Les Dennis on his time on Strictly: I’m not the best dancer, but I did my best

Former Family Fortunes host Les Dennis has said he came on Strictly Come Dancing to entertain as he reflected on becoming the first to leave the latest series.

The comedian and presenter, 69, found himself at the bottom of the leaderboard after performing the samba to Rock The Boat by The Hues Corporation with his dance partner Nancy Xu on Saturday.

During Sunday’s dance-off he went up against radio presenter Nikita Kanda, but the judges voted to send him home.

Appearing on Strictly’s spin-off It Takes Two on Monday, he said the audience reaction to his nautical-themed routine was “phenomenal”.

He added: “I love that (judge) Shirley Ballas said if I could give you a 10 for entertainment, I would. That’s what I was there for.

“I’m not the best dancer, clearly, but I did my best and I enjoyed it, I had a great time.”

He kicked off the performance on Saturday in dramatic fashion by being lowered down on an anchor, which he said he “loved”.

“I’ve done that kind of thing for years with The Russ Abbot Show and all that stuff, so I wasn’t frightened at all about coming down,” he said.

“The only thing I was worried about was getting the seatbelt undone. Thinking ‘What if I get stuck? What if I can’t get out of it?'”

After their dance, Craig Revel Horwood awarded Dennis a score of two, the lowest individual score of the episode, and the pair went on to receive 15 points altogether – the lowest judges’ scores of the episode.

Reflecting on Revel Horwood’s scores, he said he was “fine” about it as he acknowledged that is his job, but revealed his 12-year-old son Tom was not impressed by the comments.

He explained: “My son Tom wasn’t so fine. He said him and his friends were going to go down to London and give Craig a piece of their mind.”

After a video montage of their time on the show was played, Dennis said those clips helped prove to him “how far” he had come.

He added: “I’m going to miss going into the rehearsal room with Nancy.

“She always said to me ‘I will show you my stern face’ but when she showed me her stem face she would then say ‘Good boy’ which was fantastic.”

Xu also praised the comedian, saying that everyday teaching him was “remarkable”.

“I enjoyed the time to teach him and to see how far from ‘I don’t know how to dance’ and then be able to perform every night to make people smile. That’s everything. I’m really grateful for this journey”, she added.

Strictly It Takes Two air on weekdays on BBC Two at 6.30pm.