NewsBiscuit has seen a secret BBC document suggesting that the Corporation may be about to recruit a famous dead person for the next series of Strictly Come Dancing. In a paper marked “Strictly Confidential”, the unknown author states that with the success of Rose Ayling-Ellis, Johnnie Peacock and now Chris McCausland, the public has been shown to “willingly embrace diversity amongst the contestants”.
However, the text emphasises that any announcement would come with significant communication challenges. In particular, the messaging around the decision should highlight the “innovation and edginess”, and not mention anything about “lower appearance fees”, or that a dead person would be “unable to complain about abuse”.
While the paper acknowledges the challenges of “visual appearance and decomposition”, it states however that “make-up, fake tan and glitter should successfully conceal the vast majority of blemishes”.
A further challenge noted is the "relatively small pool of famous preserved corpses", some of whom were dictators, whose “past political views may overshadow the dance performances and therefore complicate news management”. As a result, a draft shortlist comprising only Tollund Man and Jeremy Bentham is set out, with the latter being “cheaper but scoring very poorly on name recognition in early focus groups”.
In a final point, the document’s author says that while there might be initial criticism about recruiting someone who “couldn’t dance or even smile”, these issues had been “dealt with years ago in recruiting Ann Widdecombe”.
image from pixabay
