Chris McCausland aims four-word dig at Strictly Come Dancing bosses over Blackpool

Chris McCausland aimed a slight dig at Strictly Come Dancing bosses as the show prepares for its Blackpool special. The contest will relocate from its traditional home at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire to the iconic Blackpool Tower this weekend.

The celebrities will find themselves taking to the dancefloor in what Chris says is the “Wembley of ballroom”. But the Liverpool-born comedian was initially left wondering why bosses decided to move the show over 200 miles for a single week. He initially thought the rest of the competition would switch to the North West for the remaining weeks.

In his column in The Telegraph, Chris said: “There was lots of talk about ‘Blackpool’ in the various meetings in the months preceding filming, and I was so clueless that I thought the whole show moved to Blackpool about eight or nine weeks in and then just stayed there until the final. It’s a lot of fuss for one week, isn’t it?”

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Chris, who is Strictly’s first blind contestant, says he visited Blackpool “many times” as child, reminiscing about the seafront attractions and the arcades. He says he used to visit the Blackpool Illuminations when he still had his eyesight as well.

The 47-year-old however doesn’t think the Tower Ballroom was on his list of destinations before entering Strictly. Chris however fears the famous ballroom dancefloor itself might not live up to expectations.

He added: “There is so much hype around Blackpool – and I get it. Blackpool is like the Wembley of ballroom dancing. I’ve heard so much about this sprung dance-floor that I can only imagine that I will be massively underwhelmed by it.

“Unless I step on one side and immediately bounce straight off the other, this floor will be nowhere near as springy-sprungy as I have been led to believe." Strictly first visited Blackpool in 2004, holding the final at the iconic ballroom a year later.

It became a regular feature on the series in 2009, as Children in Need required its former studio at the old BBC Television Centre, reports BBC Newsround. The Tower Ballroom opened at the Grade I-listed site in 1894 after the nearby Winter Gardens opened its own ballroom.

As well as being sprung, it is around nine times larger than the dancefloor at Elstree Studios.