worry

As he admits to not being a fan of musicals, the TikTok star says: ‘My brain is still – I don’t dance, what are you on about?’

He’s the YouTuber with zero dance experience that no one over 25 had heard of before Strictly Come Dancing started. Now George Clarke has made it to the quarter finals of the BBC1 ballroom show and is happy to admit he has no idea how it’s all gone so well.

“I don’t think any of us expected it. It’s still a surprise to me that the judges pull up paddles any higher than five,” he laughs. “I’m very happy and appreciate the compliments and stuff, but I don’t think I’ll ever be in a place where I’m like, ‘I can dance’.”

The 26-year-old, from Bristol, is so naturally modest, he can’t compute that he’s not only proving himself on the dance floor – scoring 39 for his samba in Blackpool – he’s also inspiring huge swathes of the audience to vote for him every week.

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The rumour is that George and his pro partner Alexis Warr are topping the phone vote every week and the bookies now have Strictly as a two-horse race between him and footballer Karen Carney.

But he is still wondering whether he’s going to remember the steps each week. “People ask me, ‘did you know you were gonna be good?’ and my brain is still ‘I don’t dance, what are you on about?’”

American Alexis, who only joined the show this year, is delighted with the warm welcome she’s received from the British public. She is a bit more pragmatic when it comes to eyeing up the glitterball trophy. “I feel like everyone wants to win, it would be nice, obviously. But we don’t want that to be the sole focus or what drives us,” she explains.

George, who still suffers nerves even now they’ve reached week 11, is determined not to think about the final or the prospect of winning. “I feel like the only strategy I want is to dance as well as we can, which is what we’ve been doing the whole time. It’s never really gone further than trying to be ourselves and enjoy it – it’s not ‘let’s get our hands on that glitterball!’

“But if people get behind that and that we end up with it in our hands, then that’s a really cool side effect, I guess.”

He still says that the dance that meant the most to him in the whole competition was the rumba he did last month, which was dedicated to his family and particularly his mother, who was diagnosed with the brain inflammation condition encephalitis a decade ago and has more recently been battling cancer.

It only got 29 points from the judges but to him it was a triumph. “It’s one of the dances that I’m happiest with, despite the fact that I know there was so much I could have done better,” he explains. They danced to Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know, which was the only song he put forward at the start of the series, because it means so much to his family and was sung at his grandfather’s funeral by his sister.

In his head, and as an ambassador for Encephalitis International, he knew he wanted to tell the story of his mother’s illness. “It wasn’t ‘woe is me, I’ve had such a horrible experience’, it was much more that it is such an unknown disease,” he explains. “The only people that tend to know about it are doctors and people that it has affected. So it felt like a good time as any to say something about it and to spread awareness.”

Afterwards, his Dad couldn’t believe he’d done it. “He said ‘I dunno why you put so much pressure on yourself – you’ve already got live TV and a dance that you’re not used to.’” George was thrilled when his Mum and Dad were really proud and appreciative. “To me, a dance felt like as good an opportunity as any to dedicate something to my family and I felt like it was a very special thing to do.”

Tonight they will attempt to get through musicals week to next week’s semi final – alongside fellow contestants Karen, Balvinder Sopal, Lewis Cope and Amber Davies.

George has already admitted to presenter Claudia Winkleman that he is no fan of musical theatre. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually been to a proper musical,” he says now. “I feel like the musicals I hated are the ones I’ve been conned into thinking are just a regular film, and then suddenly they break out into song. And I’m sat there wondering why they’re singing about running out of milk or something,” he laughs. “It seems really unnecessary.”

Despite this, he has had fun learning the deadly serious Argentine Tango, which he and Alexis, 25, will perform to The Point of No Return from Phantom of the Opera.

“It’s very technical. It’s very different, but I’m quite enjoying it,” George says, seeming a bit surprised. “It feels like it very much goes hand in hand with what the Phantom of the Opera is – or what I’ve been told it is! Just the whole sort of back and forth between them.”

He’s hoping that he can keep his confidence and concentration going strong. “There’s honestly no telling of how well things will go, cause I feel that is very much dependent on whether I get in my head on the night,” he explains. “If that happens, I tend to tell the judges that I made 18 mistakes and they take that into account with the scoring.”

