Franzen A Handsome Bet
As a reality tv format So You Think You Can Dance seems a bit of a lame duck, but that won’t stop us tuning in for the remainder of the series in an attempt to pick out the value punts.
Charlie Bruce, our pre-knock-out stage pick, is now a best-priced 12-1 on the Outright, and 7-2 to be Top Female. We recommend backing her again at those prices as we were impressed with her hip hop performance last Saturday in partnership with Tommy Franzen.
Franzen, like Bruce, comes across well on his VT, and taking another look at his audition and showreel suggests to us that he is the strongest male dancer in the competition. We could be wrong but a key attribute Tommy possesses is versatility in a variety of different dance styles, he has a certain ‘wow’ factor, and as such he demands backing at 7s on the Outright and 7-2 to be Top Male.
Hayley Newton found herself among the bottom 4 last Saturday despite looking, to our untrained eyes at least, to be one of the best female dancers left in.
She drew the very hard to impress with Samba, and it would be foolhardy to write her off at such an early stage. She will team up with Drew this Saturday and it might be reasonable to expect them to bounce out of the bottom four.
At 20s on the Outright and 8-1 to be Top Female, Hayley is also worth an investment in those two markets.
From his look to his surname Alastair Postlethwaite is middle class through and through which could be in his favour in a public vote on a BBC show, but he looks a rigid ballet performer to us. Mark Calape, a hip hop specialist who got lucky last Saturday by drawing ‘Hip Hop Lyrical’, appears even more limited, which makes us reticent about supporting either of these contestants. Robbie White seems to have built himself a following but we’re not convinced by his dance ability.
With voting numbers undoubtedly very low, it’s a tough one to call, but our reality tv instincts tell us the 3 couples likely to be most vulnerable this Saturday are Mark & Lizzie, Alastair & Mandy and Gavin & Chloe.
One male and one female will be eliminated again this week out of the bottom four, and checking out the elimination odds tells us Chloe at 7s and Lizzie at 8s are the value to go next out of the women; Mark at 11-2 and Alastair at 10s among the men.
Rob Furber