16 Things You Didn't Know About Strictly Come Dancing

It's the biggest show on British television and, 14 series in, its popularity shows no sign of waning. More than 10 million people tune in religiously week in week out to watch their favourite contestants and professional dancers take on popular dance routines. But, how much do you actually know about your favourite show? We went behind the scenes to find out some little known facts that will make you excited for this week's show...

1) The title of the show is a combination of the film 'Strictly Ballroom' and an earlier BBC dancing series called 'Come Dancing'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXW0SaeEadw

2) Outside of the UK it is referred to simply as 'Dancing With The Stars' and is now broadcast in a massive 50 countries, making it the world's most successful reality TV format of all time.

3) Bruno and Len judge on both the UK and US versions simultaneously, meaning that as soon as the show is finished in London, they jump on a plane to Los Angeles to film the US one. We'd love to see how many air-miles they have clocked up.

4) Getting tickets to be in the audience of the show is so sought after that this year alone 5.2 million people applied.

5) The gorgeous costumes can take days to make. Just one Latin dress can take up to 20 hours and one ballroom dress up to 40, which is why they have a large team of 12 in-house designers.

6) Despite popular belief not one sequin is used on the Strictly Come Dancing costumes. Rhinestones and crystals are the sparkle of choice...

7) And by the bucket load: at least 170,000 crystals are in the costume department at any one time. That's a lot of sparkle!

8) It's not just crystals that the team get through a lot of. In any one series, an average of 504 cans of hairspray are used, which equates to 252 litres, enough to fill 6 Mini Coopers up with fuel.

http://giphy.com/gifs/YaeCVxw4YsJCU

9) In fact, there is a lot of hair-related products that get used in general. Over the last 13 series, the team have used 37,000 hair pins which, when stringed together, would span 2 miles, and 400 heads of extensions.
10) There might not be sequins but there is glitter. A whopping, 150 litres of liquid glitter has been used in total across the series'.

http://giphy.com/gifs/vegdV3Ia1zKW4

11) There are plenty of tears on the show. 9,000 tissues have been used in total throughout the years.

http://giphy.com/gifs/FvQIRtC1MEdtC

12) Tears can come from both high and low scores. The lowest score a judge can give is 1. This has been awarded just 9 times. No surprise that 8 of those were given out by the pantomine villain himself, Craig.

13) Despite a lot of low scores, there have been plenty of 10s given out over the years too with Pasha Kovalev having received the most. He has, however, only won the competition once, in 2014, with Caroline Flack.

14) Kevin Clifton, who joined the show in 2013, has reached the Grand Final every year so far, being partnered with Susanna Reid, Frankie Bridge and Kellie Bright. He will be hoping to do the same with his partner this year, Louise Redknapp.

http://giphy.com/gifs/Ku8lxcJWGxrB6

15) Poor Anton Du Beke however, despite being on the show since the very first series, has never won the Glitter Ball Trophy.

16) Not that it matters as much anyway. The winning couple don't actually get to keep the Glitter Ball Trophy. The main one, presented at the end of each series, is kept at the BBC and has all of the names of previous winners on. They do, however, get to take home a miniature version.

We can't wait to see what this week's Strictly brings now...