He’s notoriously the most difficult ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ judge to impress, but even Craig Revel Horwood couldn’t find fault with Ashley Roberts’ American Smooth in Saturday night’s semi-final.
Craig admitted that Ashley’s routine had left him “speechless”, with the panel awarding it a perfect score, putting her at joint top of the leaderboard.
This was Ashley’s second 40 of the series, having previously won the first perfect score out of all of this year’s contestants for her show-stopping Jive routine.
However, it hasn’t been plain sailing for Ashley and her professional partner Pasha Kovalev who, despite being an early frontrunner, has wound up in the dance-off for the last two weeks, with the judges unanimously opting to save her on both occasions.
This week was the first time this series that the celebrities have had to prepare two dances, with Ashley being awarded 36 points for her Paso Doble earlier in the show.
Her overall score of 76 points, out of a possible 80, put her at joint top of the leaderboard, alongside Steps singer Faye Tozer.
Sadly, it was a rather different story for Paralympian Lauren Steadman, who landed the lowest score of the series for the fourth week in a row.
So far, despite her low scores, Lauren and partner AJ Pritchard have been able to win over the public with their efforts, avoiding the bottom two every single week.
Find out if they can do it again, and land a place in this year’s final, in Sunday night’s ‘Strictly’ results show, airing at 7.15pm on BBC One.