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Comedian Chris McCausland has again wowed the Strictly Come Dancing judges and moved viewers at home to tears with a Waltz set to the Liverpool football club anthem, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” by Gerry and the Pacemakers.

McCausland is blind and lost his sight when he was 22 due to a hereditary condition called retinitis pigmentosa.

His booking follows Ayling-Ellis’s victory in 2021; the EastEnders star, who was partnered with Pernice, was the first deaf contestant to appear on the show.

McCausland is fan of Liverpool, with the song being sung every week at Anfield before the teams home games.

Not only does the song hold an emotional relevance to Liverpool but the city on a whole, with the Royal Albert Dock being protected on the stage behind them.

Those watching at home were incredibly moved by McCausland’s performance with his professional Dianne Buswell, especially one part where he danced effortlessly by himself.

One viewer at home said: “Ohh goodness! Chris is just smashing it. I’m so in awe of him. His footwork, frame and delivery just wow and to the most iconic song which means so much to so many – in bits.”

A second said: “Chris & Dianne doing a waltz not a dry eye in the house”

TV presenter Dan Walker, telling McCausland: “Yes fella… you absolutely smashed it up again.”

A third added: “Just give Chris McCausland the glitterball trophy NOW. Not only is he inspirational he is incredible keep voting for him Strictly family.”

Before the show McCausland had praised Strictly singer Tommy Blaize after he shared a snippet of tonight’s performance of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” the anthem of the Mersyside team.

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Blaize, who is also a supporter of The Reds, wrote on X/Twitter: “Every once in a while I get to sing one very close to my heart.” He accompanied the post with a video of him singing the song while wearing a Liverpool shirt.

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In response, McCausland said: “And this just makes it even more special for me. Tommy Knox it out of the park every time he sings, I just hope I can do the same with the dancing bit.“

Want to watch Strictly Come Dancing while travelling abroad? Then you’ll need a VPN to stream this show. Discover the UK’s best VPN deals today. Viewers using a VPN need to make sure that they comply with any local regulations where they are, and also with the terms of their service provider.

STRICTLY Come Dancing winner Rose Ayling-Ellis is set to shock telly fans after she’s knocked off her bike in her new big role.

The former EastEnders actress, 29, was caught on camera as her character for new show Code Of Silence was dramatically hit by a car.

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Rose, who was born deaf, plays a deaf canteen manager who embarks on a new career reading the lips of criminals as they make confessions.

But after filming got underway last month, Rose’s most recent scenes in front of the cameras have become much more heart-stopping.

Rose’s character in the six-part crime drama, Alison Brooks, was seen climbing on her bike as she left her job in a bar.

Wearing jeans, a wooly jumper and red puffa jacket, she looked safe as houses thanks to her white cycling helmet.

As the daylight slipped away, however, Alison was struck by a red Volkswagen car being driven by a man.

Alison was flung from her push bike but, thankfully for Rose, there was a crash mat in place to protect her fall.

Code Of Silence is Rose’s first big acting gig since she walked away from her role as Frankie Lewis in EastEnders in 2021.

Viewers will watch as Alison turns to a new career after struggling to make ends meet working in both a bar and a police canteen.

She is also trying to support her deaf mum Julie (Fifi Garfield) when she suddenly finds herself being “pulled into a high-stakes police investigation”.

ITV‘s synopsis of the show reads: “DS Ashleigh Francis (Charlotte Ritchie) asks that she use her lip-reading skills to monitor a dangerous criminal gang.

“As her interpretation of their covert conversations becomes central to the investigation, Alison is plunged into an exhilarating new world.

“Her role quickly becomes key to unlocking the police case, but her feelings become complicated when she finds herself drawn to one of the suspects, Liam Bayne (Kieron Moore).

“Despite knowing the risks and the growing threat to her personal life, Alison can’t let go.”

Code Of Silence, penned by Baptiste writer Catherine Moulton, is set to premiere on ITV1/ ITVX in 2025.