Both he and Alexis are astonished by how quickly the competition has raced by. “I feel like we’ve been very much taking each week as it comes and enjoying each dance, each concept, getting to know each other and creating that friendship,” Alexis says. “Now it’s wild to think like how soon it is to be over. I’m gonna have withdrawals for sure. I’m a very emotional person, so I will not be OK.”

He agrees that it will be a “shame” when it’s all over, but George also confesses that physically he’s ready for a break. “I think the body is getting to a point now where I would quite like a rest, but I don’t think I’ll ever mentally feel, ‘OK I’m done now’. Even if we were to get a 40 or something, we’d still want to do all the dances again, just to see how we’ve improved.”

Going forwards, he plans to keep dancing with his model girlfriend Yasmin Bennett, who has long wanted to learn some steps with him. And if Strictly opens certain doors for him then he’s going to step through as many as possible. “I think my number one priority would always be YouTube and the online world, because that’s what I’ve grown up wanting to do and I feel very grateful for this career,” he says. “But whenever I get a new opportunity, I want to see where it leads because the internet is so volatile, it really depends on how long people are interested and there’s no real timeframe for that.”

Offers he’d love to receive include being invited onto programmes like Would I Lie to You? or Taskmaster. “To be on a panel show that I’ve watched growing up, that would just be so cool.”

For now, George knows that if he does make the final, he’ll be there as presenters Tess Daly and Claudia bow out of the series for good. So who does he think might replace them?

“I honestly have not got a Scooby,” he chortles. “They’re big shoes to fill, but actually, I don’t think it should be about trying to fill shoes. It’s just a way to put a new lease of life into the show.”

Strictly Come Dancing airs tomorrow at 6:50pm on BBC One

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This is an important series for Smith, playing in an Ashes for the first time. He was promoted to the England team at the beginning of the 2024 summer at the expense of Ben Foakes and Jonny Bairstow with this tour in mind.

Smith has made an exceptional start to his Test career. Before the Test at the Gabba he averaged almost 47 with the bat. His glovework has often been tidy.

But there have also been signs that the 25-year-old has some challenges to overcome.

Since making a stunning 184 not out and 88 in the second Test against India in July, then following up with 51 in the first innings of the third Test at Lord’s, Smith’s highest score in seven knocks is 33.

He looked increasingly lethargic as the India series wore on, with both his batting and keeping suffering as a result.

The Surrey man was in uncharted territory in a series where each of the five Tests went to the final day.

Because he is not the first-choice keeper for his county – Foakes takes the gloves at The Oval – he was experiencing a workload like never before.

This Ashes will be similar – another five-Test series. Yes, the first Test in Perth was over in only two days, but there are other challenges to throw to a keeper in Australia.

The steep bounce and true carry should be an advantage, yet takes some getting used to, and the fearsome heat can be sapping.

The edge off Head appeared to take Smith by surprise. It was a superb delivery from Archer, nipping away from round the wicket. In a spell where Archer averaged 89.3mph, he got one to leap at Head, and the ball was still on the rise when it got to Smith.

Moving to his left, Smith got both hands to the ball, only to parry in the direction of the slips, who could not grab the rebound.

“That was a beauty from Archer, it went quickly to Jamie Smith but you’ve got to take those chances,” said former England captain Michael Vaughan on Test Match Special.

Former wicketkeeper Matt Prior, part of the England team when they won the Ashes in Australia in 2010-11, said on TNT: “It’s the worst place in the world to be having just dropped that catch.

“He didn’t do a lot wrong. He got done for a bit of pace, a bit of extra bounce here at the Gabba. It hit him quite high on the gloves.

“That’s a chance you’d want to be taking more times than not.”

According to data analysts Cricviz, Smith’s glovework stands up to other keepers in Test cricket.

This was only the fourth drop of his career, having held 54 previous chances. Smith has a 93% catching efficiency in Tests and for all wicketkeepers in Tests since the start of 2024, the efficiency is around 89%.

Interestingly, of the four drops in his Test career, three of them have been against left-handers.

Smith is also playing in a pink-ball match of any kind for the first time.

The debate over whether England should have sent more players to a floodlit match between England Lions and a Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra in the weekend before this Test was tempered by the vastly different conditions in Brisbane when compared to the capital.

While Smith has had five training sessions with the pink ball in the run-up to this Test – two of them under lights – he was out for a second-ball duck in England’s first innings and dropped the first chance that came his way.