BBC Strictly Come Dancing's Dianne Buswell 'fights tears' over reward before Chris McCausland message

Dianne Buswell appeared emotional as she was seemingly handed a reward for her work on Strictly Come Dancing before issuing a message about her and Chris McCausland's latest performance.

The Australian dancer has been winning praise for her partnership with comedian Chris, who is the BBC One dance contest's first-ever blind contestant', ever since they performed their first routine together back in September.

The pair made it through to week nine of the hit show which aired on Saturday night (November 16) live from Blackpool. The annual special, which sees the whole cast and crew relocate to the seaside town for one weekend only, was once again broadcast from the Tower Ballroom.

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Chris and Dianne were the first of the eight couples to make it through to week nine of Strictly's 20th-anniversary series to take to the world-famous ballroom floor.

They kicked the epic night of dancing off by delivering a classical American smooth routine to Canadian-born singer Paul Anka’s Jump that earned them their first 10s of the series Head judge Shirley Ballas told black tie-wearing Chris that he had the "best feet I’ve seen in a long time", and "didn’t miss a beat".

Anton Du Beke said "if anyone can beat that tonight, I’d be amazed", before they earned 37 points from the judges, as co-host Tess Daly revealed they were the 100th Strictly couple to perform in Blackpool.

It was also revealed that Chris' mother, father and sister were watching him in the audience and it all became too much as Dianne became emotional as they received their highest score of the series, hopefully taking them one step closer to performing