Faye Tozer bagged her highest score yet for her Waltz in Saturday’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, but revealed during the show that wasn’t even the routine she was supposed to have been performing.
The Steps singer and professional partner Giovanni Pernice got a near-perfect score of 39 points from the judges, following their Waltz to Dee C Lee’s ‘See The Day’.
However, during her introductory VT, Faye revealed that she’d initially been supposed to perform the American Smooth, but had to change at the last minute when Giovanni felt a “twinge” in his back during a lift in rehearsals.
After consulting with a medic, Faye’s dance was changed to a Waltz, but it was clearly a hidden blessing, as she wound up at joint top of the leaderboard.
Also at the top of the usual leaderboard, on the same score, were Stacey Dooley and Kevin Clifton, who similarly wowed the judges with their Paso Doble to Brian Setzer’s ‘Malagueña’, bagging 39 of a possible 40 points.
Faye also finished in second place in the Lindy Hop-A-Thon, a one-off mass dance introduced for this week only, pushing her to the top of the leaderboard overall, while Stacey ranked fourth of seven.
So far, Ashley Roberts remains the only contestant to gain a perfect score, doing so during last week’s Blackpool special, although she had to make do with second place on Saturday, on 36 points.
Things are looking less hopeful for Lauren Steadman and Graeme Swann, though, with the former ranking at the bottom of the leaderboard for the second week in a row.
Graham fared slightly better, but did land his lowest score since Halloween Week on just 24 points, with all four judges giving him a 6 for his Quickstep routine, which opened the show.
It wasn’t just the performances that had ‘Strictly’ fans talking during the most recent live show, though, with Head Judge Shirley Ballas swept up in a rather chaotic moment while reading out the results of the aforementioned Lindy Hop-A-Thon.
As well as suffering technical difficulties with the tablet she was using, Shirley then began reading out the contestants in the wrong order, before mixing up two professionals’ names.
Find out which couples make it through to next week’s live show in Sunday night’s results show, airing at 7.20pm on BBC One.