Strictly Come Dancing's Helen Skelton Joins Hamza Yassin At Top Of Leaderboard After Surreal BBC-Themed Week

With the BBC celebrating its centenary, the ballroom show paid its own special homage to the broadcaster.

Helen Skelton and Hamza Yassin topped the Strictly Come Dancing leaderboard on Saturday, during a night that the show celebrated 100 years of the BBC with surreal scenes.

With the broadcaster marking its centenary this month, the contestants honoured the occasion by dancing to classic BBC themes, including the Line Of Duty and EastEnders tunes.

Former Blue Peter presenter Helen went back to her kids TV presenting days and danced the Charleston to the theme from the long-running show, for which she and partner Gorka Marquez found themselves at the top of the leaderboard for the first time.

The pair picked up 35 points for the routine, with the judges describing it as Helen’s “best dance yet”.

After topping last week’s leaderboard, once again Hamza impressed the panel as he paid homage to his BBC nature programming background as he danced the Quickstep to On Top Of The World by Imagine Dragons.

The presenter and his partner Jowita Przystal also scored 35, with Craig Revel Horwood praising him as a “fantastic dancer”.

Fleur East and Vito Coppola came joint third with a score of 32 points for their performance to Waterloo by Abba, which won the Swedish pop group the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 in Brighton.

Will Mellor and Nancy Xu channelled the drama of Line Of Duty in their Viennese waltz as they performed to the show’s end credit theme to secure their 32 points.

Tyler West and Dianne Buswell also picked up the same score as they danced the Tango to the Doctor Who theme tune, with their performance featuring a Tardis and Weeping Angels.

Once again, Tony Adams and Katya Jones found themselves at the bottom of the leaderboard after they performed a Cha Cha to the Grandstand theme tune.

The pair picked up just 19 points, with Craig remarking: “I don’t know how to describe what I’ve just seen.”

EastEnders star James Bye also found himself in the danger zone after landing second from bottom with a score of 26 for his Foxtrot with partner Amy Dowden, which paid tribute to the BBC soap.

It saw him dancing to the show’s Julia’s Theme music outside the facade of the Queen Victoria pub.

With fellow cast members in the audience, James became emotional as he said it was a “dream” to represent the soap on the dancefloor.

To kick off Saturday’s show, the professional dancers and judges also performed a routine which moved through numerous classic BBC shows including Casualty, EastEnders and University Challenge.

The number opened with newsreader Huw Edwards paying tribute to Strictly and later Graham Norton featured judge Motsi Mabuse in his show’s famous red chair.

Find out who is next to leave Strictly on Sunday at 6.45pm on BBC One.

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