This year’s Strictly Come Dancing Blackpool special is in the books and it served up some of the biggest and best scores of the series so far.
Topping the leaderboard was Emmerdale actor Lewis Cope and his professional partner Katya Jones, who kicked off the show with Charleston set to the Arctic Monkey’s “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor”.
Even though they were the first performers, their routine would prove to be the show’s peak, achieving a perfect score of 40, their second of the season.
Cope and Jones' position at the top of the leader was pushed close by two other couples who came agonisingly close to achieving a perfect score.
Firstly, former England footballer and Carlos Gu performed a dramatic and jaw-dropping Paso doble to the opera movement “O Fortuna”, which was given an impressive score of 39.
At the end of the show, YouTuber George Clarke and Alexis Warr were also given a 39 for their Salsa to “Rock this Party (Everybody Dance Now)” by Bob Sinclar. In each instance, famously critically judge Craig Revel Horwood, gave a nine while the other three judges awarded a 10.
Elsewhere, Love Island star Amber Davies earned an otherwise impressive 36 for her and Nikita Kuzmin’s Quickstep to “Reach” by S Club 7.
ER actor Alex Kingston and her partner Johaness Radebe were given 35 for their Couple’s Choice dance. Propping up the leaderboard was EastEnders star Balvinder Sopal and her partner Julian Caillon, who were given a score of 33 for their Argentine Tango to “The Logical Song” by Supertramp.
However, in a twist there will be no elimination this weekend, after the 45-year-old RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star La Voix, whose real name is Christopher Dennis, pulled out, having initially been given a bye to the next round of the competition after the injury was announced last week.
Speaking at the start of Saturday’s episode, presenter Tess Daly said: “Now, as you may have heard, La Voix sustained an injury, meaning that she can’t dance in Blackpool tonight, and following further advice from our medical team, we can now confirm she has very sadly had to withdraw from the competition.”
Fellow presenter Claudia Winkleman said: “We will be speaking to La Voix on tomorrow night’s show, we love you so, so much.”
The presenters later revealed that no contestant would be leaving Strictly during its Blackpool special, with no dance-off planned, and votes and scores set to be carried over to next week.
Here are the full scores for Strictly’s Blackpool week:
Lewis and Katya: 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 40
Karen and Carlos: 9 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 39
George and Alexis: 9 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 39
Amber and Nikita: 9 + 9 + 9 + 9 = 36
Alex and Johannes: 8 + 9 + 9 + 9 = 35
Balvinder and Julian: 8 + 8 + 8 + 9 = 33
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