Speaking about the role, Rose said: “I first read Catherine Moulton’s script it was obvious that her first-hand experiences and understanding has enabled her to write a truly authentic character and I knew I had to be a part of this project.”

After bowing out of EastEnders in 2021, Rose became the first deaf contestant to win Strictly Come Dancing.

She has also appeared on Casualty and was the first deaf presenter of a live sports event, hosting part of this year’s Paralympic Games in Paris.

Rose was awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours for ‘voluntary services to the deaf community.’

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What do we stand to gain from another remake of The Office? In the 21 years since Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s seminal cringe comedy first aired on British television, it has never really left, hanging around the TV landscape like a boozy straggler at an office Christmas party. It’s been remade more than a dozen times around the globe; a new Australian remake, out today on Prime Video, represents the third English-language iteration of The Office, following on from the long-running, phenomenally popular US version.

Fans of either the British or American Office will immediately recognise the formula here. Felicity Ward is Hannah Howard, an obnoxious, socially oblivious office manager in the mould of Gervais’s David Brent, or Steve Carell’s Michael Scott. Edith Poor is her gauche underling Lizzie (the Gareth Keenan/Dwight Schrute figure). Steen Raskopoulos and Shari Sebbens are Nick and Greta, the Aussie Office’s Tim/Jim and Dawn/Pam – two affable workers whose flirtatious banter forms the basis of the series’ big Will They/Won’t They? Except, of course, we know from the off that they will – we’ve seen this story play out twice before.

The problem with the Australian Office isn’t just that it’s derivative. If it were simply apeing the BBC original, that would be one thing. But this new Office is a copy of a copy, one that drinks too greedily from the American well, while ignoring what made the UK Office such an era-defining work of comedy in the first place.

If the US Office started out as a relatively faithful retread of the British version, it quickly morphed into something distinct. Gone was the sharp-edged, cringe-based realism of Gervais; in its stead was something softer, broader and more marketable. Michael Scott was gaffe-prone, sure, but he wasn’t pitiful – outright dismal, even – in the way that David Brent was. There was an air of exaggeration to it – an air that similarly pervades every facet of the Australian version. The storylines, the performances, the jokes: everything is just slightly too big. Would a sensitivity consultant really just show up one day, catching Hannah by surprise? Would Poor’s character really attempt to sell all the office’s chairs on the internet? It’s all just a little too contrived. And with a premise like this, even a slight whiff of contrivance is enough to overpower.

The real genius of the original Office lay in its staunch adherence to plausibility. Brent is a big, bolshy creation, but the in-world responses to him are almost eerily credible. The scenarios were always drab and unspectacular – a pub quiz; a training day; a red nose day fundraiser. Office life is never depicted as anything other than bleak and tedious. Until the final throes of the climactic Christmas special, there is absolutely no attempt to uplift. The US one, by contrast, argues that there is, underneath it all, fun to be had. The UK Office offered uncomfortable relatability, while the American one offered fantasy (albeit a mild and unspectacular fantasy at that). It’s not necessarily worse – there are plenty of people out there who would say the American Office is the superior iteration. But it’s less incisive by design.

In this latest incarnation of The Office, the big twist in the formula is the gender-flipped casting of its central character. There’s something quintessentially male about the pathetic posturing of Brent; here, it’s been replaced with another kind of bluster, a sort of girlboss-inflected smugness that, it should be said, Ward excels at. “Promoting women into positions of power… that’s my mantra, really,” she speciously boasts in one scene. There’s plenty of knowingly poor-taste humour, with Ward’s Hannah lurching from faux pas to faux pas, albeit all a little cartoonish in the execution.

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There is a reason that even now, decades after the UK Office went off the air, David Brent impressions are still ten-a-penny; there’s a reason “David Brent impersonator” is still a viable career path for those with the will and the right goatee. Gervais and Merchant had the confidence to make a programme that was distinctive, specific, and – significantly – British to its core. People outside of the UK are unlikely to understand, for instance, why Brent reeling off particular place names (“Reading, Aldershot, Bracknell … Didcot. Yateley. Winnersh. Taplow”) would be so funny, so endlessly quoted by Office diehards. The US Office was averse to this kind of specificity, favouring instead a sort of genericised vision of small-town America. (It’s telling, perhaps, how few of Michael Scott’s quotes have entered the fandom’s lexicon in the way that Brent’s have, despite giving them much more material to work with.)

