The Strictly Come Dancing Story, BBC1

1:14pm Saturday 29th December 2007

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RULE number one in TV-land. If you've got a success on your hands, milk it for all its worth.

Certainly the Beeb believes that this is the best tactic with Strictly Come Dancing.

We've had the series finale, the Christmas special and, last night, we got the retrospective with The Strictly Come Dancing Story.

Although viewers in their millions now tune in to the celebrity-laden, interactive version, Come Dancing is really the product of a bygone era.

As we learned, its roots lay in the post war, black and white era when the Home Counties and the South would compete against the northern hordes watched by a panel of severe judges.

How things have changed from the days of the Peggy Fleming formation dancing team.

Quite what a Fifties' TV audience would have made of Bruno goodness only knows.

What was also interesting was the way in which dance fever appears to be sweeping the world, with TV companies on different continents all hosting their own particular versions of the show.

So, even though it was yet another Strictly programme, I'll forgive the Beeb because it was good fun.

But it still hasn't addressed a question that's been bugging me from the start.

How come, with all those experts around her, Tess Daly still can't even walk in time to the music let alone dance?