A BBC Strictly Come Dancing star has taken aim at Nigel Harman - saying he felt "he was average" during his performance at Blackpool. Brendan Cole has led the criticism of the BBC EastEnders star, who closed the night at the Tower Ballroom on Saturday night alongside pro partner Katya Jones.

Speaking on behalf of Sky Bingo, Brendan said: “I think the judge’s criticism of Nigel was kind of deserved. The thing with Nigel is he has an ability to look really good and he kind of looks like he belongs there, on the dancefloor. But at the same time, some of the technical aspects are not great.

“For me, his quickstep, although it was a good quickstep, was quite jerky in places. In particular when he was moving backwards, it almost felt like his body dropped so he wasn’t lowering through his legs with control. Things like that make a massive difference to a quickstep looking a bit average or really good.”

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“For me, when I watched their dance, I also felt it was a little unsure,” he said. Brendan continued: “It seemed like they didn’t quite manage to achieve what could have been a great Blackpool quickstep. But it was a nice number to watch and I enjoyed it.” He added: “I think Nigel needs to be very careful because the disappointment in his face was very noticeable and it will affect people voting for him.

“His face told 1,000 stories and I felt for him. In that situation if you really care about being in the show it’s very hard to hide your disappointment when you are getting heavily critiqued." Brendan added: "I was yelling at the TV ‘change your face’, because people don’t like it when it looks like you are annoyed with the judges – trust me I know.”

Strictly Come Dancing returns on Saturday November 25 at 7.30pm, with the results show on Sunday at 7.20pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.