combat Rock" (1982), which reached No. 7 on the US charts and was certified 2× platinum there. The Clash's explosive political lyrics, musical experimentation, and rebellious attitude had a far-reaching influence on rock music in general, especially alternative rock. Their music incorporated reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap and rockabilly.


title: Joe Strummer

text: Strummer's other career highlights included stints with the 101ers, the Latino Rockabilly War, the Mescaleros, and the Pogues, as well as solo music. His work as a musician allowed him to explore other interests such as acting, scoring television shows and films and hosting the BBC Radio show "London Calling". Strummer and the Clash were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 2003. In his remembrance, Strummer's friends and family established the Joe Strummer Foundation (initially known as Strummerville), a nonprofit organization which gives opportunities to musicians and support to projects around the world that create empowerment through music.


title: Joe Strummer

text: Strummer was born John Graham Mellor in Ankara, Turkey on 21 August 1952, the son of a Scottish mother and English father. His mother, Anna Mackenzie (1915–1986), was the daughter of a crofter and was born and raised in Bonar Bridge; she later became a nurse. His father, Ronald Ralph Mellor MBE (1916–1984), was born in the Indian city of Lucknow, India, where his own father worked as a railway official, and became a clerical officer who later attained the rank of second secretary in the foreign service. Through his father, Strummer had an Armenian great-grandfather and a German-Jewish great-grandmother. At the age of nine, Strummer and his 10-year-old brother David began boarding at the City of London Freemen's School in Surrey, and rarely saw their parents during the next seven years. He later said, "[A]t the age of nine I had to say good-bye to them because they went abroad to Africa or something. I went to boarding school and only saw them once a year after that – the Government paid for me to see my parents once a year. I was left on my own, and went to this school where thick rich people sent their thick rich kids. Another perk of my father's job – it was a job with a lot of perks – all the fees were paid by the Government."


title: Joe Strummer

text: Strummer developed a love of rock music listening to records by Little Richard, the Beach Boys and Woody Guthrie. Strummer would even go by the nickname "Woody" for a few years. He would later refer to the Beach Boys as "the reason [he] played music". By 1970, his brother had become estranged from the family. His suicide in July of that year profoundly affected Strummer, as did having to identify his body after it had lain undiscovered for three days. Strummer said, "[David] was a year older than me. Funnily enough, you know, he was a Nazi. He was a member of the National Front. He was into the occult and he used to have these deaths-heads and cross-bones all over everything. He didn't like to talk to anybody, and I think suicide was the only way out for him. What else could he have done[?]"


title: Joe Strummer

text: After finishing his time at City of London Freemen's School in 1970, Strummer moved on to the Central School of Art and Design in London, where he briefly considered becoming a professional cartoonist and completed a one-year foundation course. During this time, he shared a flat in Palmers Green with friends Clive Timperley and Tymon Dogg. He said, "I bought a ukulele. No kidding. I saved some money, £1.99 I think, and bought it down Shaftesbury Avenue. Then the guy I was busking with taught me to play 'Johnny B. Goode'. [...] I was on my own for the first time with this ukulele and 'Johnny B. Goode'. And that's how I started."


title: Joe Strummer

text: In 1973, Strummer moved to Newport, South Wales. He did not study at Newport College of Art, but met up with college musicians at the students' union in Stow Hill and became the vocalist for Flaming Youth before renaming the band the Vultures. The Vultures included three former members of Rip Off Park Rock & Roll Allstars, the original college band co-founded by Terry Earl Taylor. For the next year, Strummer was the band's part-time singer and rhythm guitarist. During this time, he also worked as a gravedigger in St Woolos Cemetery. Whilst in Newport, he wrote and recorded on an old reel-to-reel tape recorder "Crumby Bum Blues", which was later used in Julien Temple's 2007 film "". In 1974, the band fell apart and Strummer moved back to London, where he met up again with Dogg. He was a street performer for a while and then decided to form another band with his roommates called the 101ers, named after the address of their squat at 101 Walterton Road in Maida Vale. The band played many gigs in London pubs, performing covers of popular American R&B and blues songs. During this period Strummer worked a number of occasional temporary jobs to fund the purchase of musical equipment, including time spent as a gardener in Hyde Park "to get the money for the guitar".


title: Joe Strummer

text: In 1975, he stopped calling himself Woody Mellor and adopted the stage name Joe Strummer, subsequently insisting that his friends call him by that name. The surname "Strummer" apparently referred to his role as rhythm guitarist in a self-deprecating way. Strummer was the lead singer of the 101ers and began to write original songs for the group. One song he wrote was inspired by the Slits' drummer Palmolive, who was his girlfriend at the time. The group liked the song "Keys to Your Heart", which they picked as their first single.


title: Joe Strummer

text: On 3 April 1976, the then-unknown Sex Pistols opened for the 101ers at a venue called the Nashville Rooms in London, and Strummer was impressed by them. Sometime after the show, Strummer was approached by Bernie Rhodes and Mick Jones. Jones was from the band London SS and wanted Strummer to join as lead singer. Strummer agreed to leave the 101ers and join Jones, bassist Paul Simonon, drummer Terry Chimes and guitarist Keith Levene. The band was named the Clash by Simonon and made their debut on 4 July 1976 in Sheffield, opening for the Sex Pistols at the Black Swan (also known as the Mucky Duck, now known as the Boardwalk). On 25 January 1977, the band signed with CBS Records as a three-piece after Levene was fired from the band and Chimes quit. Topper Headon later became the band's full-time drummer.


title: Joe Strummer

text: During his time with the Clash, Strummer, along with his bandmates, became notorious for getting into trouble with the law. On 10 June 1977, he and Headon were arrested for spray-painting the band's name on a wall in a hotel. On 20 May 1980, he was arrested for hitting a violent member of the audience with his guitar during a performance in Hamburg, Germany. This incident shocked Strummer, and had a lasting personal impact on him. Strummer said, "It was a watershed—violence had really controlled me for once". He determined never again to fight violence with violence.


title: Joe Strummer

text: Before the album "Combat Rock" was released in 1982, Strummer went into hiding and the band's management said that he had "disappeared". Bernie Rhodes, the band's manager, pressured Joe to do so because tickets were selling slowly for the Scottish leg of an upcoming tour. It was planned for Strummer to travel, in secret, to Texas and stay with his friend, musician Joe Ely. Uneasy with his decision, Strummer instead decided to genuinely disappear and "dicked around" in France. During this time, Strummer ran the Paris Marathon in April 1982. He claimed his training regimen consisted of 10 pints of beer the night before the race. For this period of time, Joe's whereabouts were a mystery not only to the public, but to the band's management as well. Joe said later that this was a huge mistake and that you "have to have some regrets". This was in spite of the popular success of the single "Rock the Casbah". During this time, band members began to argue frequently, and with tensions high, the group began to fall apart.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In September 1983, Strummer issued the infamous "Clash Communique", and fired Mick Jones. Topper Headon had earlier been kicked out of the band because of his heroin addiction, and Terry Chimes was brought back temporarily to fill his place until the permanent replacement, Pete Howard, could be found. This left the band with only two of its original members, Strummer and Simonon. Rhodes persuaded Strummer to carry on, adding two new guitarists. Under this lineup, they released the album "Cut the Crap" in 1985. The album was panned by fans and critics alike and Strummer disbanded the Clash.


title: Joe Strummer

text: At the band's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Clash was said to be "considered one of the most overtly political, explosive and exciting bands in rock and roll history".


title: Joe Strummer

text: Their songs tackled social decay, unemployment, racism, police brutality, political and social repression, and militarism in detail. Strummer was involved with the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism campaigns. He later also gave his support to the Rock Against the Rich series of concerts organised by the anarchist organisation Class War. The Clash's "London Calling" album was voted best album of the 1980s by "Rolling Stone" magazine (although it was released in late 1979 in the UK, it was not released until 1980 in the US).


