Debbie McGee’s balletic showdance stirs debate on Strictly Come Dancing

Debbie McGee took a balletic approach to her Strictly Come Dancing showdance in her bid to claim this year’s glitterball trophy.

The radio presenter and wife of the late Paul Daniels performed her dance to Vaults’ One Day I’ll Fly Away alongside partner Giovanni Pernice and scored 38 for the routine.

Dressed in a tutu and playing a dancer in a music box, McGee was described as an “angelic ballerina” by judge Bruno Tonioli.

However, viewers criticised the 59-year-old as she was trained in ballet as a youngster while others said the style did not belong on the ballroom show.

@Laurenndrew tweeted: “Debbie has had classical ballet training. Unfair!!!!”

@Tiaelvidge posted: “Well that was a nice ballet routine from Debbie the trained ballet dancer.”

@Siandavies wrote: “I loved the concept of Debbie’s show dance, it was spectacular👏🏻…. but then it should be ballet is where her strength lies.”

@Slyvia_Luisa tweeted: “Was that Debbie, the trained ballet dancer, doing pretty much a full ballet routine, in ballet shoes? Funny that.”

@Sarboy22 posted: “so a former professional ballet dancer (with a national company) who had her own dance troupe is told by the head judge how much of a journey she has been on before being given a 10.”

@Hannahclareking wrote: “Why is Debbie Mcgee doin ballet when thats not a Strictly dance?”

Meanwhile, Craig Revel Horwood joked it was “dangerous to consider doing ballet when we have old Darcey bus stop here”, in reference to fellow judge Darcey Bussell.

Debbie said the dance’s emotional music had led to her ending in tears each time they rehearsed it.

She said: “I got really worried if I got too emotional in it i wouldn’t pull everything off.”

Hmmm… we can’t help wondering if this could have cost her the crown. Viewers are notoriously stress-y about any advantage because of prior dance experience…

Meanwhile, many viewers were annoyed that we didn’t get to know who came second – or third or fourth – in the final.

Joe and Katya saw off competition from Debbie and Giovanni, Gemma and Aljaz, and Alexandra and Gorka.

On the night, things were close with just a few points separating the contestants on the judges’ leaderboard.

But when it came to announcing results, we only found out who’d won the viewers’ winners’ vote – not who came second, third or fourth.

The final was slightly different this year, with every duo dancing three times, instead of one being eliminated halfway through. This meant, aside from Joe, none of the finalists’ rankings were revealed.

In a press event on Thursday, ahead of the final, Debbie admitted she thought the results were kept secret so the stars don’t feel “unpopular”.

“I don’t think it would be fair to release the voting figures,” she said. “It would make some people feel really unpopular.”

And she joked that it would be horrible to discover one of them had lost by just one point!

Joe added: “It’s all sort of irrelevant.”

But viewers certainly didn’t see it that way.

“As ever the real Strictly scandal is ‘who came second’,” grumbled one fan.

Many others questioned who came second, third and fourth.

And one creative viewer even decided the order of the finalists for herself.

“I believe Alexandra came second, Debbie third and Gemma fourth,” she wrote.

Sadly, we’ll never know.