Strictly Come Dancing host Claudia Winkleman put her award-winning presenting skills to the test as a blunder in tonight’s first live show forced her to think on her feet!

Regular Strictly viewers know how the show works. After each couple dances, they join Tess to speak to the judges. Then they bound upstairs to the ‘Clauditorium’ to catch up with Ms Winkleman and share their thoughts on the dance.

After that the judges announce their scores and finally Claudia throws it back to Tess to introduce the next dancers.

It’s usually pretty slick.

Usually.

Strictly Come Dancing live glitch

But this evening things went wrong! Balvinder Sopal and her partner Julian Caillon had danced their samba, and been awarded a respectable 17 points for their efforts.

They chatted with Claudia and then Claudia went to Tess for the next dancer. But there was an awkward pause and she admitted: “It’s not time.” Thinking fast, she grabbed Balvinder for more chat.

“Tell me how your week was,” she said, before adding: “Everything’s fine.”

Fortunately the blip was quickly sorted, and Tess took over.

“Better late than never,” she quipped as she introduced La Voix and pro-dancer Aljaz Skorjanec.

Pink Pony problems!

La Voix, who was dancing an American Smooth to Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan, began her dance on a carousel horse.

But after the dance, Tess admitted it was the horse that had caused all the problems! “The horse should have been a lot higher,” she explained. “You should have been descending on the horse. But unfortunately we are live and that didn’t happen. We had a technical problem.”

La Voix wasn’t bothered

But fan fave La Voix wasn’t bothered.

“I’m quite pleased,” she said. “When they said I was going to be suspended, I thought ‘oh what have I said now’!”

Luckily, the glitch didn’t ruin La Voix’s dance. She and partner Aljaz won an impressive 24 points from the judges.

Strictly Come Dancing will be back next week for the first elimination!