title: Joe Strummer

text: A year later, Strummer worked on several songs for the 1986 film "Sid and Nancy", including "Love Kills" and "Dum Dum Club". Strummer also later worked with Mick Jones and his band Big Audio Dynamite, contributing to the band's second studio album, "No. 10, Upping St." (1986), by co-writing most of the songs as well as producing the album along with Jones.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In 1987, he played a small part in the film "Walker", directed by Alex Cox, as a character named "Faucet" and wrote and performed on the film's soundtrack. He starred in another Cox film that same year called "Straight to Hell", as the character Simms. "Straight to Hell" also featured London-Irish folk/punk band the Pogues, both as actors and contributors to the soundtrack. Strummer joined the Pogues for a tour in 1987/88, filling in for ailing guitarist Philip Chevron, who wrote (in May 2008) on the band's online forum: "When I was sick in late 1987, I taught Joe all the guitar parts in an afternoon and he was on tour in the US as deputy guitarist the next day. Joe wrote all the tabs in his meticulously neat hand on a long piece of paper which he taped to the top of the guitar so he could glance down occasionally when he was onstage." This tour would be the first of several collaborations with the band.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In 1989, Strummer appeared in Jim Jarmusch's film "Mystery Train" as a drunken, short-tempered drifter named Johnny (whom most characters refer to as Elvis, much to Johnny's dismay). He made a cameo appearance in Aki Kaurismäki's 1990 film "I Hired a Contract Killer" as a guitarist in a pub, performing two songs ("Burning Lights" and "Afro-Cuban Bebop"). These were released as a promotional 7-inch single limited to a few hundred copies, credited to "Joe Strummer & the Astro Physicians". The "Astro Physicians" were in fact the Pogues ("Afro-Cuban Bebop" got a re-release on the Pogues' 2008 box set). During this time Strummer continued to act, write and produce soundtracks for various films, most notably the soundtrack for "Grosse Pointe Blank" (1997).


title: Joe Strummer

text: In 1989 Strummer produced a solo record with the band the Latino Rockabilly War. The album "Earthquake Weather" was a critical and commercial flop, and resulted in the loss of his contract with Sony Records. He also did the soundtrack to the movie "Permanent Record" with this band.


title: Joe Strummer

text: Strummer was asked by the Pogues, who were fracturing as a band, to help them produce their next album, released in 1990 as "Hell's Ditch". In 1991, he replaced Shane MacGowan as singer of the Pogues for a tour after MacGowan's departure from the band. One night of this tour was professionally recorded, and three tracks ("I Fought the Law", "London Calling", and "Turkish Song of the Damned") have seen release as b-sides and again on the Pogues' 2008 box set.


title: Joe Strummer

text: On 16 April 1994, Strummer joined Czech-American band Dirty Pictures on stage in Prague at the Repre Club in Obecni Dum at "Rock for Refugees", a benefit concert for people left displaced by the war in Bosnia. Although the set appeared impromptu, Strummer and the band had spent the days leading up to the event rehearsing and "hanging out" in Prague. The show began with "London Calling" and without pause went into "Brand New Cadillac". In the middle of the song, the power went out. Once the power was back on, Strummer asked the audience whether or not they would mind if the band started over. They then began again with "London Calling" and continued on for another half-hour.


title: Joe Strummer

text: After these self-described "wilderness years", Strummer began working with other bands; he played piano on the 1995 UK hit of the Levellers, "Just the One" and appeared on the Black Grape single "England's Irie" in 1996. In 1997, while in New York City, he worked with noted producer and engineer Lee "Scratch" Perry on remixed Clash and 101ers reissue dub material. In collaboration with percussionist Pablo Cook, Strummer wrote and performed the soundtrack to "Tunnel of Love" (Robert Wallace 1997) that was featured in the Cannes Film Festival in the same year.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In 1997, Strummer played the character of "Brand New Cadillac" songwriter Vince Taylor in 's road movie .


title: Joe Strummer

text: In 1998, he made a guest appearance on the animated television show, "South Park" and appeared on the album "" featuring songs from and inspired by the series.


title: Joe Strummer

text: During this time, Strummer was engaged in a legal dispute with the Clash's record label, Epic Records. The disagreement lasted nearly eight years and ended with the label agreeing to let him record solo records with another label. If the Clash were to reunite though, they would have to record for Sony. During the nineties, Strummer was a DJ on the BBC World Service with his half-hour programme "London Calling". Samples from the series provide the vocals for "Midnight Jam" on Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros' final album "Streetcore".


title: Joe Strummer

text: In the mid-to-late 1990s, Strummer gathered top-flight musicians into a backing band he called the Mescaleros. Strummer and the band signed with Mercury Records, and released their first album in 1999, which was co-written with Antony Genn, called "Rock Art and the X-Ray Style". A tour of England, Europe, and North America soon followed.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In 2001, the band signed with Californian punk label Hellcat Records and released their second studio album, "Global a Go-Go". The album was supported with a 21-date tour of North America, Britain, and Ireland. Once again, these concerts featured Clash material ("London's Burning", "Rudie Can't Fail", "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais"), as well as covers of reggae and ska hits ("The Harder They Come", "A Message to You, Rudy") and the band regularly closed the show by playing the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop". He covered Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" with Johnny Cash.


title: Joe Strummer

text: On 15 November 2002, Strummer and the Mescaleros played a benefit show for striking fire fighters in London, at Acton Town Hall. Mick Jones was in the audience, and joined the band on stage during the Clash's "Bankrobber". An encore followed with Jones playing guitar and singing on "White Riot" and "London's Burning". This performance marked the first time since 1983 that Strummer and Jones had performed together on stage.


title: Joe Strummer

text: Strummer's final regular gig was at Liverpool Academy on 22 November 2002, yet his final performance, just two weeks before his death, was in a small club venue 'The Palace' in Bridgwater, Somerset, near his home. Shortly before his death, Strummer and U2's Bono co-wrote a song, "46664", for Nelson Mandela as part of a campaign against AIDS in Africa.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In 1975, Strummer accepted £100 () to marry South African citizen Pamela Moolman so she could obtain British citizenship (before the British Nationality Act 1981 came into force) to do so. He used the money to buy his signature Fender Telecaster. In 1978, he started a relationship with Gaby Salter shortly after her 17th birthday. The couple remained together for 14 years and had two daughters, Jazz and Lola, but did not marry as Strummer had been unable to locate and divorce Moolman. During his relationship with Salter, he had multiple affairs. In 1993, he began an affair with Lucinda Tait, which finally ended his relationship with Salter. He was married to Tait from 1995 until his death in 2002.


title: Joe Strummer

text: Strummer described himself as a socialist and explained, "I believe in socialism because it seems more humanitarian, rather than every man for himself and 'I'm alright Jack' and all those arsehole businessmen with all the loot. I made up my mind from viewing society from that angle. That's where I'm from and there's where I've made my decisions from. That's why I believe in socialism."


title: Joe Strummer

text: On 22 December 2002, Strummer was found dead by his wife at his home in Broomfield, Somerset aged 50, having just returned from walking his dog. An autopsy showed that he died from a heart attack caused by an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. His estate was valued at just under £1 million, and he left all the money to Tait. Strummer was cremated, and his ashes were given to his family.


title: Joe Strummer

text: At the time of his death, Strummer was working on another Mescaleros album, which was released posthumously in October 2003 under the title "Streetcore". The album features a tribute to Johnny Cash, "Long Shadow", which was written for Cash to sing and recorded in Rick Rubin's garage, as well as a remembrance of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 ("Ramshackle Day Parade"), and a cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song", which Strummer had also recorded as a duet with Cash. The Cash/Strummer duet version appears on the 2003 box set "Unearthed". Strummer and the Mescaleros were scheduled to open for Pearl Jam on the 2003 Riot Act Tour. In November 2003, a video for "Redemption Song" was released, directed by Josh Cheuse. It features how graffiti artist REVOLT painted a memorial mural on the wall of the Niagara Bar in the East Village of New York City.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In 2013 the mural of Joe Strummer outside Niagara bar was destroyed due to construction, and on 19 September 2013, a new mural was unveiled. The unveiling was accompanied by a large celebration, attended by Mick Jones.


