‘Strictly Come Dancing’ bosses have scrapped the Lindy Hop-a-thon from this year’s show.
Producers have decided not to have a scored group dance at this stage of the competition following the problems that hit the event in 2018, a BBC insider told the Mirror Online.
This time last year, the remaining couples performed the dance-a-thon and their score for that was combined with their individual routine to give a total judges score, however, a technical glitch meant the judges’ tablets stopped working after the dance, leaving them to have to turn to their notes.
Head judge Shirley Ballas read the scores out in the wrong order until Bruno Tonioli intervened, and the dance expert also mistakenly said Charles Venn’s partner was Dianne Buswell, not Karen Hauer.
A show spokesperson said at the time: "Once the judges had scored the Lindy-hopathon, the marks were successfully electronically recorded on a tablet and fed to the gallery who received an accurate record of the judges marks.
"When Head Judge Shirley had to read the marks out live on air, the tablet she was reading from malfunctioned and went blank so she was unable to read out the final order.
"Bruno therefore read out the results from a back up, which is a paper template and had been filled in by the judges."
The axing of the group dance performance isn’t the only change to the format this year.
The final of the show will feature just three competitors, rather than the usual four, because Paralympian Will Bayley pulled out of the competition earlier this month due to an injury and wasn’t replaced.
‘Strictly Come Dancing’ returns to BBC One on Saturday (23.11.19).
Strictly Come Dancing drop Lindy Hop-a-thon
