BBC Strictly Come Dancing viewers distracted by Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman moments into semi-final

Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman quickly created a distraction for Strictly Come Dancing viewers as they returned to the ballroom. The pair were back fronting the BBC One dance contest on Saturday night (December 9) as the competition reached the semi-final stage.

Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola, Bobby Brazier and Dianne Buswell, Layton Williams and Nikita Kuzmin and Annabel Croft and Johannes Radebe were the last couples remaining in the competition after they all made it through to the penultimate week of Strictly 2023 after major changes to the competition.

The competition was already one couple short after Amanda Abbington's unexpected exit due to 'personal reasons' earlier on in the series. So Nige Harman's exit at the eleventh hour last weekend meant that the couples still performed in Musicals week for the judges' scores - which have been carried over to this weekend meaning each couple will end with a score out of 120 - as the usual vote, dance-off and elimination was abandoned.

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Opening the show, Tess and Claudia reiterated what happened and showed the leaderboard as it stood following last weekend's live show.

It was then up to EastEnders star Bobby Brazier and his dance partner Dianne Buswell to kick off the Strictly 2023 semi-finals with a quickstep to Mack The Knife by Bobby Darin. Head judge Shirley Ballas called Brazier, 20, the “king of ballroom” and said: “What a way to open the semi-final.”

But all eyes were still on Tess and Claudia as they spotted the same thing about their outfits - with Claudia