title: Joe Strummer

text: Strummer was instrumental in setting up Future Forests (since rechristened the Carbon Neutral Company), dedicated to planting trees in various parts of the world to combat global warming. Strummer was the first artist to make the recording, pressing and distribution of his records carbon neutral through the planting of trees. In his remembrance, Strummer's friends and family have established the Strummerville Foundation for the promotion of new music, which holds an annual festival with the same name. In December 2016, a blue plaque was erected by Seymour Housing Co-operative at 33 Daventry Street near Marylebone station where he used to live when it was a squat and the Slits and Malcolm McLaren all lived nearby.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In January 2003, the Clash were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the Grammy Awards in February 2003, "London Calling" was performed by Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt, Dave Grohl, Pete Thomas, and Tony Kanal in tribute to Strummer. In the same month at the rock club Debaser in Stockholm some of Sweden's better known rock musicians paid their tribute to Strummer by performing songs written by the Clash (the exception was Nicke Borg and Dregen from Backyard Babies, who performed "I Fought the Law", which the Clash had covered). At the end of the concert, the Swedish punk band Ebba Grön reunited for the tribute, aided by Mick Jones on guitar.


title: Joe Strummer

text: On 22 December 2003, a year after his death, a tribute show/benefit was held at Irving Plaza in NYC. Bands that played were: Ari Up; Clem Snide; the Detachment Kit; Dirty Mary; Hammel on Trial; Jesse Malin; New Blood Revival; the Realistics; Eugene Hütz; Radio 4; Secret Army; Ted Leo; Vic Thrill & the Saturn Missile.


title: Joe Strummer

text: The Belfast punk rock group Stiff Little Fingers recorded a tribute song "Strummerville" on their 2003 album, "Guitar and Drum". In 2004 Al Barr, lead singer of the Boston punk band Dropkick Murphys, named his son Strummer in honour of Joe. German band Beatsteaks paid tribute to Strummer on their 2004 album "Smack Smash" with the song "Hello Joe". In 2004, German punk band Die Toten Hosen released an EP called "Friss oder stirb", which included a tribute song for Strummer called "Goodbye Garageland"; it is a lyrical co-production with Matt Dangerfield from London's 77 punk band the Boys. Attila the Stockbroker's Barnstormer released "Comandante Joe" on their 2004 album "Zero Tolerance".


title: Joe Strummer

text: In February 2005 Cotswold Rail locomotive 47828 was named "Joe Strummer" by his widow Lucinda Tait at Bristol Temple Meads railway station. On 22 July 2005 Tait unveiled a plaque on the house in Pentonville, Newport where Strummer lived from 1973 to 1974 and where his first foray into recorded music, "Crummy Bum Blues" was recorded. "That Was Clash Radio", a 2005 short story which Charles de Lint, wrote in response to Strummer's death featuring Strummer in a minor role.


title: Joe Strummer

text: New Orleans-based rockers Cowboy Mouth released a song called "Joe Strummer" on their 2006 album "Voodoo Shoppe". The Red Hot Chili Peppers also recorded a tribute song called "Joe" as part of the recording sessions for their album "Stadium Arcadium", releasing the outtake as a B-side to their single "Desecration Smile" in 2007. A play by Paul Hodson called "Meeting Joe Strummer" premiered at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival, and toured the UK the following year.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In conjunction with the Strummer estate, Fender released the Joe Strummer Tribute Telecaster in 2007, combining elements of Joe's main guitars, namely an attempt at the "road worn" finish of his 1966 Telecaster, which he used until his death. The neck profile was an exact duplicate of Joe's '66 Telecaster, while the guitar's finish was an approximation of the wear. The first 1,500 guitars came with a Shepard Fairey designed "Customisation kit" with stickers and stencils, which resembled some of the designs Strummer used on his guitars.


title: Joe Strummer

text: Boston punk rock band Street Dogs recorded a tribute song called "The General's Boombox" on their 2007 album "State of Grace". New Jersey's the Gaslight Anthem recorded the song "I'da Called You Woody, Joe" on their 2008 album "Sink or Swim". The Hold Steady reference Strummer's impact in the song "Constructive Summer" on their 2008 album "Stay Positive", singing "Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer. I think he might have been our only decent teacher." In November 2009, Tonara, a town in Sardinia, Italy, dedicated a street to Joe Strummer.


title: Joe Strummer

text: On 22 December 2010, CJAM 99.1 FM, a radio station in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, declared the anniversary of Strummer's death "Joe Strummer Day to confront poverty in Windsor-Detroit." For 24-hours, the station played nothing but Strummer-related music, wrapping the sounds around reports about poverty in the Windsor-Detroit region. CJAM (which is located near the banks of the Detroit River, a kilometre from downtown Detroit) has since decided to make it an annual event and hosted its 10th annual Joe Strummer Day on 22 December 2019.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In January 2011 a motion was started to grant Strummer his own street in the Spanish city of Granada.


title: Joe Strummer

text: On 21 August 2012, which would have been Strummer's 60th birthday, Hellcat Records released an exclusive 57-song digital download album titled "Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, The Hellcat Years". The album features Strummer's three Hellcat albums along with various b-sides and live songs, including Strummer's 15 November 2002 concert with Mick Jones. In September 2012, Hellcat announced the re-release of remastered versions of Strummer's three Hellcat records on both CD and vinyl. Hellcat released Strummer's 15 November 2002 concert, "Live at Acton Town Hall" on 23 November 2012.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In January 2013 Joe Strummer had a plaza named in his honour, Placeta Joe Strummer, in the Spanish city of Granada, about 650m south of the Alhambra. In June 2013 a mural of Strummer was unveiled on the corner of Portobello Road and Blenheim Crescent and attended by a number of Strummer's former friends including Mick Jones and Ray Gange. In an October 2013 interview, Mick Jones confirmed that Strummer had intentions of reforming the Clash and new music was even being written. In the months prior to Strummer's death, he and Jones got together to write new music. Jones said at the time he assumed the new songs would be used on albums with the Mescaleros. A few months following their work together, Jones ran into Strummer at an event and asked him what he intended to do with those songs. Strummer informed Jones that they were going to be used for the next Clash record.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In 2016, actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers portrayed Strummer in the film "London Town" which tells the story of a Clash-obsessed teenager who crosses paths with Joe Strummer by happenstance in 1979 and finds his life changing as a result. The film was met with mostly negative reviews.


title: Joe Strummer

text: It was discovered following Strummer's death that he was an archivist of his own work, having barns full of writings and tapes. Over 20,000 items were stored in the Joe Strummer archive and on 28 September 2018, a 32-song compilation album titled "Joe Strummer 001" was released. The album, which was overseen by Strummer's widow, Lucinda, and producer Robert Gordon McHarg III, features 32 songs, 12 of which had never been released. The set spans Strummer's career from the 101ers to the Mescaleros and features some unheard demos from the Clash following the departure of Mick Jones, along with an unreleased song recorded by Jones and Strummer in 1986. The set also features two of Strummer's final recordings.


title: Joe Strummer

text: In September 2018, Warner/Chappell Music signed a publishing contract with the Strummer estate. The deal includes Strummer's solo career, "Cut the Crap" by the Clash, the soundtracks to three films, and his compositions with the 101ers and the Mescaleros.


title: Joe Strummer

text: Strummer's main guitar throughout his career was a 1966 Fender Telecaster that he acquired in its original sunburst finish during the middle of 1975, when he was playing with the 101ers. After joining the Clash, the guitar's body and pickguard were refinished in grey auto primer and then painted black. Over the years, the guitar would see numerous sticker configurations, with the most prominent and longest-lasting one stating "Ignore Alien Orders". Years of heavy wear and taped on set lists remain on the guitar to this day, and the only known modifications to it included the installation of an individual, six-saddle bridge, and Fender "f-style" tuning machines.


title: Joe Strummer

text: The Fender Custom Shop created a Joe Strummer tribute Telecaster in 2007 with a reliced flat black finish and an exact replica of the neck profile of his '66 Telecaster.


title: Joe Strummer

text: Strummer was naturally left-handed, but was taught to play guitar right-handed by his friend Tymon Dogg. Strummer had reckoned his left-handedness on a right-hand guitar as a drawback and claimed it caused him to be underdeveloped as a guitarist, although his style of playing was unique.