In this regard too, the Aussie version seems modelled after the US one: in the three episodes made available to critics ahead of time, there is little about it that feels idiosyncratically Australian. If you go into the series wondering how exactly Australian workplaces differ from those overseas, you’ll leave wholly unenlightened. The original Office offered a real flavour of what life is like in a Slough paper merchants; the Australian Office only really offers a sense of what it would be like if a bunch of Aussie comedy writers were fans of The Office.

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It’s a shame, because the premise of The Office is as malleable as any. There’s not really any reason why the series needs to have such transparent copies of its past characters, either. Why not put a twist on the formula? Make the Nick/Jim/Tim character a scheming careerist. And Lizzie/Dwight/Gareth a sympathetic foil. There are an infinite number of possible scenarios you could dream up within the “sitcom in an office” format, and yet still we hew to the same brittle framework.

But this is to be expected. The Australian Office is, like its US forebear, a series engineered to please, and the received wisdom of remakes dictates that there’s nothing more pleasing than familiarity. But that’s the problem: the original Office was never concerned with pleasing anybody – it was squirms and sickly laughter at all costs. Can this new rendition really say the same?

NICOLE Scherzinger has wowed fans with her latest leotard look.

The 46-year-old Sunset Boulevard star, known for her jaw-dropping bikini body, wore the daring dance ensemble for Interview Magazine.

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Profiling her Broadway debut as the iconic Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard this month, the former Masked Singer judge was pictured doing the splits.

Wearing a sheer black thong leotard, she accessorised the outfit with fishnet tights and thigh-high stiletto boots, showing off her gym-honed body with pride.

The former X Factor judge has been busy behind the scenes preparing for her Broadway debut, and her enviable athletic physique is the result of a disciplined gym schedule.

The Sunset Boulevard story is based on the 1950 film of the same title and sees Norma cross paths with a young screenwriter named Joe Gillis, as she spots the opportunity to return to the big screen once more.

With both romance and tragedy to follow in the role, Nicole told Interview Magazine: “I feel like my entire life has been preparing me for this role and for this moment.”

With the interviewer calling her role a ‘dazzling triumph’ Nicole admits she was initially insulted when director Jamie Lloyd first discussed the idea.

She revealed: “He said, “I’ve got this amazing idea. I had this dream and it’s for you to play Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.”

She continued admitting to only ever having seen the film: “I was like, “That’s your big idea? That’s how you see me? As a strange, old, faded, discarded movie star?’”

“I think my reaction was like, ‘Honey, I still look good under bright lights.’”

He said: “Can I send you the script?” I’m thinking, “Yeah, I guess you could send it, but whatever. I’ve seen the film.” He said, “Don’t think about the film. Read the script. It’s different.” 

The multi-award-winning songstress has clearly been keeping both her body and voice in shape for her role, with a video posted to her Instagram account showing Andrew Lloyd-Webber praising the star .

In the video he can be heard saying: “I’ve really got to say it, I’ll just say it again: It’s the best performance of anything I’ve ever had.”

When Nicole responds: “I don’t know about that Andrew, but we’ll get there,” Andrew says: “I do. I do know what I’m talking about here, for once in my life.”

Fans rushed to the comments with some calling it “iconic,” and one saying: “You’re incredible!”

Another said: “You’re such a perfectionist sis! When the Lord says that you gotta take it.”

Nicole is currently engaged to her fiancé Thom Evans.

The singer and rugby star got engaged in June 2023 with hopes of starting a family soon after they tie the knot.

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Strictly Come Dancing returns to BBC One this evening for week five of the competition amid a rollercoaster few days on and off the screen for the show, with Nick Knowles being the latest star to say goodbye.

