Strictly Come Dancing is planning on reintroducing a live audience into the studio from next week’s show, it has been claimed.
In early November, it was reported that the BBC dancing programme had removed its live studio audience for the first time in the show’s history due to the introduction of a second lockdown in England.
A statement released by the Strictly team at the time outlined that there would be no studio audience throughout November, adding that no tickets would be sent out for shows taking place in December ‘until we are sure it will be safe and compliant to welcome audiences back’.
With lockdown restrictions set to ease across the country from Wednesday 2 December, this could mean that Strictly may see audience members making their way back to Elstree Studios, where the competition is filmed.
According to a source, a live audience is going to be ‘slowly’ brought back to the show from next week.
‘The BBC are delighted they’re able to slowly introduce an audience back up at Elstree,’ they said.
‘Having just a smattering of applause really does affect the whole production and they’ve been desperate to get punters and the celebrities’ friends and family back through the door.’
Speaking to The Sun newspaper’s Bizarre TV column, they explained that all guests in the audience ‘will be sat in bubbles of up to four from a single household’, adding that they ‘all must wear masks throughout the show and remain socially distanced from all other members of the crowd’.
‘But it’s part way back to normality,’ they added.
Julia Smith, mother of EastEnders actor Maisie Smith, recently highlighted the impact being away from her family has had on the 19-year-old Strictly contestant.
Speaking to The Daily Mail, Julia said that in the ‘early days’ of the show, she and her husband ‘were allowed to sit in the audience’.
‘She would look over and we would give her a big thumbs-up and she said she misses that,’ Julia said.
Strictly Come Dancing continues on Saturday at 7.25pm.
Credit: Original article published here.
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