Strictly Come Dancing star Giovanni Pernice wasn't impressed with Rylan Clark when he assumed what his character would be for the show's upcoming Movie Week. The Italian dancer and his celebrity partner Richie Anderson were speaking to the presenter on Monday night's edition of Strictly spin-off It Takes Two.
They were one of three couples to appear on the first edition of the BBC Two show of the week alongside Will Mellor and Nancy Xu and the departing Kaye Adam and Kai Widdrington. Giovanni and Richie were on hand to reflect on their second performance of the BBC One competition on Saturday night which won rave reviews.
BBC Radio 2 presenter Richie was praised for his quickstep, which he performed alongside reigning champ Giovanni, to Dancin' Fool by Barry Manilow. The dazzling, fast-paced performance received a standing ovation from judges Motsi Mabuse and Shirley Ballas, with Motsi commenting: "Richie that was a moment, take it in, that was absolutely beautiful."
The dancing pair, who are one of two same-sex couples in this year's competition, walked away with an impressive score of 32, giving him a total score of 55 as the fresh scores were added to those from week one and mixed with the public vote to reveal the first bottom two of the 20th series.
Speaking to Rylan, who shares hosting duties on ITT with former pro Janette Manrara, Richie, 34, said: "It's been a long week. Saturday morning I was still making mistakes, I was still going wrong, when we did that kicking thing I was kicking Gio by accident. And on Saturday night luckily it all came together, I dunno how, but I'm not mad about it, and it was just fantastic and to get that feedback from the judges was just incredible.
Richie added: "One thing that we worked on so hard in training was curbing the enthusiasm because I get out there on the dancefloor and I'm a bit like a kid at a disco. Less is almost more." Giovanni also commented: "Adrenaline. When you get on the dancefloor there's adrenaline and we were working all week to step back a little bit."
But Richie also commented: "I thought they'd mixed up my scores with someone else. That's the kind of thing you dream of. To stand in front of the judges and get 8, I never thought it would happen in a month of Sundays. I've never been in a dance studio before coming on this show and even though I'm a bit of a show off I still have a bit of anxiety when I step on that dancefloor so to be getting all the love and the comments and to know that I'm in this man's safe hands, I'm having the best time."
After looking back at their latest performance, Rylan was keen to hear about their upcoming routine after beginning rehearsals on Monday for the show's much-loved Movie Week. They revealed that they'd be performing a Samba to The Lion King classic Hakuna Matata.
"This is the first time on Strictly that we will be dressing as Timone and Pumba," Giovanni shared. "We will have fun but we want to show improvement. I call it iconic. Samba is difficult, we tried today a little bit."
Richie added: "Growing up in Birmingham we didn't do a lot of Samba. I can do the feet and that's it. Gio wants to make it technical but he won't let me cut corners." Towards the end of the chat, Rylan mentioned to Richie "Gio's going to be dressed as a lion, we're all very happy."
But Richie said: "No, he's a warthog," and a disappointed Giovanni hit back: "I'm Pumba!" before he started to snort. "Oh you're Pumba?" Rylan replied. "Thats a whole different dream," the 33-year-old joked before having to wrap up the show. Watching the show at home, one viewer couldn't help but comment: "The way Giovanni said 'I'm Pumbaa!' with such hurt and outrage over having his warthogness denied."
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