Strictly’s Chris McCausland says viral ‘blackout’ dance was a ‘leap of faith’

Strictly Come Dancing star Chris McCausland has said his ‘blackout’ dance, which went viral on social media and saw him perform in complete darkness, was a “leap of faith”.

Performing the routine to Instant Karma! by John Lennon And Yoko Ono With The Plastic Ono Band in week eight of the BBC dancing show, the comedian and his professional dance partner Dianne Buswell received high praise from judges, with Craig Revel Horwood calling it “absolutely spectacular”.

In the couple’s choice routine, the 47-year-old placed his hands over Buswell’s eyes as the room faded to black, with the lights coming up moments later to show him spinning around with the dancer on his shoulders as pyrotechnics flared in the background.

McCausland is the show’s first blind contestant, having lost his sight completely by the age of 22 because of retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary eye disease which causes gradual degeneration of the retina.

Speaking about the routine, he told the PA news agency: “We wanted to do something that was positive and something that had a lot of joy in it.

“We wanted it to be a positive message, the blackout was a little bit more of a leap of faith, in a way of we didn’t want to do anything cliche but we wanted to do something that was impactful.

“We didn’t want to do anything that was gimmicky that lasted the whole dance, we wanted to do something that was a moment, and so it was a bit of a gamble because you don’t really know how or if it’s going to work properly or how it’s going to be received.

“So that was nice – it was a relief – that everybody loved that moment in the song, but the actual message and the vibe of what we did, I think it was exactly what we wanted to send out and we were made up with how it was received.

“Dianne hadn’t slept the whole night before, she was ill, she’d been sick, she had a virus, and the miracle was she got through that without blowing out of both ends while I was spinning her round on my shoulders.

“It could have very easily turned into a sprinkler system coming out of the darkness.”

Speaking about her illness going into the performance, the 35-year-old Australian dancer said: “Honestly, dancing is one of those things that the adrenaline, the feel good of dancing, it does push you through (the illness).

“So surprisingly, you just do it and in that split moment you forget about not being well and you feel actually quite good.

“So I wouldn’t say when I was actually dancing it was hard.

“It was probably just more (where I was at afterwards), oh, now the adrenaline’s worn off I feel a bit tired now, but also I knew how much that dance meant to Chris.

“The song was a song that he had chosen and there was no way I wasn’t going to be doing that.”

McCausland said some people suggested Buswell wear a blindfold during the performance but he said the idea was to “put the audience into the darkness” rather than his dance partner, and then “surprise them with what was possible in the darkness coming out of it”.

McCausland said he was worried about performing the dance as there was “jeopardy” over how it would represent blind people.

He explained: “I don’t think people with disabilities need inspiring, necessarily, but I think everybody else needs to see people with disabilities being normal, for want of a better word, and competing alongside people that don’t have the same obstacles to overcome.

“So we’ve done well, and I’m made up on that front, and it’s been a surprise, hopefully it’s changed a few people’s ideas and preconceptions.”

McCausland and Buswell will take to the dancefloor next week for the BBC dancing show’s semi-final along with the other four remaining couples, where they will perform two dances.

Strictly Come Dancing returns live on BBC One and iPlayer on Saturday December 7 at 6.30pm, while the results show will air on Sunday December 8 at 7.20pm.