Craig Revel Horwood had the Blackpool Tower bouncing on Saturday night when he gave his first 10 of the series on Strictly Come Dancing. Fans had already speculated that the hard-to-please judge would dust off is top scoring padel as he has waited until the special episode in previous years.
And it was Fleur East and her dance partner Vito Coppola who were given the honour of Craig's top score which was echoed by his fellow judges - Shirley Ballas, Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke. Singer and radio DJ Fleur performed her couple's choice dance with Vito Coppola to a megamix of songs by 90s US girl group Destiny's Child to land the top mark of the series.
Dressed in a silver, sequined outfit, the singer and radio DJ delivered an energetic routine with slick movements reminiscent of the band's former members – Beyonce, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.
While head judge Shirley said the performance was "an iconic routine that will go down in history" Craig simply described it as "fab-u-lous". But during his appearance on Strictly's It Takes Two on Wednesday night (November 23), Craig, who is the show's longest-serving judge, was confronted with the overall points the panel had dished out so far this series.
The BBC2 show's host Janette Manrara introduced a graphic showing how many 10s had been given by the judges so far, with Anton in the lead with 12, followed by Shirley on 11, Motsi on nine and Craig was, of course, way behind on just the one he had given to Fleur last weekend.
But while Craig did admit that he was surprised by the numbers and hadn’t realised he was ‘such a Scrooge’ he did defend his marking and took a swipe at the show's former professional dancer Anton's judging skills. Craig said of Anton: "Way too lenient! 12 10s?! That's crazy!"
Janette argued: "But he’s got the experience of what we feel like as couples on that dancefloor competing," but Craig didn't seem to agree. He made the same 'leinient' remark about Motsi and Shirley before continuing to say about Anton in response to Janette: "Well, that’s where it’s wrong, darling. He needs to stop getting all personal and emotionally attached to the dancing.
"I'm there to judge one minute 30. And I do, to the best of my ability. I don't start crying like Anton. I don't get emotionally involved in everyone's journey."
Talking about giving his first 10, Craig said he "could not fault" Fleur and Vito's performance and shared when and why he'd give the top mark for a performance.
He said: "I save [the 10] for something that I think is really absolutely fantastic and absolutely perfect. As I say, it's when absolutely every element of the dance comes together. I mean, this looked better than Beyoncé and [Lady] Gaga, darling. This is live - you won't get Beyoncé and Gaga doing all of this on the MTV or any other channel! I could not fault it."
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