Ross Strictly: How a British Dance Show Became the World’s Favorite Spectator Sport of Schadenfreude

Ross Strictly and the Global Glitterball: How a British Dance-Off Became the Planet’s Favorite Guilty Pleasure
By our London Bureau Chief (who has seen empires fall but still can’t Cha-Cha)

LONDON—As the northern hemisphere slouches toward another winter of discontent, the United Nations Security Council has, predictably, failed to agree on anything beyond the catering menu. Meanwhile, 8,000 kilometers away in a draughty hangar on the Thames, the planet’s most improbable soft-power weapon is warming up: “Strictly Come Dancing,” affectionately shortened by tabloids and insomniac redditors to “Ross Strictly,” after the latest celebrity contestant whose surname nobody bothered to learn.

Yes, the same world that can’t coordinate carbon targets has somehow synchronized its Saturday nights. From Lagos living rooms to Reykjavík basements, viewers tune in not for the foxtrot itself—though the sight of a former cabinet minister attempting one is a close second—but for the exquisite public humiliation that follows. We are, after all, only human, and nothing unites the species like watching the mighty trip over their own egos in sequins.

How did this happen? Blame globalization’s perverse sense of humor. The BBC flogged the format to 60-odd territories faster than you can say “ballroom imperialism.” In Brazil it’s “Dança dos Famosos,” in China “舞林争霸,” and in Russia, where irony goes to die, it’s simply “Танцы со звёздами” (“Stars’ Last Dance Before Sanctions”). Each local variant exports the same basic ingredients: a disgraced politician, an ageing pop relic, and a professional dancer whose patience ought to qualify them for sainthood. The result is a planetary comfort blanket woven from schadenfreude and spandex.

Ross—let’s call him that because his real name is Ross Something-or-Other, a minor actor from a soap you’ve never heard of—has become the show’s latest geopolitical Rorschach test. In Britain he’s pilloried for undercooked samba rolls; in Germany he’s hailed as a post-Brexit cautionary tale; on TikTok his botched lifts are remixed with K-pop and dubbed “Westphalian Surrender.” The algorithm, like God, works in mysterious ways.

But the stakes are higher than glitter. Consider the data: the show’s global audience is now larger than the population of the European Union. Advertisers from Seoul to São Paulo buy slots at London prime-time prices, confident that nothing says “dependable brand values” like a former child star weeping into a spray tan. Economists at Goldman Sachs—who apparently moonlight as tango aficionados—estimate the franchise adds 0.02% to global GDP, roughly the output of Iceland. If that sounds trivial, remember Iceland once brought down a British government over cod; sequins are at least less slippery.

Diplomats, ever the last to spot a trend, have begun weaponizing the craze. At last month’s G20, the UK delegation reportedly offered Argentina a cameo slot in exchange for softer language on Falklands sovereignty. The talks collapsed when Buenos Aires demanded equal billing for a Malvinas-themed Paso Doble. Meanwhile, Beijing’s state broadcaster airs a bowdlerized version where judges award “social harmony points” instead of scores, proving that even totalitarianism can’t resist a quickstep.

Back in the studio, Ross soldiers on, gamely pretending that mastering the Viennese waltz is more pressing than the cost-of-living crisis. Viewers from 190 countries lean in, united by the delicious certainty that someone, somewhere, is about to face-plant in rhinestones. It’s not quite world peace, but in an era when nuclear powers trade threats on Twitter, a collective gasp at a botched pivot turn feels like progress.

And so, as COP28 delegates argue over commas in Dubai, Ross Strictly shimmies on, an accidental ambassador for humanity’s baser instincts: hope, envy, and the eternal desire to see the powerful look ridiculous. The globe may be warming, currencies collapsing, and democracies misfiring, but give us a man in Cuban heels attempting a rumba and we’ll happily hit pause on the apocalypse—for ninety disco-lit minutes, at least.

Because if we’re going down, we might as well do it to a salsa beat.