During the Waite's Warmup segment of It Takes Two on Wednesday, professional dancer Ian Waite took a behind the scenes look at Anton du Beke and EastEnders star Emma Barton during rehearsals, and he made a very important observation – Emma had swapped her heels for trainers. Why? Because all that dancing was starting to make the actress' feet sore.
Speaking about Emma and Anton's Saturday night Foxtrot, presenter Gethin Jones asked: "Emma and Anton to start with. Shirley said she saw flashes of brilliance in Emma last week. Are you seeing anything brilliant in the rehearsal room?"
Emma and Anton are paired up on this year's Strictly
Ian then replied: "Yes. Well, she is brilliant, I love her and there are flashes of brilliance. There's some nice 'arm-ography' here from Anton. I noticed that he's pretty much standing on the spot, and she's doing everything around him.
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"I noticed that she's in her trainers this week, I think the hours just take [their] toll and then they start having to lower the heels. What I would like to see is a lot more hip rotation." That's right, all that dancing has started to take its toll on poor Emma's feet, causing her to ditch the heels - at least during practice.
Following their performance on Saturday night, Emma, 42, and Anton, 53, appeared opposite host Rylan Clark-Neal on Monday's It Takes Two and things got a little prickly. During their chat, Rylan poked fun at Anton's lack of success in the competition, saying: "Anton, it's actually quite nice to see you sat on this sofa. Because this time last year, you were with Susannah, you scored a 12 and you were out!"
Anton kept his cool and simply replied: "I wasn’t really going to talk about that! I know, I tell you. It’s lovely to be here and it’s lovely to have danced such a fabulous dance on Saturday night. I’m so excited about the other Ballroom dances to come, because of it. The potential that’s there and it’s joyous really. I’m absolutely thrilled and I can’t wait!"
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