The Coronation Street star scored 37 points for their Paso Doble to Insomnia by Faithless.

By Patrick Cremona

Published: Saturday, 21 October 2023 at 19:14 PM

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Ellie Leach blew the judges away with her Paso Doble to Faithless’s Insomnia on tonight’s episode of Strictly Come Dancing – scoring her best marks of the season so far.

Former Coronation Street star Ellie and her professional partner Vito Coppola scored 37 points including a perfect 10 from Motsi Mabuse, who described the routine as the best since the 2023 season began.

That briefly put her top of the Strictly leaderboard for the night – although she was quickly overtaken by Layton Williams after he and Nikita Kuzmin scored a near-perfect 39 points for their electrifying Salsa to Quimbara by Johnny Pacheco and Celia Cruz.

But the score is still a huge step up for Ellie compared to last week’s 28 and ensures that she will be very close to the top of the standings come the end of the episode.

The judges were unanimous in their praise for the dance, with Anton saying that everything was “just right” and Craig adding that Ellie and Vito’s partnership was “on fire.”

But it was Motsi who was most enthusiastic with her comments, saying: “This is what we want. I felt like this was on a whole different level. This was attack, this was power, this was control.”

She added: “This was for me the very best show since we started the season. I loved it!”

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The judges weren’t the only people who were impressed by the routine, with a number of Strictly fans taking to social media to sing Ellie’e praises as well.

One fan wrote on X (formerly Twitter) “NOW THAT IS HOW YOU DO A PASO! ellie and vito are unstoppable” while another added: “Ellie and Vito are an absolute dream. Loved that paso!!”

And some viewers argued that Ellie should have scored even more points, with one writing: “As Anton said: It was loads of great things coming together – the music, the passion and the dance. Mesmerising! Definitely should have been more than one 10!”