Annette Sharp: Daryl Somers to return as Dancing With The Stars co-host

Rumour has it Daryl Somers is set to return this year — in his platform shoes and hair dye — to co-host Dancing With The Stars, writes Annette Sharp.

She’s smart, funny, capable and beautiful — so why on earth would you pair a woman as dynamic and relevant as Sonia Kruger with a TV relic like Daryl Somers?

From the corridors of power at Channel 7 comes word Somers is set to return this year — in his platform shoes and with Rudy Giuliani-esque hair dye — to hosting duties on Dancing With The Stars.

Seven bosses, this column is reliably informed, felt compelled to extend the invitation to Somers after miscalculating TV vet Chris Brown’s start date at the network.

Brown starts at Seven on July 1 — too late for production house BBC Studios to get cracking on the 20th season of Dancing for Seven.

Were they to wait for Brown, the series producers would not have the series finished in time to make its slated 2023 air date.

Hey, Hey it’s Daryl Somers — again.

Somers and Sonia Kruger in 2004.

Seven on Saturday confirmed the new series of Dancing would be in the can by July 1, but denied there had been a stuff-up re Brown’s start date relative to Dancing.

But what to do when you’re down one handsome chiselled host who, to be frank, is yet to prove himself as a megawatt host for a big-budget live TV show anyway?

Sonia Kruger doesn’t need a sidekick. Picture: Peter Brew Bevan

Apparently, you revert to the playbook and call up 71-year-old Somers, the expensive host of the original Australian series of the program, which had its premiere on Seven in 2004 with both Somers and Kruger at the helm.

How retro. How dated. How 20 years ago.

We’d have thought Kruger, as one of the biggest stars on Seven’s roster, had amply proved she needs no sidekick, no foil, no co-host with a fanny pack of lame jokes to create television magic.

She can do it alone.

Kruger, who also anchors The Voice and Big Brother on Seven, has more than proven herself a capable solo anchor.

As a former child ballroom dancer, she is also without peer in the Dancing With The Stars studio ballroom in this country.

In an industry that has been slow to respond to changing times and attitudes, the casting of Somers — and maybe Brown for a future season — is a missed opportunity for Seven.

Todd McKenney would be a wonderful co-host.

Courtney Act would some pizzazz.

There are at least a dozen more of-the-moment personalities who we’d prefer to see in the role than dear old Daggles who, frankly, has never appeared to have any real on-screen chemistry with a woman.

A felt ostrich perhaps, a hat on a stick voiced by John Blackman absolutely, but a woman … well, no.

Even Hey Hey It’s Saturday regular Jackie MacDonald, who played the endearing kook on the ’70s show, was for the most part seated off to Somers’ right in the GTV studios, where she could only shine intermittently in a cutaway shot.

In a commercial television space where there are few enough roles on offer to LGBTQ personalities, Dancing With The Stars presents a unique opportunity.

If you were playing the traditional card, you might choose Todd McKenney, Kruger’s longtime friend with whom she has wonderful proven chemistry and with whom she could actually dance on the program.

A TikTokable promotional moment. How terribly now.

The TikTokable dance sequence hasn’t hurt David Campbell’s popularity on Nine, although the same can’t be said for ex-dancer and one-time Today Extra and Weekend Today co-host Belinda Russell, who seems to have chasséd herself into semi-retirement following her demotion this year.

Campbell, whose performance of Les Miserables classic Bring Him Home at the recent funeral of television executive Brian Walsh has to be one of the year’s most extraordinarily and excellent entertainment moments, should be at the top of the list of stars Seven should poach from Nine. He also would be an excellent candidate for Dancing.

However, if a commercial TV network was looking to change with the times and take a punt on capturing a new audience — possibly a slightly queerer one (there’s money in that market too) — there is the phenomenal Courtney Act, a former Dancing finalist, the transcendent Trevor Ashley, the youthful Joel Creasey and the Seven-friendly Hugh Sheridan to consider.

Seven’s recasting of Somers won’t upset its Melbourne heartland audience, but the ratings for his Hey Hey specials in 2022 must prove he is yesterday’s man.

Why should Kruger be saddled with that?

Got a news tip? Email [e-mail]