I'd Do Anything ... for Oliver and Nancy to sing real songs

Now that the finalists for Nancy and Oliver have been picked, and the live shows are about to begin, it's time for my musical theatre rant.

Hopefuls for any musical will go along and audition for a part, and if they're any good will try to act and sing in the character they want to be. If they get through to a callback, they might pick a different song, but the essence is still the same. Finally, when they get the part, the lucky person acts and sings in that character. All pretty standard stuff.

Why then - and I'd put money on this happening - do the BBC insist on making the contestants sing pop songs? It drives me mad, when there are so many fantastic musical theatre numbers to choose from. I know it's prime time TV, but surely those who are watching have some interest in the musicals, rather than the karaoke-style pop tunes the producers force the contestants to sing.

This isn't the first time I've ranted about this, but it has to be done. The live shows will no doubt be compulsive viewing anyway and it will be interesting to see what kind of songs the kids get.

Dancewear UK and discount dancewear - are these the right tags?

Well it's only taken a year or so, but I'm up to $95 or thereabouts with the Google adwords campaign. Nearly time for a payout - yippee!

Time for a rethink, I think. So I've been redesigning the Dancewear Web site and although it's a work in progress it's looking a lot tidier now. Still, the keywords thing still confuses me somewhat and though I've stared updating all the tags, I'm not sure if I'm targeting the right areas.

For example, the analytics page tells me that people who visited my site came through entrance keywords like dancewear UK and discount dance wear. That seems fair enough, but they don't seem to be high on the searches. On the other hand, if I try more general terms there's too many and I've got no chance of appearing in the first 20 pages.

Research is obviously the answer - the problem is there's so much information and different methods of doing these things. I guess meantime it's a case of trial and error... and much hope.

Dancewear Web - Dancewear directory for dancewear UK, discount dance wear, dancewear and costumes.

Dance competition challenges

Going to a big dance competition is one of the most stressful things for a dance teacher. You worry about it for weeks and it's all over in a few minutes.

After hours and hours of practice the routines are as near perfect as they're ever going to get. On then day the costumes are fabulous, everyone's smiling and no one makes any mistakes. An amazing achievement.

So ... WHY DIDN'T WE WIN???

The answer is simple of course, the dance team who won were all the same height!

So all we need to next time is chop off a few inches from some legs, or get built up dance shoes for the shorter people. Easy really, why didn't I think of it before.

Conditioning for dance; training for peak performance

Caught a bit of the new series of So You Think You Can Dance. There's some inspiring moves in there and I love all the different dance styles, although moving out of their comfort zone is a bit of a challenge for some of the dancers.

One of the most difficult things for dancers is keeping up the momentum all the way through, even in a 2 minute routine. The book Conditioning for Dance: Training for Peak Performance in All Dance Forms includes dance-specific exercises to help build up that power and flexibility with injuring yourself.

There are, of course, many other dance training books for ballet, tap, hip hop, ballroom and many more but this one is unique in that it focuses on the mind as well as the body.

Anton's new ballroom dance book

Just been having a look at Anton's Dance Class. His ballroom dancing book isn't too basic, but for keen dancers he teaches ten dances step by step, including ballroom and latin routines. It's getting some pretty decent reviews, so I might even think about buying it.

Proof that dance teachers are poor

Nearly a year on and no millions yet. The dancing school is going great, but making millions is much more difficult than it appears. I'm not saying it can't be done, but unfortunately life gets in the way.

I left the marketing side of things drifting for a while, due to the pressure of everything else. But the sites I built last year are still there and although they need a bit of work to bring them up to date, I've left the ads on them meantime. There hasn't been a lot of traffic, understandably, but there is a small amount of revenue being generated without any effort on my part.

Now that I have a bit of time to get things moving again, I'll try and keep the blog updated regularly, and will give an up to date figure on the road to the millions.

Grease Is The Word Review

I couldn't help it, I had to tune in to see how Grease Is The Word compared to Any Dream Will Do. As I've commented on before, I didn't like the audition shows, but the live programme has proved to be much more entertaining.

We're into the third week of the eliminations and have already seen two couples' hopes shattered. This week, only 6 couples remained to battle it out for the dream of playing Danny and Sandy in the West End.

Danny R and Lauren received a fair amount of criticism from the judges, and while I do worry about Danny's speech problem, I thought Sinitta was really harsh on him when she said "I'd slap myself hard were you to open in the West End".

Michael and Vicky are my least favourites. I haven't seen anything from them that would make me want to pay £70 or £80 a ticket for, but for some reason the voting public liked them and they made it safely through to next week.

Bradley and Michelle on the other hand, did not deserve to be in the bottom two, although I have a problem with this pairing. Bradley lets Michelle down in terms of vocal ability and stage presence and Michelle could find herself going home soon in spite of her own talent.

Last week, Susan and Danny B blew me away but Anthony and Alison changed my mind with their fantastic interpretation of Tonight's The Night. These two couples are going to be very close contenders for the final!

Sadly the voters at home did not keep Wayne and Hayley out of the bottom two, and the judges had a really hard time deciding whether to keep them or send Michelle and Bradley on their way. I loved Wayne and Hayley's performances in the first two weeks and it really is a shame to see them leave so soon.

It was David Ian's turn to pick the style for this week's show and his challenge of "musicals" looked promising. However, I was disappointed to see the genre of musical theatre used so loosely in the choice of the songs.