title: Joe Strummer

text: He also used three Fender Esquire models, one from 1952, a white blonde with slab fretboard from the mid-1950s and another from early to mid-1960s with a white pick guard and rosewood fingerboard. The Esquire is a one-pickup version of the Telecaster. Prior to using any Telecaster oriented guitar, before buying his 1966 model, he used as main guitars a Gretsch White Falcon and a 1964 Hofner Verithin. For amplification Strummer was known to use amplifiers such as a Roland Jazz Chorus, a Selmer Bassman while he was in the 101ers, a Vox AC30 and various Marshall amplifiers, but his main amplifier was a Music Man HD 212,150. Strummer commented on his choice of amplifier with "I don't have time to search for those old Fender tube amps. The Music Man is the closest thing to that sound I've found" and that the "plastic motif on the front is repulsive."


title: Joe Strummer

text: "Let's Rock Again!" is a 2004 one-hour music documentary, directed by Dick Rude, which follows Strummer touring in America and Japan with the Mescaleros and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, May 2004.


title: Joe Strummer

text: "" is a 2007 documentary about Joe Strummer by Julien Temple. It comprises archive footage of him spanning his life, and interviews with friends, family, and other celebrities. It debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.


title: Joe Strummer

text: "Tribute Concert: Cast a Long Shadow" is a recording of the October 2007 tribute and benefit concert held in honour of Joe Strummer in Los Angeles. It features Love & Rockets, Zander Schloss, Hellride and many other artists, released in DVD format in December 2010.


title: Joe Strummer

text: "Let Fury Have the Hour" is a 2012 documentary directed by Antonino D'Ambrosio, in which the figure of Strummer "looms large in the background". The movie debuted at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.


title: Joe Strummer

text: "Quiero tener una ferretería en Andalucía" is a 2014 documentary about Joe Strummer's relationship with Andalucia.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Strictly Come Dancing (informally known as Strictly) is a British dance contest show in which celebrities partner with professional dancers to compete in mainly ballroom and Latin dance. Each couple is scored by a panel of usually 4 judges. The title of the show is a continuation of the long-running series "Come Dancing". The format has been exported to 60 other countries—under the title "Dancing with the Stars"—licensed by BBC Worldwide, and led to a modern dance-themed spin-off "Strictly Dance Fever". The "Guinness World Records" named "Strictly" to be the world's most successful reality television format in 2010. The series is currently presented by Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman. Bruce Forsyth co-presented the series with Daly until 2014.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The series has been broadcast on BBC One since 15 May 2004, typically on Saturday evenings with a following Sunday night results show. From series 2 onwards, the show has been broadcast in the run up to Christmas. With its high viewing figures, "Strictly Come Dancing" has become a significant programme on British television. Eighteen stand-alone Christmas specials and nineteen charity specials have also been produced.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Producer Richard Hopkins, who had produced the first UK series of "Big Brother", unsuccessfully pitched the idea of a modern "Come Dancing" to the BBC under the title of "Pro-Celebrity Dancing" in 2003. Later, entertainment executive Fenia Vardanis also suggested reviving "Come Dancing", so Jane Lush, the then head of BBC Entertainment, put Hopkins and Vardanis together to develop the show.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Hopkins then called in Karen Smith, who had just produced "Comic Relief Does Fame Academy" for BBC One and "The Games" for Channel 4, to help lead the development of the show and launch the series. Smith was the show-running Executive Producer of the first three series, and of sister show "". She then took the role of Creative Director of BBC Entertainment whilst still overseeing series 4 and 5.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Hopkins later took the format to America himself when the BBC dismissed the idea of selling it abroad, as they felt it was too British.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: From series 1 to 11, Sir Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly presented the pro-celebrity ballroom dancing competition. From series 8 to 11, Forsyth only presented the main show and was replaced for the results show by Claudia Winkleman, at which point Daly assumed Forsyth's role as main presenter and Winkleman assumed Daly's role as co-presenter. Winkleman has joined Daly as full-time co-presenter for series 12 following Forsyth's departure after the 2013 series. Through telephone voting, viewers vote for who they would like to be in the next round, the results of the poll being combined with the ranking of the judges. For example, with ten contestants left, the judges' favourite would receive ten points, second favourite nine points, and so on, and similarly with the viewers' rankings. The bottom ranked couple gets one point. The profits from the telephone lines were donated to Sport Relief in series 1, to Children in Need from series 2, until series 8 when donations to charity stopped.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The show is broadcast live on BBC One on Saturday evenings, and is currently presented by Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman (with Zoe Ball covering for Winkleman for a number of weeks in 2014). Sir Bruce Forsyth presented the live shows alongside Daly from 2004 to 2013, announcing his departure in 2014. He was to continue to present special editions of the show. For most of the second series, Natasha Kaplinsky stood in temporarily for Daly while she took maternity leave; Claudia Winkleman hosted the results show and editions that Forsyth had missed between 2010 and 2013. The judging panel initially consisted of Bruno Tonioli, Arlene Phillips, Len Goodman and Craig Revel Horwood. Alesha Dixon took Phillips' place from series 7 to 9, after which she left the programme to judge "Britain's Got Talent" which led retired ballerina Dame Darcey Bussell to replace her. Bussell remained a judge alongside Goodman (until he was replaced by Shirley Ballas in 2017), Tonioli and Horwood until 2018. Up until 2020, Tonioli commuted weekly between Hollywood and London to judge both the American and British versions of the show simultaneously- however, due the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, he could no longer juggle both the UK and US shows- he was not replaced for the 2020 series; but pro dancer Anton Du Beke took his place from the 2021 series, and has now replaced Bruno full-time on the panel. Each judge gives the performance a mark out of ten, giving an overall total out of forty. The voice-over announcer is Alan Dedicoat. During series four, an hour-long highlights show was shown on Sundays at 19:00 on BBC Two, and during series five and six, the results show moved to Sunday evenings, although it was filmed on Saturday and then broadcast "as live" on the Sunday.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The singers on the show are Tommy Blaize, Hayley Sanderson, Lance Ellington, Andrea Grant and, formerly, the well-known British dance music vocalist Tara McDonald. The music director is David Arch. Tommy Blaize has been part of "Strictly" since its beginning. David Arch joined in the fourth series and Hayley Sanderson in the fifth. In the seventeenth series, the singers were joined by Mitchell.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The show was broadcast from a specially constructed set at BBC Television Centre (primarily in the largest studio, TC1) until its closure in 2013, with the show moving to Elstree Studios' George Lucas Stage 2 from 2013 onwards. However, in the first two series, shows were also filmed at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool, where the original "Come Dancing" series was filmed in the 1970s.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: In the second series, two shows were filmed at the Tower Ballroom — show five and the Grand Final, which was broadcast live on 11 December 2004. In 2005 though the BBC announced that they would not be returning to the venue for the third series due to "logistical problems". In October 2008, Craig Revel Horwood called for the series to return to the Tower Ballroom, saying, "The atmosphere was electric. It's huge and has so much history. The Tower Ballroom puts a lot of pressure on the professionals and the celebrities to perform to the best of their potential. What a wonderful place to go live to 12 million people. We have got to get the BBC to bring Strictly Come Dancing back to Blackpool." Eventually, for series 7, the show did return to the Tower Ballroom, where Blackpool-born Craig Kelly was eliminated. The episode was aired live on 7 November 2009. "Strictly Come Dancing" returned to Blackpool for the 2010 and 2011 series. After series 10, when "Strictly Come Dancing" did not go to Blackpool, they announced that they would return for series 11.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Over the years, many dancers from the show have formed both professional and personal partnerships, dancing together competitively, on the show, or both. Darren Bennett and Lilia Kopylova are married, as are James and Ola Jordan and Aljaž Škorjanec and Janette Manrara, who became engaged after joining the show in 2013 and were married in 2017. Matthew and Nicole Cutler are divorced but remain professional partners; Karen Hauer and Kevin Clifton were engaged when Clifton entered the show in 2013 and were married prior to the 2015 series, before divorcing in 2018, while Neil and Katya Jones entered the show as a married couple before separating in 2019. Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag have danced as a professional couple since 1997, while Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace are former Argentine Tango world champions as a duo and have done multiple tours together. Brendan Cole and Camilla Dallerup danced together for many years, including a stint in the original series of "Come Dancing"; following their split in 2004, Cole and Katya Virshilas formed a professional partnership, before parting in November 2009. Other current and former professional partnerships featured on the show include Dallerup and Ian Waite, Paul Killick and Hanna Karttunen, Andrew Cuerden and Hanna Haarala, Brian Fortuna and Kristina Rihanoff, Rihanoff and Robin Windsor, Pasha Kovalev and Anya Garnis, siblings Kevin and Joanne Clifton, AJ Pritchard and Chloe Hewitt, and Gorka Márquez and Karen Hauer.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On average, dances last for approximately 90 seconds. Musical accompaniment is provided by The Strictly Come Dancing Band.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Prior to series 10, the dances performed in the early weeks were switched between one Ballroom and one Latin, and were divided as evenly as possible depending on the number of contestants left. As the competition progressed further, this system was abandoned and many styles, not just two, could be performed in one week by each of the remaining contestants. From series 4 to 7, the remaining contestants who made it to the semi-final were granted to perform the semi-final-exclusive Argentine Tango. As of series 10, the contestants are now allowed to perform any of the chosen dances in any week, though the Argentine Tango remains generally reserved for the latter stages of the competition. The Showdance, however, continues to only be performed in the final.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: As of series four, coaches are Jaclyn Spencer and Chris Marques (aka Cuban Groove) for Salsa and Mambo, and Jenny Thomas and Ryan Francois for Swing, Jive, Rock N’ Roll and The Charleston. The Argentine Tango coaches in series three were Flavia Cacace and Vincent Simone, both of whom have subsequently competed in the show.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: From series 1 to 4, the results show was shown live on Saturday night one hour after the performances.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: As of series 5, the results show is recorded on the Saturday night directly after the live show and incorporates the result of the viewers' votes, which are completed by 21:30. This was confirmed by the official BBC website in 2008:


