How Strictly's Dianne Buswell trains blind partner Chris McCausland
by Bethan Edwards For Mailonline · Mail OnlineStrictly's Dianne Buswell has revealed how she trains blind partner Chris McCausland for the live BBC show.
After week one of the competition, the pair scored 23 points and impressed viewers with their Cha Cha routine to Twist and Shout by The Beatles.
Now, Dianne has revealed how she has to 'place Chris' hands on her body' to allow him to feel what he should be doing.
In the opening VT, ahead of taking to the dancefloor for the first time, she explained: 'I can't show him what something needs to look like.
'I've found Chris places his hand on my body and feels how my arms and my legs are moving and then he instantly gets an idea of what he should be doing.'
Chris, who is blind due to retinitis pigmentosa, added: 'She is really patient and bringing the best out of me'.
The pair found themselves in fourth place on the leaderboard along with Sam Quek and Nikita Kuzmin, Jamie Borthwick and Michelle Tsiakkas and Tom Dean and Nadiya Bychkova.
Meanwhile, Saturday's episode further proved Chris is being tipped as a potential winner of the glitterball trophy by several fans.
The comedian had already won over viewers, having left them in hysterics with a string of viral gags.
The funnyman has previously detailed how he made a shock career change after losing his sight 20 years ago, forcing him to give up his job as a web developer.
After finding success with his role in the cBeebies series Me Too, he's become a fixture of the comedy scene.
After growing up in Liverpool, Chris started losing his sight 20 years ago, between the ages of 16 and 21, due to retinitis pigmentosa, a condition which according to the NHS, sees sufferers lose their sight as the light-sensing cells of the retina gradually deteriorate.
Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a group of rare, genetic disorders that involve a breakdown and loss of cells in the retina - the light sensitive tissue that lines the back of the eye.
The NHS website explains that people with RP lose their vision as light-sensing cells of the retina gradually deteriorate.
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It is generally characterised by a black pigmented appearance of the retina when a specialist looks inside the eyes.
Speaking about his visual impairment previously while taking part in Channel 4 series Scared of the Dark, Chris explained: 'I'm blind but I don't see black.
'I still see light and space, I still have an awareness of the space around me, not in terms of objects and things, but in terms of the room and whether there might be something in front of me.
'It just gives you that awareness that you're taking that away from me. I'm a slave to my iPhone like everybody else. So on paper you go, 'Well, I should nail this,' but in one area I should be more practically adjusted.
'It'll be quite interesting to see how quickly everybody else gets to that point. I'm quite looking forward to being the most able bodied person for a while. It doesn't happen often.'
After losing his sight, Chris was forced to give up his job as a web developer, saying in 2012: 'I used to be a web site developer but my eyesight got worse and worse and the websites just got uglier and uglier.
'I decided that nobody wanted an ugly website and so made the decision to get out of IT completely.
'I ended up working in a call centre for a while just until I could figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and it was while I was there that I dared myself to give stand-up comedy a go… and here we are nine years later!'
After trying his hand in comedy during a new act comedy night in 2003, Chris was soon recognised for his humour after winning the Jongleurs J2O Last Laugh competition, before gaining recognition in other competitions.
His career soon skyrocketed, going to to have a seven-year stint at the Edinburgh Fringe and an appearance on Live At The Apollo in 2018, before continuing on to make several TV appearances.