The television presenter became Tess Daly\u2019s hosting partner back in 2014, following the retirement of the late Bruce Forsyth, while prior to that she had fronted the nerve-wracking results show.<\/p>\n
This has been the most inclusive year in her tenure to date as Strictly has welcomed its first ever deaf contestant (EastEnders star Rose Ayling-Ellis<\/a>) as well as its first male same-sex couple (Bake Off\u2019s John Whaite<\/a> and Johannes Radebe).<\/p>\n In an interview with The Big Issue<\/a> magazine, which will be released in full on Monday, Winkleman explained that the entire Strictly team took measures to ensure that Ayling-Ellis would feel comfortable on the show.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have all done awareness courses,\u201d she explained. \u201cI\u2019m trying to learn as much sign language as possible \u2013 not necessarily to do on screen, but for when I\u2019m communicating with her off air. The first thing I wanted to learn \u2013 although I haven\u2019t needed to use it yet \u2013 was how to say \u2018The judges are horrid.’\u201d<\/p> Indeed, Ayling-Ellis has taken to dance extraordinarily well, scoring a perfect 40 points in week six of the competition, and regularly finding herself towards the top of the Strictly Come Dancing leaderboard<\/a>.<\/p>\n While efforts to increase inclusion have provoked some in the past \u2013 with a same-sex dance in 2019 infamously generating nearly 200 complaints to Ofcom<\/a> \u2013 Winkleman believes there is support (or at least, indifference) from the vast majority of viewers.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to think that it wasn\u2019t controversial,\u201d she added. \u201cI think it\u2019s important, but I would also say \u2013 and maybe I just have a positive outlook \u2013 that I think most of the UK just go [shrugs].<\/p>\n \u201cStrictly decided a while ago to try and widen who was doing it because representation is everything.\u201d<\/p>\n The remaining contestants in the Strictly Come Dancing line-up<\/a> take to the dancefloor tonight, hoping to earn praise from a judging panel that includes a guest appearance from Academy Award nominee Cynthia Erivo<\/a>.<\/p>\n Strictly Come Dancing continues tonight at 6:35pm on BBC One. Check out more of our Entertainment<\/a> coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a> to see what\u2019s on tonight.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By David Craig Published: Saturday, 20 November 2021 at 12:00 am Claudia Winkleman has emphasised the importance of representation on this year\u2019s series of Strictly Come Dancing, which sees two milestone couples in the star-studded line-up. The television presenter became Tess Daly\u2019s hosting partner back in 2014, following the retirement of the late Bruce Forsyth, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":7498,"template":"","categories":[5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/claudia-winkleman-says-representation-is-everything-on-strictly-come-dancing.png",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/claudia-winkleman-says-representation-is-everything-on-strictly-come-dancing-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/claudia-winkleman-says-representation-is-everything-on-strictly-come-dancing-300x200.png",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/claudia-winkleman-says-representation-is-everything-on-strictly-come-dancing.png",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/claudia-winkleman-says-representation-is-everything-on-strictly-come-dancing.png",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/claudia-winkleman-says-representation-is-everything-on-strictly-come-dancing.png",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/claudia-winkleman-says-representation-is-everything-on-strictly-come-dancing.png",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By David Craig Published: Saturday, 20 November 2021 at 12:00 am Claudia Winkleman has emphasised the importance of representation on this year\u2019s series of Strictly Come Dancing, which sees two milestone couples in the star-studded line-up. The television presenter became Tess Daly\u2019s hosting partner back in 2014, following the retirement of the late Bruce Forsyth,…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/7497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\""Strictly\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2021\/11\/John-Whaite-Strictly-585a563.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"John-Whaite-Strictly\"\\"\/")
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