Audience walks out of delayed Strictly special

Strictly Come Dancing has waltzed straight into a new voting fiasco.The latest shambles came during filming of the Christmas special – when judges tied FOUR of the contestants. BBC chiefs – still reeling from the embarrassment of the voting problems of the semi-final – were thrown into chaos. They were forced to hastily rewrite scripts and ask head judge Len Goodman to re-mark the dancers. But it meant the stars of the show – this year’s three finalists and former contestants Jill Halfpenny, Kelly Brook and Alesha Dixon – were all left waiting around for hours to find out who was crowned champion of champions.

Problems started after the judges gave four of the six celebs and their partners the same score. So instead of being ranked from six points down to one, four of the acts all had six points – giving the other two no chance of winning after the audience vote. One source at Monday night’s filming said: “Eventually they realised this wouldn’t work, so they asked Len Goodman to decide. He was told to put the four tied dancers into an order, so they got scores of six, five, four and three points. Everything had to be changed, scripts were rewritten and the presenters had to explain what was happening. Everything was delayed – it was a total shambles.”

Onlookers described scenes of 'utter confusion' as the studio audience, which was to pick the winner, was asked to vote a second time. At the recording on Monday, men and women cast their votes - but were told there would be a delay because of 'technical difficulties'. After an hour's hold-up, they were told they would have to vote again. As the BBC tried to keep them entertained, some were invited on stage to dance, while the band played and host Bruce Forsyth sang. Not all of them had time to spare. Up to a quarter of the 300-strong audience left before producers decided what to do, according to one audience member, although the BBC said only a handful walked out.

Ironically, the show featured Tom Chambers, Rachel Stevens and Lisa Snowdon who were involved in the previous voting farce just over two weeks ago.In the semis, Lisa and Rachel had the same top scores with the judges, meaning actor Tom could not avoid the dance off even if he won the public vote. At the time they decided to let all three acts go through to the final and described the circumstances as “extraordinary”. Now less than a month later, a similar problem has arisen – though this time no wasted phone votes were involved. A spokesman for the BBC admitted the four-way tie in the show, which goes out tomorrow night, caused problems. A spokesman said: “The show was stopped to give Len a chance to reach a decision and for producers to brief the presenters and dancers on changes to the running order.”