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Throughout the Sunday results show, the presenters refer to 'Saturday night' in reference to the main show due to the timing of the Sunday programme, and the outfits of Tess Daly, Claudia Winkleman and the judges are changed to present an illusion of a second live broadcast.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: For series 7, the Sunday results show was axed and put back to Saturday nights as a result of a revamp of the show. It then reverted to Sundays from series 8.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: A new system called the Dance-off, which takes place in the results show, was introduced in series 5. It continued until series 7, but did not return in series 8. It was then reinstated in series 10 and has remained a feature of the show ever since.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: There Dance-off consists of the two couples who received the lowest totals that week from the combined judges' scores and public vote. The aim of the dance-off is for the couples to convince the judges that they deserve to go through to the following week's competition. Before they attempt their dance a second time, the couples sometimes get advice from the judges. The judges then decide which couple remains in the competition based on the dance-off performances. If three of the judges agree that one of the couples should be saved, that couple is through to the following week's competition and the Head Judge's vote is not counted. If one couple has two votes and the other couple has one vote, then the deciding vote is cast by the Head Judge, originally Len Goodman and currently Shirley Ballas. Afterwards, the eliminated couple perform one final dance — sometimes known as "waltzing out of the ballroom". The Monday after their elimination, they appear on "" to discuss their time on the programme.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On two occasions, the dance-off was cancelled; firstly, in series 14, in which one of the celebrity contestants, Anastacia, sustained an injury and was unable to compete in the Dance-off as a result. Under the rules of the show, the couple with the lowest combined total was eliminated. The second occasion in which the Dance-off was cancelled was in Series 20, again due to an injury sustained by Tony Adams. Tess Daly announced on the results show that Adams had decided to withdraw from the competition as a result of being unable to compete in the Dance-off.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: During the run of "Strictly Come Dancing", "Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two" is broadcast each weeknight on BBC Two. The series was previously hosted by Claudia Winkleman but, due to her pregnancy in 2011, she had to leave the series, and was replaced by Zoe Ball, who hosted the show from Series 9 to 18. Rylan Clark-Neal joined as co-host in series 17. In May 2021, it was announced that Ball was to leave the show after 10 years, and on 10 June 2021, her replacement was confirmed to be former professional Janette Manrara.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The show features reviews of the performances during the previous Saturday's show and interviews with, and training footage of, the couples preparing for the next show. The judges and other celebrities also provide their opinions on how the couples are progressing. "It Takes Two" replaced "Strictly Come Dancing on Three", hosted by Justin Lee Collins, which ran on BBC Three during the first series. Prior to 2010, BBC Two Scotland aired the programme on four nights only, running its own Gaelic-language programming on Thursdays instead.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: In Spring 2004, "Strictly Come Dancing" commenced its first series. The professional dancers were Brendan Cole, Hanna Karttunen, Anton Du Beke, Erin Boag, John Byrnes, Paul Killick, Camilla Dallerup and Kylie Jones. This was the only series to air in the Spring/Summer (as of series 2, the programme airs from September/October to December each year). Natasha Kaplinsky and Brendan Cole were crowned the first winners. At 8 weeks, this was the shortest series.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: In Autumn 2004, the second series commenced. Five of the eight original professionals returned: these were Brendan Cole, Anton Du Beke, Erin Boag, Paul Killick and Camilla Dallerup. There were also five new professionals: Darren Bennett, Ian Waite, Lilia Kopylova, Nicole Cutler and Hazel Newberry. This was the only series Newberry participated in, while the other professionals competed in the following series.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: A new spin-off show called "" presented by Claudia Winkleman was created this series and has continued to air alongside each following series, now hosted by Rylan Clark-Neal and former professional dancer, Janette Manrara on BBC Two.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: In 2005, the third series commenced. Brendan Cole, Anton Du Beke, Erin Boag, Camilla Dallerup, Darren Bennett, Ian Waite and Lilia Kopylova returned from the second series. Nicole Cutler, Paul Killick and Hazel Newberry did not return. They were replaced by Karen Hardy, Hanna Haarala, Izabela Hannah, Andrew Cuerden and Matthew Cutler.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The fourth series ran from 7 October to 23 December 2006. More than 12 million votes were cast, raising £1.5 million for Children in Need. A peak of 13 million viewers tuned into the final show of series four to see Mark Ramprakash and Karen Hardy crowned 2006 "Strictly Come Dancing" champions.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: This series introduced four new professional dancers: Flavia Cacace, James Jordan, Ola Jordan and Vincent Simone. Andrew Cuerden, Hanna Haarala and Izabela Hannah did not return to the programme. This series also saw the return of Nicole Cutler, who had taken part in series 2 but not in series 3.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The fifth series of "Strictly Come Dancing" began on BBC One on 29 September 2007, with Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly returning as presenters. For the first and only time, the lineup of professionals was unchanged from the previous series. The first programme was a catch-up show and preview of the new series, before the start of the competition on 6 October, which ran for 12 weeks. This was the first time two married couples competed against each other.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The show featured 14 new celebrities, who were paired with 14 professional dancers. In a change to the previous format, the results show was recorded on Saturday and broadcast on Sunday, rather than shown live later on Saturday. In addition to this, the two couples who were at the bottom of the table after the public vote were subject to a dance-off, where they reprised their routine for the judges to decide who should leave the competition. Head Judge Len Goodman had the casting vote in the event of a tie. The series raised just over one million pounds for Children in Need.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: A sixth series of the programme was confirmed after the dancers' pay dispute was called off in late June 2008. This series was the longest to date, lasting for 14 weeks. The series introduced three new professional dancers, Brian Fortuna, Hayley Holt and Kristina Rihanoff. Nicole Cutler did not return to the show.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The sixth series began on 13 September with a behind-the-scenes look at the new series, followed by the first live show on 20 September.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 19 November 2008, John Sergeant announced that he would be leaving the show because he believed he may "win it".


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The seventh series of "Strictly Come Dancing" ran from 18 September until 19 December 2009. Tess Daly signed a two-year deal to continue presenting the programme for at least two more series (the 2009 and 2010 series).


