Seann Walsh struggles in Week 2 of Strictly

Seann Walsh and his dance partner Katya Jones scored a lowly 15 points for their jive to Elton John's I'm Still Standing  tonight.

The performance puts them third from bottom in the leaderboard on the second week of the BBC One competition.

Their performance drew on Walsh's stand-up background, with the dancefloor lit to look like a comedy club, with the routine starting as if he was performing and Jones coming out of the audience.

But they were criticised for using the same song that won  Jill Halfpenny the second series of Strictly in 2004, when she scored a perfect 40.

Judge Bruno Toliono said: 'It's definitely not Jill Halfpenny - all the right steps at the wrong time.'

 Craig Horwood said: 'It all went horribly wrong, I felt so sorry for you'.  Darcey Bussell said they were 'off-time', and Shirley Ballas said: 'Well, I like your hair' - faint praise that referred to he controversial comments last week.

'It went so well in rehearsal!' is all Walsh could offer in response.

Susannah Constantine and Anton Du Beke are at the bottom of the table, scoring just 12 points for their foxtrot to They Can’t Take That Away From Me by Frank Sinatra. Katie Piper and Gorka Marquez  scored 13

Red Dwarf's Danny John Jules and dance partner Amy Dowden scored 28, placing them fourth in the table, for their cha cha cha to Beggin by Madcon.

The results of the viewers' vote on who will go home will be revealed on BBC One tomorrow night.

Before the show, Shirley Ballas defended her comments about Walsh’s hair on last week’s show, adding that he might be the 'dark horse' of this year’s series.

Last week she told the comic to tidy himself up because his shoulder-length hair was  'flying all over the place', prompting Walsh to hit back that it was  like she had told him to 'have a wash', adding: 'I thought we were just going to be talking about the dance.'

Speaking to Zoe Ball on spin-off show Strictly: It Takes Two that ' my comment was more about getting that long neck, showing me the shoulder line, and the hair distracted, for me. It was just a little bit of a tip, a little bit of advice.'

Comedian Rob Beckett also appeared  in tonight's show, to read the voting terms and conditions.

Published: 29 Sep 2018