Last week saw former Love Island star Tasha Ghouri awarded the first 10s of the series so far impressing the judges with her Coachella themed Charleston to “Unhealthy” by Anne-Marie and Shania Twain which saw three out of the four judges award her a 10 (Craig Revel Horwood, of course, gave her a nine).

Last Saturday’s episode was not without controversy though. Towards the end of the show, the celebrities and their professional partners gathered in the “Clauditorium” – the upstairs area where host Claudia Winkleman chats to the contestants in between performances – before the voting lines opened, just as they do every week.

This time, though, dancer Katya Jones was captured on camera as she appeared to move opera singer Wynne Evans’s hand off her midriff and onto her hip. Earlier in the programme, she seemed to reject a high five from her partner. Seeing these two incidents in quick succession moved viewers to start speculating about whether Jones was feeling uneasy. Social media was soon awash with comments from Strictly fans: “Something is off,” one Twitter/X viewer claimed, while others described the interaction as “uncomfortable”.

The pair quickly moved to shut down the rumour mill, sharing an Instagram video in which they said they were “just messing around”. In his post, Evans wrote the high fives were a “running joke” between them. Jones, a Strictly veteran of eight years, later doubled down with another video on Sunday, describing the row as “quite absurd” and asking fans to focus their attention on Evans’s “amazing” progress in the competition.

There is no theme for this weeks show so expect an eclectic mix of songs and performances with the tunes already being announced by the BBC.

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Tasha Ghouri deserved Strictly Come Dancing’s first 10s of 2024 – but don’t write off the underdogs yet

Former Love Island star has impressed the judges every time she’s stepped on the dancefloor and her Coachella themed Charleston to “Unhealthy” by Anne-Marie and Shania Twain left three of them reaching for their 10 paddles.

But scoring the first 10s of the series is far from a guarantee that a celebrity will get their hands on the Glitterball trophy. And for the last two years, the person to do so hasn’t even made it to the final.

Comedian Eddie Kadi and pro partner Karen Hauer landed the first 10 of Strictly 2023 for their Men In Black themed Movie Week dance, only to leave the competition three weeks later.

In 2022, Tyler West and Dianne Buswell scored two 10s in Movie Week but missed out on the final. That series was won by wildlife presenter Hamza Yassin, whose Strictly journey saw him go from being one of the least known celebrities on the call sheet to one of the show’s most beloved stars.

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Rachel McGrath explains why Ghouri’s impressive achievement isn’t guaranteed to see her win the competition.

Greg Evans19 October 2024 15:00

Strictly pro makes admission about ‘silly inside joke’ after Wynne Evans hand fiasco

Despite Jones calling the fiasco “nonsense” and “absurd”, Evans still found himself receiving criticism, leading the pro to defend the star on companion show It Takes Two on Monday (16 October).

Jones said that she “can’t bear” seeing Evans in distress over the situation, calling the interactions nothing more than an “inside joke”. However, Jones admitted the joke was “silly” and “bad”.

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After Evans said he can see why viewers “may have misinterpreted” his hand placement, his professional partner continued: “The idea that it made me feel uncomfortable or offended in any way is total nonsense, and those that have doubts, you guys have got it wrong. So hopefully this will be the end of it, and you just keep making me smile.

“I can’t sit here watching this man being portrayed as someone he’s not. In fact, it couldn’t be further away from the truth. So I have to make this absolutely clear that this whole incident, with the hand and the high five on Saturday night, was an inside joke between Wynne and I.

She then stated: “Was it a silly joke? Yes, was it a bad joke? Yes.”

Greg Evans19 October 2024 14:30

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Wynne Evans ‘heartbroken’ by response to hand interaction with Katya Jones

“I’m absolutely heartbroken by the things that have been written about me in the last day,” he told BBC Radio Wales on 14 October. “It’s not nice to live in that time, but basically Katya and I are really, really close and we’re really good friends, and on Saturday night we made a stupid joke.”

He explained,“It was a stupid joke that went wrong, okay, we thought it was funny. It wasn’t funny. It has been totally misinterpreted.”