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 9 July 2009, it was confirmed that the winner of the 2007 series (Alesha Dixon) would be joining the judging panel and that Darcey Bussell would be a guest judge towards the end of the series run. Dixon replaced Arlene Phillips, who moved to "The One Show" as a "Strictly Come Dancing" expert. The BBC was accused of sexism, as none of the male judges on the show had been replaced, and the BBC received over 5,000 complaints. Dixon's fans were also unhappy as she had to cancel a number of dates on her autumn tour to appear on the programme. Karen Hardy, Camilla Dallerup and Hayley Holt did not return this series; they were replaced by Katya Virshilas, Aliona Vilani and Natalie Lowe.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The official lineup was revealed on 25 August 2009 and the winner was "BBC Breakfast" presenter Chris Hollins:


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The eighth series of "Strictly Come Dancing" began with a launch show on 11 September 2010; three weeks later, the live shows started on 1 October 2010. Three new professional dancers were announced: Artem Chigvintsev, Jared Murillo and Robin Windsor. Darren Bennett, Lilia Kopylova, Brian Fortuna and Matthew Cutler did not return. The celebrities were revealed on 8 September 2010 and their professional partners were revealed during the launch show.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Strictly returned with a launch show on 10 September 2011, with the final in December at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool. Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly returned to front the main show, and Claudia Winkleman presented the Sunday night results show along with Daly.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: For "", a new presenter joined the team. Winkleman had to pull out of the 2011 series as it would be difficult to do a daily programme so soon after giving birth and was replaced by Zoë Ball.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: All of series eight's judges returned to the show. Jennifer Grey served as a cover judge for Len Goodman during week six due to his break from the show. This was the last series to feature Alesha Dixon as a judge after she left the show after the final to become a judge on "Britain's Got Talent".


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The professional lineup was announced on 15 June 2011, with most of the Series 8 professionals returning except for Jared Murillo, who was replaced by Siberian dancer Pasha Kovalev. The celebrity lineup was announced on 6 September 2011 on "The One Show" and the couples were paired up for the first time on the launch show.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The tenth series began on 15 September 2012 with a launch show to reveal the celebrity-professional partnerships, and the live shows began on 5 October.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 25 April 2012, it was confirmed that Darcey Bussell would be joining the judging panel, replacing Alesha Dixon who left the show to be a judge on "Britain's Got Talent".


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Katya Virshilas was the only professional dancer not returning this series, and she was replaced by "Burn the Floor" Karen Hauer. The full lineup was revealed on 10 September during "The One Show".


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Aliona Vilani was originally Johnny Ball's partner, but injury resulted in her being replaced by Iveta Lukosiute.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Strictly Come Dancing returned for its eleventh series with a launch show on 7 September 2013 and the live shows on 27 September 2013. Rod Stewart and Jessie J performed on the premiere show.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 1 June 2013, it was announced that Aliona Vilani, Vincent Simone, Flavia Cacace and Erin Boag would all leave the programme. Aljaž Škorjanec, Emma Slater, Janette Manrara and Iveta Lukosiute, who partnered Johnny Ball in the first few weeks of series 10, would all join the cast. However, it was confirmed on 22 August 2013 that Anya Garnis and Kevin Clifton had joined the series, replacing Slater. On 2 September 2013, it was announced that a foot fracture injury meant that Natalie Lowe would not be able to participate that series, and she was replaced by returning professional Vilani.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The series started on 7 September 2014 with a launch show, followed by the live shows starting on 26 and 27 September. This series was the first not to be presented by Sir Bruce Forsyth after announcing his departure from the live shows on 4 April (he made his final regular appearance in this series' launch show). However, Forsyth would continue to present special editions of the show, such as Children in Need and Christmas specials. It was announced on 9 May that Claudia Winkleman would join the main show as co-presenter and that her duties would mirror the existing result show format, with Tess Daly taking over Forsyth's role as main presenter and Winkleman taking Daly's role as co-presenter.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: It was announced on 1 June 2014 that professional dancers Artem Chigvintsev, James Jordan and Anya Garnis would not be returning for the new series, although Garnis would remain on the show's choreography team. It was also announced that Tristan MacManus and Joanne Clifton would be joining the show's professional line-up. It was then announced in August that Robin Windsor had pulled out of the competition due to a back injury. Windsor was replaced by new professional Trent Whiddon. In week three, entertainer Donny Osmond joined the four regular judges, making the maximum score that week 50 points. Due to Winkleman's absence in weeks 6, 7 and 8, "" presenter Zoë Ball co-presented with Daly.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: "Strictly Come Dancing" returned for its thirteenth series with a launch show on 5 September 2015, followed by the live shows starting on 25 and 26 September.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 23 April 2015, the list of professionals participating in the thirteenth series was revealed. Professionals from the last series who did not return included Trent Whiddon, Iveta Lukosiute and Joanne Clifton. Clifton would remain involved in group dances and would feature on "" as a dance expert. Robin Windsor, absent from the previous series because of injury, also did not return for this series. Three new professional dancers were introduced: Russian dancer Gleb Savchenko (from the American, Australian and Russian versions of "Dancing with the Stars"), South African dancer Oti Mabuse (from Germany's "Let's Dance") and Italian dancer Giovanni Pernice.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 3 October 2015, the judges performed The Strictly, a signature dance made up of some iconic moves from the show's history for fans to do at home when they hear the theme tune; subsequently, a tutorial for the dance was made available on the show's website and iPlayer hosted by Natalie Lowe and Tristan MacManus.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Series 13 was the last to feature Tristan MacManus, Kristina Rihanoff, Ola Jordan, Gleb Savchenko and Aliona Vilani as professional dancers. Jordan later announced that she had quit the show, claiming that the results were "fixed". Vilani announced three days after winning that she was leaving the show; however, she participated in the 2016 live tour. Savchenko announced that he was leaving the show on 28 June 2016.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: "Strictly Come Dancing" returned for its fourteenth series with a launch show on 3 September 2016 on BBC One. This was Len Goodman's final series as head judge.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 28 June 2016, the list of professionals who were returning for the fourteenth series was revealed. Professionals from the last series who would not return included the previous series' champion and two-time professional winner of the show Aliona Vilani, former professional winner Ola Jordan and two-time professional finalist Kristina Rihanoff, as well as Gleb Savchenko and Tristan MacManus. Joanne Clifton returned after a one-series hiatus. The leaving professionals were replaced by Katya Jones, "Burn the Floor" dancer Gorka Márquez and former "Dancing with the Stars US" troupe member Oksana Platero. On 26 July 2016, three more new professional dancers — AJ Pritchard, Chloe Hewitt and Neil Jones, husband of new dancer Katya — were announced. Hewitt and Neil Jones did not partner a celebrity as the professionals outnumbered the celebrities, although they were still in group dances and appeared on "It Takes Two".


