Actor Will Mellor suffered at the hands of the judges during his first performance of the Strictly Come Dancing semi-final on Saturday with Nancy Xu.
The 46-year-old Coronation Street star scored 32 for his paso doble to Uccen by Taalbi brothers and DWTS, with the panel criticising his ‘missing fundamentals’ and saying that he was ‘too aggressive’.
This week saw the couples take on two dances in the same night for the first time, and Will was unfortunate enough to suffer a wardrobe malfunction too as he revealed his ‘button burst’ during the routine.
The Latin dance, which was the lowest-scoring performance of the night, got two sevens from head judge Shirley Ballas and Craig Revel Horwood.
‘There was quite a few things missing for me in this dance. You had the arrogance part, fantastic,’ started Shirley.
However, she went on: ‘Basic fundamentals were very much missing for me. And when you choose to use a cape you have to extend it, you can’t use it as a little scarf around your neck, so I didn’t get a good start from the beginning.
‘I do believe you give 100% of your heart – I love that – but this is the semi-final and these are the things that I saw.’
Meanwhile Anton Du Beke said he thought that Will ‘tried a bit too hard’ and encouraged him to ‘take a breath, take a moment’ before coming out to perform his second dance of the night.
Craig agreed with Shirley, calling Will’s paso ‘over aggressive and over placed’, while he also criticised his hip action.
Although he praised his efforts and how hard he knows the soap star works, Craig added: ‘The dance I didn’t think was for you tonight.’
Motsi Mabuse was a little more positive with her comments, saying that ‘today’ was the moment to ‘be over’ in his performance, but acknowledged: ‘Yes there were some awkward positions because you were so intense about it.’
Talking to co-host Claudia Winkleman directly after the judges’ comments, Will confessed that he was ‘feeling rubbish’ and like he had ‘let Nancy down a little bit there.’
‘She taught me right and I’ve gone too aggressive. She told me to be calm and a just forgot a few fundamentals,’ he admitted while his fellow contestants and the pros tried to bolster him with support.
Nancy then said: ‘You did 100% what I asked for,’ to which the actor responded: ‘I tried, but it’s tough isn’t it, the semi-final. We’re all in the same boat though – I should’ve done better.’
Will and Nancy then did manage to bounce back with their Couple’s Choice routine, which saw them pay tribute to his hometown of Manchester.
After a fiercely fought evening though, they ended at the bottom of the leader board in fifth position, with a combined score of 70.
Top of the board were Hamza Yassin and Jowita Przystał with 76 out of a possible 80.
Strictly Come Dancing continues at 8:15pm on Sunday on BBC One.
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