Craig: Great Balls on fire
Ed could win it... even though he’s terrible
STRICTLY’S Craig Revel Horwood has dubbed Ed Balls a champion for “couch potatoes” but believes he could win the series.
Speaking ahead of last night’s live Blackpool show, judge Craig defended the former MP despite branding him “technically terrible”.
Ed Balls fever reached new heights last night as he jived to Great Balls of Fire with partner Katya Jones, 27, in the Tower Ballroom spectacular.
Impressively, Ed, 49, began his jive suspended 40ft above the floor on a piano set on fire. And the lyrics of Jerry Lee Lewis’s famous song were changed to “Ed Balls of Fire”.
But the judges quickly doused his enthusiasm by giving him a dismal score of 23. Craig gave the pair a score of four and told them: “It looked like you were playing hopscotch in an all-girls’ school.”
Judge Bruno Tonioli was more sympathetic and said: “I have to admit, to my surprise, most of it looked like a jive.”
Hysterical
Before last night Craig had insisted the ex-minister should not quit the series, despite abysmal leaderboard scores.
Showing an uncharacteristic lighter side, acid-tongued Craig, 51, said: “I hope he doesn’t leave. He will probably get to the final and if he wins I wouldn’t be upset.
“I don’t care. He is waving a flag for all the couch potatoes at home who sit on their bottoms doing nothing.
“He is promoting dance, so I can only see that as a good thing.
“People at home will be watching him thinking, ‘well, I could probably do that.’ It might encourage them to go out and do a dance class.
“Who would have thought that you could put Ed Balls into Strictly Come Dancing and he would be doing so well with the public? He was 100/ 1 and now his odds of winning are 25/1.
“The public can do what they like with their money and their phone calls. I’m not telling them how to vote.
“I can only obviously give them some guidelines as to whether the dance actually warrants some merit.”
And on that subject the uncompromising Craig is very clear. He describes the former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer’s moves as “hysterical”. He said: “He sadly doesn’t dance particularly well. His hip action is literally nonexistent, as we saw in the salsa. He is technically terrible.” But Craig cannot deny that Ed’s sense of fun and determination is infectious and highly appealing to Strictly’s millions of fans. The Aussie choreographer said: “What is great about him is he really has tried so very hard to learn the dancing. He is also very good at timing, that’s bizarre.
“And he is hugely entertaining so you can understand every week why he’s at the bottom of the leaderboard but the great British public seem to turn that opinion around, which is absolutely fine.”
Danny Mac, 28, and dance partner Oti Mabuse, 26, topped the leaderboard last weekend – scoring 38 points with their Argentine tango. Last night they received a maximum 40 with their charleston.
Earlier Craig had warned: “He is going to have to watch his back. Danny is reaching a little bit of a plateau. He has a lot of people on his side but he still needs to workork on his top line and technique.que. I think he finds jazz stuff a lot easier than the ballroom.. He sometimes gets a bit manicic and tries to cram too much in.n.
“I’d suggest to him lessss is more, but I hope he getsets through because he is wonderful to watch.” Andnd unableuna to resist having anotherano pop at Judge Rinder’sRin facial expressions, CraigCra said: “He makes it hardhar for me to watch his footworkfoo when his mouth is open and catching flies all the time. He gets carried away with his d dancing. “When you’re doing th the foxtrot you can’t be g gawping around.” Meanwhile, he praised Louise Redknapp, 42, for “growing in c confidence” and said h he “loved” the ch choreography of Greg R Rutherford’s dances with N Natalie Lowe. While in Blackpool Ed was an unlikely guest of honour – at a top dance contest.
He won rapturous reception at the British National Dance Championships. The Labour veteran nipped out of his hotel to attend the event on Friday.
The three- day festival sees thousands of dancers of all ages competing in ballroom and latin competitions.
During the event he tweeted: “In the Blackpool Winter Gardens – not for a Labour conference, but the British amateur ballroom dancing final – how things change!”
He headed back to his hotel shortly after midnight to rejoin the rest of the contestants who had a quiet evening in ahead of last night’s show.
He is waving a flag for all the couch potatoes sat at home