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 4 May 2017, it was announced that series 7 finalist Natalie Lowe would be departing the show. Five days later, on 9 May, Shirley Ballas announced that she would be replacing Len Goodman as head judge. On 21 June 2017, Oksana Platero and the previous series' professional champion, Joanne Clifton, announced that they would also be leaving. The new professionals replacing them were Australian Open champion Dianne Buswell, Welsh dancer Amy Dowden, and Ukrainian two-time world champion Nadiya Bychkova. On 7 August, Nick Grimshaw announced that Mollie King was the first celebrity known to be taking part in the series. This was the first series to be broadcast since Sir Bruce Forsyth's death in August that year.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: In a change to the format of the previous five years, there was no elimination in the final, meaning there were three runner-up couples this series.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 30 January 2018, it was announced that Brendan Cole would no longer appear on the show. On 30 May 2018, the full lineup of professional dancers was announced. Chloe Hewitt left the series and three new professional dancers — Graziano Di Prima, Johannes Radebe and Luba Mushtuk — were announced to be joining the show. This meant that there were 18 professional dancers, the most in the show's history.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 13 February 2019, professional dancer Pasha Kovalev announced that he was leaving the show after competing on it for eight years. On 10 April 2019, it was announced that judge Darcey Bussell had left the show after seven years. On 22 July 2019, Motsi Mabuse was announced as the replacement for Bussell. On 30 July 2019, it was announced that Nancy Xu would be joining the cast of professional dancers. On 5 September 2019, it was announced that Jamie Laing had withdrawn from the show due to a foot injury. He was later replaced by Kelvin Fletcher. In late October, Will Bayley left the competition due to a sustained leg injury.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 6 March 2020, Kevin Clifton announced that he was leaving the show after seven years. On 26 March 2020, AJ Pritchard also announced that he was leaving the show after four years. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was confirmed that the series would be slightly shorter than planned. Before the series began, the professional dancers and some of the crew isolated and tested for COVID-19 to then become a household. "Strictly" took over a hotel near the studios and the pro dancers learnt and filmed all the group routines for the series at once. This allowed for the show to still include the professional group dances each week. On 21 August 2020, it was announced that Bruno Tonioli would not be on the judging panel but would appear virtually while he filmed "Dancing with the Stars" in the US. It was the first series since 2012 to begin in October. On 12 November 2020, Nicola Adams and Katya Jones were forced to withdraw from the competition after Jones tested positive for COVID-19. On 19 December 2020, Bill Bailey and Oti Mabuse were crowned the winners of the series, making Mabuse the second professional dancer to win the show twice and the first to win it consecutively, following her 2019 victory. This series featured the first all-female and same-sex partnership of Nicola Adams and Katya Jones.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 10 June 2021, it was announced that Janette Manrara would leave the show as a professional dancer and replace Zoe Ball as a new "" presenter. On 24 June, Anton Du Beke was announced as having joined the judging panel for this series instead of returning as a professional dancer, replacing Bruno Tonioli, who missed a second year due to continuing travel restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the remaining fourteen professional dancers from Series 18, all of whom returned for this series, four new professional dancers joined the show: Cameron Lombard, Jowita Przystał, Kai Widdrington and Nikita Kuzmin.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: This series marked the first time that two contestants withdrew from the competition. On 13 October 2021, Robert Webb withdrew from the competition due to health reasons. On 17 December 2021, AJ Odudu was forced to pull out of the final after tearing a ligament in her right ankle.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The series saw the first couple with a deaf contestant, actress Rose Ayling-Ellis and the first all-male partnership of John Whaite and Johannes Radebe. These contestants all reached the final and they finished as the winner and runner-ups respectively.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 22 February 2022, Oti Mabuse announced that she was leaving the show after seven years. On 28 March 2022, it was announced that Aljaž Škorjanec was leaving after nine years of competing on the show. In addition to the remaining sixteen professional dancers from Series 19, all would return in this series, with four new professional dancers joining the show: Carlos Gu, Lauren Oakley, Michelle Tsiakkas and Vito Coppola. This meant that there were 20 professional dancers, the most in the show's history.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 13 November 2022, Tony Adams and Katya Jones were announced as one of the bottom two couples; however, due to Tony sustaining a hamstring injury from their original performance, they did not compete in the dance-off and withdrew from the competition.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Since the inception of "Strictly Come Dancing" in 2004, several special editions of the show have been transmitted by the BBC each year. These have included seasonal specials, charity specials, and variations of the "Strictly Come Dancing" format.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The scores presented below represent the best overall accumulative average scores the celebrities gained each series.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The scores presented below represent the worst overall accumulative average score the celebrities gained each series.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 86 occasions, a perfect 40 out of 40 has been awarded inside the main series (including three perfect 50 out of 50s and six perfect 30 out of 30s in Series 7 and Series 18 respectively). Ashley Roberts and Pasha Kovalev hold the record for most perfect scores achieved by an individual couple, with five 40s; Kovalev also holds the record for most perfect scores by a professional dancer, with thirteen. Additionally, another sixteen perfect 40s have been awarded during the Christmas Special episodes. The only dance styles to have never received a perfect score are Rock 'n' Roll, Rumba and Contemporary. Ali Bastian, Tilly Ramsay and Rhys Stephenson are the only contestants to have scored 40 and not made it to the final; AJ Odudu did make it through to the final, but had to withdraw due to an injury. Series 19 champion Rose Ayling-Ellis and Series 12 champion Caroline Flack hold the joint record for the most 40s received by a winner, with 4 each.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The lowest score ever given by the judges is 8/40 (1,1,3,3), awarded to Quentin Willson and Hazel Newberry for their Cha-Cha-Cha. Eleven individual scores of 1 have been awarded over the entirety of Strictly Come Dancing, with ten of those coming from Craig Revel Horwood and the other coming from Arlene Phillips. Ann Widdecombe holds the current record for the most 1s, receiving them from Horwood for her Salsa, Samba, and Rumba.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The biggest margin of points awarded between two individual judges' scores is 5, awarded to Jason Wood and Kylie Jones for their Rumba (2,5,7,5), Christopher Parker and Hanna Karttunen for their Tango (2,6,7,6), Fiona Phillips and Brendan Cole for their Rumba (1,2,6,4), Gary Rhodes and Karen Hardy for their Cha-Cha-Cha (1,5,6,5), Scott Maslen and Natalie Lowe for their Rumba (4,9,7,8), Mark Benton and Iveta Lukosiute for their Cha-Cha-Cha (3,8,8,7), Scott Mills and Joanne Clifton for their Samba (2,5,7,5,6 – with the higher vote given by Donny Osmond), Ann Widdecombe and Anton Du Beke for their American Smooth in the 2018 Christmas Special (2,6,7,7) and Dan Walker and Nadiya Bychkova for their American Smooth (4,8,8,9). The biggest margin between two total scores in one week is 27, occurring in the third week of the seventeenth series when Kelvin Fletcher and Oti Mabuse scored 38 and Anneka Rice and Kevin Clifton scored 11.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Alexandra Burke and her partner Gorka Márquez and Ashley Roberts and her partner Pasha Kovalev share the record of most 10s awarded to a couple, with 32. This is followed by Faye Tozer and Giovanni Pernice with 31, then Rose Ayling-Ellis and Giovanni Pernice with 30, then Karim Zeroual and Amy Dowden with 29, then Ricky Whittle and Natalie Lowe and John Whaite and Johannes Radebe each with 28. However, if the four tens given by Darcey Bussell during her tenure as a fifth judge are removed, Whittle is behind Oti Mabuse and her respective celebrity partners Danny Mac and Kelvin Fletcher, both with 26 tens, and Rachel Stevens with Vincent Simone and Harry Judd with Aliona Vilani with 25 each. They are followed by Natalie Gumede and Artem Chigvintsev and Ore Oduba and Joanne Clifton with 24 each, Caroline Flack and Pasha Kovalev with 23, Abbey Clancy and Aljaž Škorjanec and Debbie McGee and Giovanni Pernice with 22, Kara Tointon and Artem Chigvintsev with 21 and Lisa Snowdon and Brendan Cole, Kimberley Walsh and Pasha Kovalev and Denise van Outen and James Jordan with 20. Of the above pairings, Snowdon and Cole, Flack and Kovalev, Tozer and Pernice and Roberts and Kovalev are the only pairings to receive straight tens for all of their dances in their respective series finals. Flack and Kovalev, Tozer and Pernice and Roberts and Kovalev are the only pairs to receive three sets of perfect 40s in the final. Of these couples, Roberts and Kovalev and Flack and Kovalev also hold the records for the judges longest consecutive streak of 40s, with four, both stretching from the second performance of the semi-final to the end of the final. Meanwhile, Pernice holds the record for the most 10s received by a professional, with 98, whilst Ayling-Ellis holds the record for the most 10s received by a series champion, with 30.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Roberts and Kovalev also hold the record for the best overall average score from the judges, receiving an average of 36.94/40 for their dances. Natalie Gumede and Artem Chigvintsev, and Danny Mac and Oti Mabuse follow, with averages of 36.88 and 36.62 respectively. Quentin Willson and Hazel Newberry hold the record for the lowest average score, with 8.0/40; they are followed by Susannah Constantine and Anton Du Beke and James Cracknell and Luba Mushtuk, both with an overall average of 12.0/40.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The best and worst performances in each dance according to the judges' marks (out of 40) are as follows, not including scores earned at Christmas or on any other specials.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: For a more accurate comparison Darcey Bussell's scores have been subtracted from the totals of the Series 7 quarter-finalists where relevant; specifically Ali Bastian's American Smooth, Chris Hollins' Charleston and Ricky Whittle's Quickstep; Bussell scored all of them a ten. Whittle's Showdance has not been included as it did not receive the perfect score from Bussell, and therefore cannot be considered the same standard. Seasons having a maximum of 30 points (18) have been converted to a 40-point base.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The Showdance has received the most perfect scores of any dance, with fifteen; however, if it is disregarded based on being a routine specific to the final, the Charleston has received the most perfect scores of the regularly performed dances, with eleven. Contemporary, Rock 'n' Roll and Rumba are the only dances to have not received the full mark of 40, with the highest score for Contemporary and Rumba being 39 and the highest score for Rock 'n' Roll being 31. However, as Contemporary and Rock ‘n’ Roll are no longer danced on the show, the Rumba is the only dance style which is currently performed to have never received a 40.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Television presenter Johnny Ball, who was 74 when he competed in 2012, remains the oldest contestant to take part in Strictly Come Dancing; he was older than magician Paul Daniels and actress Lesley Joseph, who were aged 72 and 71 when they competed in 2010 & 2016 respectively. Actress Louisa Lytton, who was 17 when she competed in 2006, remains the youngest ever contestant.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Comedian Bill Bailey, who was 55 when he competed in 2020, is the oldest series winner, while gymnast Louis Smith, who was 23 when he competed in 2012, is the youngest series winner. At 19, Maisie Smith is the youngest contestant to make it to the final, while at the age of 61, Dr. Pamela Stephenson remains the oldest.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Series 8 quarter-finalist Ann Widdecombe holds the record for the most lowest-scoring dances, with her highest score given being 21/40 and her lowest being 12/40.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Series 13 contestant Jamelia holds the record for being in the most dance-offs, which is 5, and shares the record for "surviving" the most dance-offs with series 18 runner-up, Jamie Laing and series 20 runners-up Molly Rainford and Fleur East, which is 4. Series 1 semi-finalist Lesley Garrett, Series 11 contestant Mark Benton and Series 17 contestant Mike Bushell share the record for being in the most consecutive bottom twos, which is 4.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Series 18 finalist HRVY and Series 19 champion Rose Ayling-Ellis share the record for the earliest ever perfect score in the competition, both earned in Week 6 for their Street/Commercial and Tango respectively.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: On 13 December 2008, "Strictly Come Dancing" became the subject of press attention and viewer complaints about an error in the voting system during the semi-final of series six. In the show, three couples remained in the competition. After all three had performed and the judges had given their scores, two of the couples were in joint-first position on the leaderboard, while the third — Tom Chambers and Camilla Dallerup — were in last place. This meant that, no matter how many public votes were cast in their favour, it was mathematically impossible for the third-placed couple to remain in the competition. This oversight was initially unnoticed by producers until after the public vote became live and viewers were invited to call in and save their favourites at a cost of 15p per vote. Once the mistake was finally realised and the public vote was closed, it was announced that all three couples would be put through to the final, all the votes already cast would count towards the final result of the competition, and viewers could apply for a refund if they wished.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The BBC received 1800 complaints about the incident, while media regulator Ofcom received 297. Jon Beazley, the BBC's Head of Entertainment Production, was interviewed on "Strictly"'s spin-off show "" on 15 December. He apologised for the oversight, referring to it as an "unprecedented situation". On the same day, the BBC posted a statement on its website, which clarified that an independent adjudicator had been consulted to reach a solution that would offer "fairness to the viewers who voted and the contestants themselves". The BBC also stated that, following the mistake, "the voting and judging mechanisms used in all BBC voting programmes [had] been thoroughly examined".


