Strictly’s Giovanni Pernice is back on tour around the UK (Image: BBC)
had left fans wondering whether he was quitting the UK – and even showbiz – altogether following Amanda Abbington’s allegations.
Yet at Tuesday’s show at G Live in Guildford, he answered that question once and for all – and I was in the audience to witness it. The former pro triumphantly broke into song live onstage as he channelled his “hero” Freddie Mercury to celebrate his comeback with an all new UK tour, The Last Dance.
At first, as the song ‘Try Dancing With A Broken Heart’ rang out across the auditorium in the lead-up to his grand entrance, it had sounded like he was delivering a thinly veiled message about his departure from Strictly. After all, he’d confirmed days earlier that, despite being formally cleared of the vast majority of allegations against him, he’d “never” make a return to the show.
Yet his last dance on the show didn’t mean his last one on British soil, as he vowed: “People can say what they want about me, but nothing can take away what I’ve achieved.” His backing dancers then stormed the stage, brandishing huge newspapers with mock-up headlines boasting of Giovanni’s Strictly and BAFTA wins and his status as “the real Italian stallion”.
Giovanni Pernice’s tour comes after his Ballando con Le Stelle win (Image: Maurizio D’Avanzo/MDPhoto/ipa-agency.net/REX/Shutterstock)
Gio swiftly corrected the last one to “the only Italian stallion”, before mischievously declaring himself “the younger and more gorgeous version of my best friend, Anton du Beke.”
He spoke candidly onstage for the first time ever about how the scandal had affected him. He told the crowd: “All my friends left me alone.
He then added: “No-one wanted to be seen with me – I was the bad guy. All the people that I thought were my friends – they all turned their back on me.”
However, he added: “I always had a voice in my head that would tell me, ‘Giovanni, don’t worry. Stay strong because one day all of this will finish… and in the words of my hero Freddie Mercury, the show must go on….”
He also addressed his absence, defiantly declaring that, after a decade living in the UK, he has no intention of leaving us in the long term.
“After ten years of touring, my body was asking for a little bit of rest – but you know me, there’s always gonna be a comeback tour!” he vowed.
Giovanni opened up about his time on Strictly and the Amanda Abbington feud (Image: -)
Giovanni used dance to reminisce over his touring experiences in the UK, with a different routine to honour each country he’d visited.
The Scotland segment saw his backing dancers waving blue and white flags, before Giovanni appeared and gamely demonstrated some high kicks in a kilt.
He narrowly avoided a wardrobe malfunction – and afterwards, he made no secret of his confusion about the nation’s traditional dress.
“To be a true Scottish person, you’ve got to wear a kilt with nothing underneath – but we all know Scotland is freezing!” he exclaimed.
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The show was worth seeing for this segment alone, with him swinging his dance partner above his head and giving viewers a taste of what he might have achieved had he been invited back to Strictly this year.
The only bug bear I had about this show is that Giovanni isn’t present in all of the songs.
That said, his incredible backing dancers, including the exceptional Lauren Oakley, deserve more recognition, and these parts of the show offered them their chance to shine.
Meanwhile, despite the name of the tour, this is no “last dance” for Gio – and he’ll be on the road until May, before heading back out for a summer tour with Anton du Beke.
This first comeback since the Strictly scandal was particularly special for Gio as it gave him the freedom to tell his story “in his own words” – for the first time ever.
I’m awarding it a solid nine out of ten – and highly recommend checking out the show for yourself.