Last updated at 6:10 PM on 22nd November 2011
Over the past few weeks he has dressed up as a devil, ridden a mechanical bull and, on Saturday, Russell Grant was fired out of a cannon as part of his jive routine.
But my goodness, the Strictly audience are a tough crowd to please because yesterday, despite consistently delivering more imaginative performances than Lady Gaga, he was voted off the show.
Perhaps it's no bad thing, because short of being sawn in half or setting himself alight, I'm not sure what else Russell could have pulled out of his big box of tricks to camouflage the fact that dancing really wasn't his bag.
Boom time: Russell Grant is fired from a cannon on Strictly Come Dancing
While fancy footwork was not his forte, entertaining a crowd, making people laugh and brightening up a dreary Saturday night certainly was.
For two minutes every week, it became Strictly Camp Dancing and the show will sadly be all the flatter for his departure.
Strictly pedants get a little uppity about the show's comic turns like Russell and Widdy but what they seem to lose sight of is that, unlike The X Factor where the winner gets a record contract, nobody taking part in Strictly is trying to carve out a career for themselves as a dancer.
This weekend the programme came live from Wembley – a fact we were reminded of approximately every 2.8 seconds throughout the show. The move from TV Centre was treated with the same sort of giddy excitement normally reserved for moon landings and royal weddings.
Live from Wembley: Flavia Cacace, Russell Grant, Holly Valance and Artem Chigvinstev in Strictly
The slightly demented opening sequence featured dancers, acrobats, cheer leaders, a rock guitarist and pyrotechnic explosions. Blimey – no wonder Russell's cannon skit seemed a bit underwhelming.
In the end, though, it was all just too big and manic to translate to TV – the dance floor was too large and the 6,500 strong crowd were so noisy that the singers, Dave Arch and his wonderful, wonderful orchestra (to use their full name), were almost drowned out.
Poor Tess had to bellow 'OVER TO YOU, BRUCE' at the end of every link in order to be heard above the din, and jolt the old boy into action.
That said, a big audience does bring out the entertainer in Bruce, resulting in his best, and funniest, performance of the series so far. He's at his sharpest when he ad-libs and goes 'off road', far more than when he's made to stick to a rather wooden script.
Consistently imaginative: Russell Grant's forte was entertaining a crowd
The biggest problem with the Wembley show was that the dance floor was easily four times the size of the one in the TV studio and the contestants struggled to fill the space. At one point, during her quickstep, Holly Valance wasn't so much dancing as galloping around the stage like Desert Orchid.
Still, it was good to see her looking a bit lively for a change – the girl is so laid back, she's virtually in a coma. Her dance partner Artem must feel like cattle-prodding her through some of their performances when, in fact, all he needs to do is to slip her a dose of whatever Jason Donovan puts in his tea before he dances.
Good lord, he may be an Aussie, like Holly, but laid back he is not – his jive performed to Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go Go was so frenzied and jittery that it must have given half the TV audience motion sickness.
A series of Strictly wouldn't be complete if we didn't get at least one glimpse of professional dancer – and every male couch potato's pin-up – Ola Jordan in her catsuit. On Saturday she didn't disappoint as she strutted around alongside an all-thrusting and grinding Robbie Savage, who performed his salsa routine more like a stripper at a hen-night bash than a snake-hipped Latino.
But who cares? What it lacked in finesse, it made up for with daring and energy and deserved more than the 26 score it was awarded.
With the final just four weeks away, the show has turned into a bit of a 'torso off' between super-fit Robbie and Harry Judd, who are parading their pecs, baring their biceps and showcasing their six-packs like nobody's business – an area in which poor Russell, bless him, really couldn't compete.
To be fair to lovely Harry, he may whip his shirt off at any passing opportunity but 1. It's nice for us ladies and 2. He can dance, so it's not like he's staying in purely for his pecs!
- Dunker, London, 21/11/2011 19:06
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