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: After conducting an investigation, Ofcom concluded that "the mistake had resulted from an oversight, rather than any shortcomings in the technical arrangements for voting or in the handling of votes received", and that they were "satisfied that appropriate steps were taken by the BBC and the disadvantage to viewers minimised". Ofcom also opined that "the BBC had been open and transparent with viewers about the mistake it made and the solution adopted".


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: In June 2009, tabloid newspaper "The Sun" reported that the then 66-year-old judge Arlene Phillips, who had judged the show since its inception in 2004, was to be replaced by series five winner Alesha Dixon, then aged 30. This was later confirmed by the BBC in July of that year. Subsequently, the BBC was accused of ageism and sexism by several sources, an accusation the corporation has faced before over the removal of several older female presenters, including Moira Stuart, Juliet Morris, Miriam O'Reilly, Michaela Strachan, Charlotte Smith and Anna Ford. The BBC denied the allegations that the decision to remove Phillips was due to her age.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Furthermore, Dixon herself was criticised after the debut episode of the seventh series, the first to feature her as a judge. A total of 272 complaints were received by the BBC – bringing the total number about Dixon joining the programme to over 4000 – along with over 5000 comments on "Strictly Come Dancing"'s internet message board. Dixon was compared unfavourably to Phillips, with claims that the former was "unsuitable", "unqualified" and lacked "knowledge, experience and talent". However, Dixon was praised and defended from her critics by the BBC, by fellow judge Craig Revel Horwood and by Phillips herself.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: In 2009, during the seventh series, professional dancer Anton Du Beke issued a public apology for his use of a racial slur during a conversation with his dance partner Laila Rouass. Du Beke claimed that the comment, which was never broadcast, was a joke referring to Rouass' spray-tan, in which he said that she "looked like a Paki". Over 600 complaints were received by the BBC, including those about comments Bruce Forsyth, then host of "Strictly Come Dancing", made about the controversy on a Talksport radio programme, in which he suggested that Britain "used to have a sense of humour" about such incidents, and that Du Beke's apology should be accepted.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Following the incident, and Forsyth's response, the BBC stated:Racially offensive language in the workplace is entirely unacceptable. Anton was right to apologise quickly and without reservation and Laila has wholly accepted his apology. Everyone is very clear that there can be no repetition of this behaviour.Forsyth also clarified his position:What Anton said to Laila was wrong and he has apologised unreservedly for this. Nor do I in any way excuse or condone the use of such language. To be absolutely clear, the use of racially offensive language is never either funny or acceptable. However, there is a major difference between this and racist comments which are malicious in intent and whilst I accept that we live in a world of extraordinary political correctness, we should keep things in perspective.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: In 2015, in an interview with the "Daily Mirror", CJ de Mooi said that he was turned down for the show because he had wanted to dance with a same-sex partner. The BBC denied that de Mooi had ever been under consideration for the show, and also declared that ""Strictly" is a family show and we have chosen the traditional format of mixed-sex couples". The press has reported on the issue on numerous occasions when gay celebrities have appeared on the show, including Will Young, Susan Calman, Robert Rinder, Richard Coles and Ranj Singh. "Strictly Come Dancing" judges Shirley Ballas and Craig Revel Horwood have both expressed their support for introducing same-sex couples.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: Same-sex partnerships have been featured on several international versions of the show, including Austria (2011), Italy (2015), Australia (2019) and Germany (2019). On 3 November 2019, Johannes Radebe and fellow professional Graziano Di Prima performed together to Emeli Sande's "Shine" on the Sunday results episode, the show's first individual same-sex dance. On 2 September 2020, it was announced that boxer Nicola Adams would feature in the show's first same-sex couple for its eighteenth series. She was partnered with professional dancer Katya Jones. In 2021, it was announced that John Whaite would feature in the first all-male same-sex couple with Johannes Radebe for the nineteenth series. The United States version of the show would also have a same-sex couple that same year, with JoJo Siwa & Jenna Johnson. Series 20 also included


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: same-sex partnerships with Richie Anderson and Giovanni Pernice in an all-male partnership and Jayde Adams and Karen Hauer in an all-female partnership.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The so-called ""Strictly" curse" has been blamed for the number of affairs and relationship break-ups that have occurred during or soon after taking part in the show. The first such incident was the suggested affair between dancer Brendan Cole and newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky during the initial series: they both denied the affair, but the surrounding controversy resulted in the ending of both their long-term relationships.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: In September 2021, "The Sun" reported that at least three unnamed professional dancers had allegedly refused to get a COVID vaccine. A report in "The Times" claimed "The Mail on Sunday" had attempted to name some of the unvaccinated dancers but was met with "strong pushback" from their lawyers. Amy Dowden, Oti Mabuse, and Giovanni Pernice have all publicly confirmed that they are vaccinated.