BBC Strictly Come Dancing's Chris McCausland gives real reason for 'blackout' moment after 'disastrous' suggestion

Chris McCausland has revealed why he and Dianne Buswell opted for a groundbreaking 'blackout' moment during their latest Strictly Come Dancing performance - a move which secured them their place in another week of the competition.

The comedian is Strictly's first blind contestant and it was thought his latest routine, to Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) by John Lennon, featured a "poignant" moment to imitate his own experience with blindness.

But Chris has explained that while many ideas were had about how they could get their message across - including one which would have 'ended in disaster' - he and Dianne settled on the 'blackout' moment to show more than what the 47-year-old and others who are blind experience.

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Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday (November 11) after it was confirmed he and Dianne had made it through to the show's annual Blackpool special, Chris said: "Obviously [there were] lots of ideas - you see people online and they're saying, 'Wouldn't it be good t if Dianne wore a blindfold' and things like that but no, not really. It would probably be a disaster if I'm honest with you!"

He continued: "But this idea, I pitched this idea to Dianne of having it as a brief moment rather than something that was made more out of the idea and became maybe a gimmick. It wasn't to put Dianne into the dark. It was to put the audience into the dark.

"[It was to] really to surprise them so that what they saw at the end of the darkness was completely surprising and different to what they saw going into it and make them think, 'How the hell did they get into that?' because at the end we were