Ed Balls’ turn as The Mask on Strictly Come Dancing may not have impressed the judges, but it helped the BBC1 show record its biggest weekend of the series so far.
The Saturday programme featuring Balls’ jaw-dropping take on Jim Carrey’s green-faced superhero attracted an average audience of 9.6 million and a peak of 10.6 million, well above the 9.2 million who watched the previous week and up a million over its first Saturday live show in September.
Balls’ samba to Cuban Pete was part of film week on Strictly, which also saw long-jumper Greg Rutherford perform to Everything I Do (I Do It For You) from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and BBC newsreader Naga Munchetty dance the tango to the Mission Impossible theme.
The Sunday night results show, which saw Balls receive enough public votes to avoid a dance-off despite coming bottom of the judges’ leader board for the second time running, racked up 9 million viewers across the programme and a peak of 9.6 million. The show saw EastEnders actor Tameka Empson eliminated, performing her final dance to My Heart Will Go On from Titanic.
The 14th series of Strictly has consistently outperformed ITV’s the X Factor, which drew an average of 6.2 million viewers on Saturday night and a peak of 7.2 million. Though this was more than a million viewers more that last year’s first X Factor live show, it was 3 million fewer than Strictly. On Sunday, The X Factor results show pulled in an average of only 6.5 million viewers.
The two entertainment shows went head to head for the first time last week, when Strictly managed to draw in more than a million more than its ITV rival’s 8.1 million.
