Got To Dance: Ashley Banjo wants 'originality'

Ashley Banjo has said he's looking for contestants on the next series of Got To Dance to surprise him. This year's series of the Sky1 HD show was won by Irish dancing hip-hop act Prodijig, and judge Ashley is keen to see something equally different again. He said: "Prodijig have set the bar so, so high - they're original, they're creative, they're something different, so I think this year again I want people to step outside the box and do what Prodijig did. Bring something that we haven't seen before." Diversity member Ashley insisted the TV series could run and run: "When people ask about the shelf life of dance shows, I look at the singing shows and I think when people are singing, of course it's very expressive, but you're singing usually the lyrics to a song that people already know - you can't change it up that much. "But with dance it is all from the dancers, the contestants have choreographed it themselves, it's their vision, so if singing shows can last so long, dancing shows should be able to last even longer." And Ashley said of his brother Jordan's romance with Little Mix singer Jesy Nelson: "They are a very interesting couple, they are completely head over heels the both of them... He loves her to bits."

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.