Strictly viewers think Rev Richard is the next Ed Balls

From Digital Spy

Strictly Come Dancing may have found this year's Ed Balls – aka the one contestant that everyone loves despite their questionable dancing skills.

This year, it seems Reverend Richard Coles is the one to take up that mantle, at least going by his first dance of the series (which was incredible) this evening.

First, let's take a moment to remember one of the most iconic moments in Strictly history:

Anyway back to the present.

For his first dance, Rev Richard danced the Cha Cha to Eurythmics' 'There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)', and made quite the entrance by descending from a cloud, ensuing to show off his… erm… dancing skills with partner Dianne Buswell.

It seems going by the performance that viewers are already comparing him to Ed (who came sixth last year, btw):

After the dance, Richard admitted that he was "never preaching a sermon without coming down on a cloud ever again".

"That was a fantastic surprise," judge Shirley Ballas said. "You know my heart really wants to love you and everything about you is just loveable, and I have to say you get out there, you give it 100%. That goes a long way in my book!

"But my head tells me it's also a competition and you have to have some technical skills, but you did do a syncopated Cuban break there and I was pretty impressed by that, and you manoeuvred it round."

"I didn't know I did that but I'm glad you saw it," Richard noted, though Shirley added: "I loved the entertainment value, congratulations, well done."

Bruno Tonioli told the reverend: "A performance full of heavenly delights, hellish punk, diabolical technique, but I have to say I'm one who's going to be damned because I enjoyed it so much. Like a demented Annie Lennox! It's funny, it's really, really funny."

However, the ever-enthusiastic Craig Revel Horwood was on typically sassy form, noting: "All the problems began, darling, when the cloud actually landed."

Darcey Bussell, on the other hand, was loving it, describing Richard and Dianne as "absolutely divine".

"There are some moves I haven't seen in a Cha Cha before, but you sold it and I can't wait until next week," she added.

In the end, Richard managed to bag a score of 17 overall from the panel. It's early days, and we're sure it won't be long before he produces something as good as this:

Strictly Come Dancing airs on Saturday nights on BBC One.

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