The Keep Dancing Podcast

It’s the Keep Dancing Podcast preview of the 2020 series of Strictly Come Dancing. Ellie is joined by the full pod roster of Ann, Elliot, Milly, Meg and Vikki and we have a lot of questions, including: - How does perfect pitch help you find the groove? - Has Max been to America? - Who is now as relevant as a tamagotchi? - Who should dance with our fave, Nicola Adams? - How have Strictlies around t...

The finale of Sewing Bee contains some incredible sewing, dizzying heights of embellishment and significant others. 
The finale of Keep Sewing contains incredible chat, dizzying heights of double entendre and significant digressions. - The nicest fabric Ellie ever touched - Maths anxiety and dyscalculia - The most disgusting tartans - Esme’s impressive name drop - ’That sweaty leatherette feeling’...

Film week seems to have not been a terrific box office hit, but there’s always something to discuss. Ellie is joined by Meg and Milly to talk screen lewks. Featuring: - Milly has fantastic fabric facts! - What underwear do you wear with the 7 year itch dress - Hunting through Dad’s garage, but make it fashion! - Ellie recommends the film Paradise Heights - The very first Pun Run in Keep Dancing Po...

The loosely themed ‘international’ week provides plenty of cause for digression. Join Ellie, Meg and Milly to talk about another week of the Sewing Bee! Includes: - Would we prefer technique based themes? - What does Imelda Marcos have to do with it? - Upholstery fabric syndrome - The ration book sewing challenge - Words finally fail Ellie - And a mouse For Karie Westermann’s newsletter, here’s he...

Ellie, Milly and Meg go back to the Imaginary Eighties, where everyone is a power suited capitalist monster. - A mathematical description of a tailors ham - What are the washing instructions on a PVC blazer? - When did fashion start repeating itself? We investigate - Acid house: the genre that apparently isn’t allowed to be described - It’s always gussets with us - A lengthy digression about the L...

Ellie and Meg try to make something new out of a bag of old bits in Reduce Reuse Recycle week. Featuring: - Varying levels of nostalgia for charity shops - We’re living for small, peculiar insights into the inner life of Patrick Grant - We would not like to comment on Therese’s buttons - The joy and thrill of recreational steeking! - A lengthy diversion into wild early 90s knitwear magazines - A s...

It’s lingerie week and Ellie, Milly and Meg have loaded up our massive brassiere cannon with double entendres for you to enjoy. This episode contains: - A brief foray into the fashion welding on the Big Flower Fight - Were those upholstery fabrics? - The genuinely grim nighties and their clashing Jim-jam pals - Could we get a quick tutorial on Nicole’s dungarees transformation? - The topological d...

We’re making masks alongside our regular sewing! Mask patterns available from: Hobbycraft https://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/ideas/sewing/how-to-make-a-face-mask Big community sew https://www.bigcommunitysew.co.uk/ Curved face mask https://www.craftpassion.com/face-mask-sewing-pattern/#face-mask-tutorial We’re thinking about: - Sewing patterns instructions are just hard sometimes! You should mark your p...

Children’s week shows who’s got precision and detail and who just rips the arms off the doll when faced with a challenging fit. - They’ve run out of pom pom trim! - Ellie hates mustard (the colour) but has collar advice! - The ideological status of smock dresses - Some very upsetting marabou trim - Fancy dress tales of yore - Did you not have enough fabric to cut an extra pocket? Oh, and the Stric...

Keep Sewing 2: I Think It’s To Do With Your Sewing It’s holiday sewing! Loud patterns and towelling and unwise decisions regarding pockets - Palazzo pants: there’s a but there, and it’s a big but - We’re loving Clare’s Instagram - Do those hammam towels actually get you dry? - Pattern matching horror stories - Fiona’s pockets of doom

The Keep Dancing Podcast crew celebrate Achievement In Frocks by examining the BBC’s new series of Sewing Bee. Ellie is joined by Emily, Elliot and Meg to judge the seams. - Wrap skirts and flagship university buildings: why both of them have wind problems - When you can’t help but go for the metallics - Is the transformation challenge a good way of showing sewists skills? - Who’s going down to Ea...

The Keep Dancing Podcast crew convene in their separate living rooms to keep you company. Ellie, Anne, Elliot and Vikki are in varying degrees of isolation and have gone varying degrees of stir crazy. - If AJ & Kevin aren’t going to be there, what will we even talk about next series? - Should the 2020 season of Strictly be more like Fame Academy? - Is Mr Motivator keeping well? - What hot 2020 pop...

It’s been a long old Q4 but finally we end up back where we began: Kelvin and Oti’s victory makes this the season of The Samba. Ellie is joined by Emily, Elliot, Meg, Vikki and Anne to wrap it all up in a bow. What else have we learned? - Will’s ACL is getting better! - The winner isn’t dancing with their partner on the tour. AGAIN. - A recommendation to watch Top Hat - Sometimes you just have to...