Referring to social media reaction online, in which both clips have since gone viral, Evans said: “Everything’s on Katya’s socials. She’s talked about it. She’s explained that it was a joke. She wasn’t offended in the least. She doesn’t feel uncomfortable.”

Greg Evans19 October 2024 14:00

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Chris McCausland praises Strictly singer’s rendition of Liverpool anthem

Liverpool footbal club fan Chris McCausland has praised Strictly singer Tommy Blaize after he shared a snippet of tonight’s performance of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” the anthem of the Mersyside team.

Blaize, who is also a supporter of The Reds, wrote on X/Twitter: “Every once in a while I get to sing one very close to my heart.” He accompanied the post with a video of him singing the song while wearing a Liverpool shirt.

In response, McCausland said: “And this just makes it even more special for me. Tommy Knox it out of the park every time he sings, I just hope I can do the same with the dancing bit.“

And this just makes it even more special for me. Tommy Knox it out of the park every time he sings, I just hope I can do the same with the dancing bit. #YNWA #Strictly https://t.co/WxjbtOFyfz

— Chris McCausland – New tour on sale now! 🎫 (@chrismccausland) October 19, 2024

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Greg Evans19 October 2024 13:30

Strictly Come Dancing reveals songs and dances for week five

This Saturday night’s show does not have a theme so viewers can expect a wide but eclectic variety of dances, including Paul Merson dancing a Samba to Rose Royce’s “Car Wash” and Pete Wicks dancing a Rumba to Oasis’s “Don’t Look Back in Anger”. This week’s dances include two Sambas and two Quicksteps, plus a couple’s choice routine for Montell Douglas and her pro partner Johannes Radebe.

Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell will dance a Waltz to “You’ll Never Walk Alone” by Gerry and the Pacemakers, while Sarah Hadland and Vito Coppola will dance a Samba to “Do It Do It Again” by Rafaella Carrà.

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Find the full list of songs and dances for week five below: Montell Douglas and Johannes Radebe will dance a Couple’s Choice to “Skeleton Move” by KG and Zanda Zakuza

Punam Krishan and Gorka Márquez will dance a Viennese Waltz to “She’s Always A Woman To Me” by Billy Joel

Sam Quek and Nikita Kuzmin will dance a Quickstep to “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield

Sarah Hadland and Vito Coppola will dance a Samba to “Do It Do It Again” by Rafaella Carrà

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Tasha Ghouri and Aljaž Škorjanec will dance a Tango to “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence + The Machine Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell will dance a Waltz to “You’ll Never Walk Alone” by Gerry and the Pacemakers

Jamie Borthwick and Michelle Tsiakkas will dance a Pasodoble to “Malagueña” by Ernesto Lecuona JB Gill and Amy Dowden will dance a Jive to “Hey Ya!” by Outkast

Paul Merson and Karen Hauer will dance a Samba to “Car Wash” by Rose Royce

Pete Wicks and Jowita Przystał will dance a Rumba to “Don’t Look Back In Anger” by Oasis

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Shayne Ward and Nancy Xu will dance an American Smooth to “Get Here” by Sam Smith Wynne Evans and Katya Jones will dance a Quickstep to “Mr Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra

Greg Evans19 October 2024 12:55

In many countries around the world, breakfast TV means cele­brity interviews, soap operas and last night’s football highlights. On the German-language channel 3sat this Sunday morning, it means a one-hour philosophical discussion on trauma psychology, followed by a book review programme and a classical concert by the Munich Radio Orchestra.

The collaboration between public broadcasters in Austria, Germany and Switzerland is a unique experi­ment in pan-European broadcasting that has defied doubters for almost four decades: highbrow television.

Yet whether 3sat will get to cele­brate its 40th anniversary this De­cember is in serious doubt. At a summit in Leipzig this week, the heads of Germany’s 16 federal states will consider a proposal to close the world’s most donnish TV station by merging it “partially or completely” into Arte, the Franco-German culture channel that is embarking on a Europe-wide expansion.

