BURKE BACK ON STRICTLY FORM
STRICTLY Come Dancing’s Alexandra Burke bounced back from the dance-off last week to top the quarter-final leaderboard alongside fellow show favourite Debbie McGee last night.
Burke’s Charleston with professional partner Gorka Marquez to Mary Poppins tune Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious wowed on last night’s show, just seven days after the couple had to be saved by the judges when they found themselves in the bottom two.
They scored 39, with Bruno Tonioli calling the dance “practically perfect in every way”.
McGee – who also found herself in the bottom two in recent weeks – also scored 39 alongside partner Giovanni Pernice for their American smooth to Memory from Cats.
The former magician’s assistant, 59, is favourite at 7/4 to win the glitterball trophy, according to bookies William Hill, while Holby City actor Joe McFadden is at 7/4 and Burke at 3/1.
McFadden, who topped last week’s leaderboard, scored 37 with partner Katya Jones for their samba to Money Money from Cabaret.
Mollie King is the bookies’ favourite to depart at 6/4, with the Saturdays singer and AJ Pritchard scoring 31 after performing a rumba to Hopelessly Devoted To You.
However, they finished ahead of both Gemma Atkinson and partner Aljaz Skorjanec and Davood Ghadami and Nadiya Bychkova, who finished joint bottom of the leaderboard with 29 apiece.
One couple will leave the competition tonight ahead of next week’s semi-final.