We have finalists! By default! Ellie is joined by Vikki, Elliot and Meg to review the eight semi final dances and look ahead to the smorgasbord of delights that will be the Grand Final. Also: - We struggle to name the 5th one of One Direction - Should you win Strictly if you can’t cha cha cha? - We super, super miss Danny Mac - Does Amy lift? - A dispute over the nature of am-dram - Strictly 2019...

Musicals Week! Everyone loves a musical, a lovely festive treat for the whole family on topics such as Victorian child abuse, grinding poverty, dying cats and weird vintage racist tropes. With songs! Ellie is joined by Anne, Emily, Meg and Vikki to gaze into the middle distance and sigh. Flights of fancy include: - Heaps of praise for Drag Craig - The FA Cup Draw of Dance Fusion - Further footwear...

The post Blackpool reset hits hard! We’re less grumpy than Craig but that’s not saying much. Ellie is joined by Vikki, Anne and Emily to review a worryingly short show. - Bruno’s routine described as ‘mind-searing’, ‘indelible’ and ‘a little bit cheap’ - Do Not Mention The Samba Curse - ~Live Audio Dance Demonstrations!~ - Emily reports back from the Cannon Hall Regency Ball - Does Karim need to b...

S4E10 - I’ll Give You My Hairpiece! It’s been Blackpool! Ellie is joined by Meg and Elliot to battle multiple health & safety failures to bring you tales of hoists, big rooms and sprung floors. We’ve also renamed the Extra Dancers as the ‘Top Up Troupe’, just so you know. - What are the world’s largest plateaus? Is one of them Chris’s Strictly Journey? - Introducing DISCOFOX! - The pro dancers are...

An episode delayed, but well worth it. A very tired Ellie is joined by Meg, Elliott and Anne to talk over the dramatic week before Blackpool, where everyone suddenly gets serious. We recorded on Monday night, but still managed to accurately preview a few of the Blackpool dances because the producers aren’t in any way predictable. - Alex and Neil, reunited

S4E8 - There Are No Rules We’re just getting on with it. Ellie is joined by Meg, Vikki and Emily to get one precious week closer to Blackpool. - References that are too old for Karim Zeloual to understand - A bit of detail about how your Strictly Sausage gets made - Aljaz is a precious cinnamon roll - Kelvin is shedding the fridge - A gasp-inducing suggestion about Blackpool - Whose pasty flesh ru...

S4E7 - Fuming! It’s not so much a podcast as a live group therapy session, as we work through a whole load of feelings about the absolutely cursed Halloween episode of Strictly. Ellie is joined by Meg, Anne, Vikki and Emily (eventually) to angry cry about the arbitrarily cruel nature of structured reality formats. Topics also covered: - How does Emma solve her chemistry problem (other than the obv...

After a brief moment of excitement caused by a Eurovision song on the results show, Ellie is joined by Elliot, Anne and Meg to ask the tough questions. - Is Kelvin more of a leather jacket man than a denim jacket man? - Who is being manoeuvred over the glittery trap door? - If I’ve licked it, is it mine? - Is Paso the only Latin that Anton takes seriously? - Who’s been looking straight down the le...

The Big Twist occurs and Dev and Dianne get the ‘we’ll try to make it up to you at Christmas’ early shock eviction. Ellie is joined by Emily, Meg, Elliot and Vikki to try and make sense of it all. - What’s the DnD alignment of Strictly? - A general praising of showing training in training VTs. - Once more we don’t exactly recommend ‘Shimmer: A Strictly Come Dancing’ novel but we don’t not recommen...

It’s Movie Week and Ellie is joined by Elliot, Anne, Emily and Meg as we ladle on the convoluted cinema metaphors to review the dances and share our confusion as we try to work out just exactly who this very odd revue is aimed at. - We’re ready to declare a new podcast mascot… but who? - If the first lift is for character, what’s the guitar for? - Lots of wholesomeness and purity - Strictly’s Grea...

The first elimination week provides dubious thrills. Join Ellie, Elliot, Meg and Vikki to review this week’s dances, skilfully avoid libel and get deep about the psychology of reality TV. While we struggle with Strictly’s difficult second album, we also get into the following: - What aspects of popular culture is Elliot too young for? - What totally inappropriate cult films should Strictly attack...

The gang convenes to discuss the first 15 dance megashow of the Strictly 2019 season! Ellie, Emily, Elliot, Meg and Vikki are here and they’re making SO. MUCH. CONTENT. We’re very sorry about the audio quality in the first part of the podcast - it’s to do with a cable and it won’t happen again. If you want to go straight to the buzz-free bit, we sort our selves out at 10:37 into the pod. - Who is...