Admirers of 3sat’s resolute intellectualism say the merger plans are a sign that authorities are bowing to populist attacks on public service broadcasting, by cutting culture programming that may appear painless but which is also unlikely to save much money. A petition to save the channel has been signed by 140,000 people including the film director Wim Wenders and actor Sandra Hüller.

But the debate over 3sat’s future also raises questions over the reformability of Germany’s public broadcasting system, which has one the biggest budgets in the world but is also one of the most complex and decentralised.

3sat was launched in 1984 as an antidote to what the then head of Austria’s public broadcaster bemoaned as the “­feeble-mindedness” of mainstream television. The bulk of its content is provided by the two main German public broadcasting channels, ARD and ZDF, with Austria’s ORF contributing 25% and Switzerland’s SRG supplying 10% of its programming.

“To make a daily feuilleton [arts and ideas] programme for tele­vision was something no one else dared do,” says the journalist and philosopher Gert Scobel, who presents several channel’s flagship shows. “Everyone told us we would last only three weeks.”

Among its mainstays are Scobel’s science programme Nano and the culture news programme Kulturzeit, which go out during mornings and evenings each weekday, as well as themed days on subjects as diverse as the dramatist Bertolt Brecht, Afghan history and genetics. It is the only channel to show all the three countries’ main news programmes, and to live-broadcast the two-week-plus Theatertreffen festival in Berlin and readings from the three-day Bachmannpreis poetry competition in Klagenfurt.

Scobel says: “I tell the guests on my show that each programme only has one aim – to leave viewers smarter than they were before, and that they approach each subject from different directions with the aim of finding a solution.”

3sat’s market share is only about 1% in each of the three collaborating countries, though with 90m German-language households, its viewing figures are considerable. The channel costs German public broadcasters around €92m a year, roughly the same as the German children’s TV channel Kika.

But, as in other countries across Europe, Germany is facing an increasingly acrimonious debate over state-funded public service broadcasting. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland has vowed to shrink the public broadcasters down to a tenth of their current size, scrap the compulsory licence fee and finance the remaining offering with a tax on streaming giants such as Amazon and Netflix.

Where the popu­list right is buoyant, centrist parties have fallen in line: in Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg, the Christian Democrat and Social Democrat state premiers have in the past few years tried to block plans for a licence fee rise.

From 2025, people registered in Germany face a monthly licence fee of €18.94 (£15.78), slightly higher than its equivalent in the UK (£14.12) and considerably more than France (£9.64). In multilingual Switzerland, the fee is higher still at SFr27.91 (£24.73) and there is political pressure to cut back spending on public service television.

High-minded 3sat could become the sacrificial lamb on the altar of the populist zeitgeist. Swiss broadcaster SRF said it would not comment on German proposals to close the jointly funded channel. Only Austria’s ORF said it would seek an “intense exchange” with its partners on the station’s future, insisting it was “essential” that its marquee TV productions reach an international audience.

Not all criticism of 3sat is motivated by populist rabble-­rousing. The channel’s budget has been salami-sliced for years and its schedule increasingly includes reruns of period dramas, crime shows and wildlife documentaries.

“A lot of the original programmes produced by 3sat deserved to be protected, but are we sure we need them all in a separate channel?” asks Stefan Niggemeier, a German journalist and media commentator.

Its shortcomings are exposed by comparison with the Franco-German culture broadcaster Arte, which presents itself less and less as a linear TV channel and more and more as an arts-focused streaming platform, a “Netflix for the educated classes”, as the broadsheet Die Zeit has called it.

Established via a treaty between France and Germany in 1990, six years after the birth of 3sat, Arte has gained considerable momentum in recent years after the French president Emmanuel Macron proposed developing it into a “European platform”. Over the past six years, it has added offerings of programmes subtitled or dubbed into Polish, Italian, Spanish and English.

“Because Arte had to straddle a language barrier, it was always under more pressure to develop its own identity and come up with original ideas,” says Niggemeier. “Arte has managed to stay cool, while 3sat feels like a magazine for linear television.”

He doubts that politicians will close the German-speaking world’s most erudite TV channel in the immediate future. “But in the long-term, I think it’s right to ask how we can change it.”