Christopher Biggins: Abuse complaints on Strictly Come Dancing are ‘nonsense’
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Christopher Biggins has revealed that he has little sympathy for Be sure to come and dance Participants who have made allegations of abuse against their professional dance partners.
Earlier this year, the BBC announced new animal welfare arrangements, including companions to care for the animals Be sure to come and dance candidates. This followed the dismissal of the dancers Graziano Di Prima and Giovanni Pernice.
Biggins, 75, has appeared in several celebrity reality shows, including I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, Celebrity, Come Dine with Me And Celebrity Big Brother.
However, he told Times Radio’s Alexis Conran that he had been invited to participate in Strictly.
“This whole saga that’s going on at the moment annoys me because I’ve been asked and I wouldn’t do it because it’s very, very difficult,” Biggins said.
“You have to be really nimble, which I believe you are, but you have to work hard. I mean, it’s one of the worst, not the worst, it’s one of the hardest working reality TV shows on TV.
“All this talk of these people complaining about their professional dancers is nonsense, because you have to work hard.
“If you want to be good and win, you have to work hard and put in a lot of hours. I definitely couldn’t have done it and a lot of people who complained couldn’t have done it and shouldn’t be on the show.”
Conran responded by asking Biggins if he thought there was a line that could be crossed when encouragement to work hard turned into bullying.
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Biggins replied: “I think Craig Revel Horward, who wrote an article over the weekend, said that when he was learning to dance and became a choreographer, his teacher had a stick and hit him hard.”
Conran asked: “We don’t want this to happen again, do we?”
Biggins replied: “Well, I mean, if you want to win, if you want to work hard, (then) yeah, that’s what we want, I think.
“That’s the whole business. It’s a hard, hard job and you have to know that. If you don’t know that, then you don’t do it. Or if you don’t want to get your hands slapped, then you don’t do the show.”
In July, BBC director Tim Davie apologised to Strictly participant and said: “I am very sorry that anyone had an experience on Strictly that was not only positive.”
