STRICTLY Come Dancing star Chris McCausland received a standing ovation from the audience for his foxtrot on tonight’s show.
In moving scenes Chris, the show’s first blind contestant, listened to the crowd go wild and landed a score of 29 after gliding across the dancefloor and performing bench work with his partner Dianne Buswell.
Clearly very impressed, head judge Shirley Ballas praised him as “an example to every celebrity upstairs when it comes to footwork”.
Fellow judge Motsi Mabuse said the slow foxtrot is one of the most difficult dances but she felt he made it look “so easy” while Anton Du Beke said “you are just wonderful”.
Chris joked with Craig Revel Horwood that he had to think of an original comment which was not about his frame, to which the judge countered by critiquing his finger positioning but said he “loved” his spirit in the dance and musicality.
Earlier in the show Chris also poked fun at Revel Horwood following some of his critiques to other contestants, joking: “By the sounds of the way things are going, I think Craig’s blinder than I am.”
Prior to taking part in the show, Chris admitted that he did have his doubts about doing it.
In a piece for The Telegraph, the star confessed that his lack of vision caused him to be “terrified” about the programme.
Writing for the publication, Chris said: “Have I mentioned that I was terrified?
“I mean, how can I possibly have confidence in my ability to do something when I can’t see the entirely visual thing that I’m being asked to do?
“On top of that, stick it on live TV where failures are there for everybody to see and where the chance of a generous edit is absolute zero, and what could possibly go wrong?”
Strictly Come Dancing’s Second Week Scores
As is tradition, the first week scores are rolled over and combined into the second week. Here’s how the leaderboard now looks after the combined scores
- Tasha and Aljaz = 65 (30+35)
- Sarah and Vito = 62 (30+32)
- JB and Amy = 58 (31+27)
- Montell and Johannes = 56 (26+30)
- Wynne and Katya = 56 (26+30)
- Shayne and Nancy = 52 (21+31)
- Chris and Dianne = 52 (23+29)
- Jamie and Michelle = 50 (23+27)
- Sam and Nikita = 45 (23+22)
- Tom and Nadiya = 43 (23+20)
- Nick and Luba = 39 (18+21)
- Pete and Jowita = 39 (17+22)
- Dr Punam and Gorka = 37 (19+18)
- Paul and Karen = 32 (17+15)
- Toyah and Neil = 30 (12+18)
