Alexandra Burke bounced back from the bottom two and found herself joint top of the leaderboard on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ on Saturday (02.12.17).
The ‘Broken Heels’ hitmaker and her professional partner Gorka Marquez’s Charleston to ‘Supercalifragilistic’ from Mary Poppins saw them top the leaderboard with 39 points during musical week.
Giving their verdict on the performance, Bruno Tonioli said it was "the showstopper we needed" whilst Craig Revel Horwood praised Alexandra’s swivel, saying it was better than Gorka’s. Darcey Bussell even said she "couldn’t tell" who was the professional out of the pair.
Debbie McGee and Giovanni Pernice also earned 39 points for their American smooth to ‘Memory’ from Cats, which was praised for being "technically flawless". Bruno said they "took everyone with them on the story" whilst Darcey called the performance "stunning, I’m purring with delight, great fluidity, my goodness – exquisite". Head judge Shirley Ballas says it was "intimate, polished and hugely impressive".
However, it wasn’t a good night for Gemma Atkinson whose quickstep to ‘Hello Dolly!’ from the musical of the same name, earned her joint bottom place in the leaderboard. Shirley told them: "You did very well but it could have had 20 per cent more acting skills, swan-like posture and immaculate frame," whilst Craig said it "needed to be lighter, looked laboured, but loved the theatricality".
Davood Ghadami and Nadiya Bychkova’s Argentine tango was criticised for the "stumbling problems and balance issues" and Bruno says it was "wobbly, uneven and not slick enough".
Joe McFadden and Katya Jones’ samba surprised Craig as he was "ready for it to fail" whilst Bruno told Mollie King and AJ Pritchard after their rumba to ‘Hopelessly Devoted To You’ from Grease that they had improved a lot with their performances.
‘Strictly Come Dancing’ returns on Sunday (03.12.17).
Alexandra Burke bounces back on Strictly
