Rose Ayling-Ellis and AJ Odudu joint top of Strictly semi-final leaderboard

Rose Ayling-Ellis and AJ Odudu were joint top of the leaderboard at the end of the 'Strictly Come Dancing' semi-final.

All four semi-finalists performed two routines on Saturday night's (11.12.21) epic show.

Rose and Giovanni Pernice's second dance, an Argentine Tango, went down so well that even hard-to-please judge Craig Revel Horwood declared that: "The dance belongs in the final."

The 'EastEnders' star - who made history as the first deaf contestant on the BBC One Latin and ballroom contest - scored a perfect score of 40 for the dazzling dance, and a 39 for their Waltz to ‘How Long Will I Love You’ by Ellie Goulding.

By contrast, Craig deducted a point due to a "sticky right foot" for the latter routine.

As for AJ and Kai Widdrington, their Quickstep to ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ by Benny Goodman scored them full marks from the judges, and Queen of Rumba Shirley Ballas bowed to AJ as she was so amazed.

Hot off their tails is John Whaite and Johannes Radebe, who wowed with their moving Couple's Choice to Adele's 'Hometown Glory', which landed them a score of 39.

Up next, the pair performed a Jive to Coldplay's 'Higher Power' and obtained the same score.

Rhys Stephenson and Nancy Xu delivered two completely different routines, the first, a ​Tango to ‘One Vision’ by Queen.

It drew some criticism, notably from Anton du Beke, who admitted the 'CBBC' star's in-hold parts were better than out of hold tonight.

They landed 36 out of 40, while their notoriously-tricky Samba saw them awarded 38.

Motsi Mabuse gushed: "I absolutely loved that. You fought so much."

To find out who makes it through to next weekend's grand final tune in to BBC One from 7.20pm on Sunday (12.12.21).