Craig Revel Horwood heaps praise on favourite-ever Strictly Halloween dance
Strictly Come Dancing’s Craig Revel Horwood has been a fixture on the show since it began in 2004 so has seen a fair few Halloween Week dances, and on The One Show on Friday 25 October he revealed his favourite from all those he has judged in the last 20 years. Speaking to hosts Vick Hope and Roman Kemp, Craig revealed that Will Mellor and Nancy Xu’s cha cha cha to Mama Told Me Not To Come by Tom Jones and Stereophonics from the 2022 series was the best in his opinion.
"I've seen a few mummies but I particularly loved [Will's] mummy dance because, how on Earth can you get... when rigor mortis has set in, how are you gonna get rhythm into that. How are you gonna get any sort of choreography?” he said. "Will was fantastic because he managed to keep the stiffness of the character, and this gives you licence to have straight legs and be stiff so I can't exactly say, 'you were really stiff in that dance'.”
"But he was great. I thought it was brilliant. [Halloween week] does give you licence to thrill. I love it." Craig added that he is such a fan of Halloween week because he loves “a bit of dress up,” and it gives the celebrities a real chance to let themselves go.
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"Something I love about Halloween week is they can put a mask on, and they don't have to be themselves," he said. "I think that's the hardest thing on the show. You're yourself, you're not the actor. You're just yourself, you can't hide behind any character. It's brilliant, Halloween, because they can put all of that on and it's not really them dancing so we often see really great performances because they're less self-aware, they're not judging themselves from afar, thinking of what they look like. They're in character, they can throw caution to the wind."
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Over the years there have been some memorable performances during Halloween Week, including Alexandra Burke and Gorka Marquez dancing to Hall & Oates’ Maneater in 2017, Louise Redknapp as Harley Quinn and Kevin Clifton as the Joker dancing a Charleston to Beyonce’s Crazy in Love in 2016, and Michelle Visage and Giovanni Pernice dancing the Foxtrot as Morticia and Gomez to the Addams Family theme in 2019.
This year’s treats on the Halloween show on Saturday 26 October include fan favourites Chris McCausland and Dianne dancing a Samba to the Bee Gees’ hit Stayin Alive, JB Gill and Amy dancing a Foxtrot to Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader, and Pete Wicks and Jowita dancing the Viennese Waltz to That’s Life by Frank Sinatra, while on Sunday’s show the professional dancers will perform a Beetlejuice themed routine.
