Strictly Come Dancing is tearing up its own rulebook tonight. For the first time in the show’s 22-year history, three couples rather than two will face the dreaded dance-off in Sunday’s Halloween results show, and the judges will vote for the couple they want to send home instead of the couple they want to save.
The BBC One results programme airs at 7.10pm on Sunday 1 November, the night after a Halloween live show that saw EastEnders star Lacey Turner storm to the top of the leaderboard and Northern Ireland’s John Nellis close behind in second place.
How the triple dance-off works
Under the usual format, the two couples with the lowest combined total of judges’ scores and public votes dance again, and each judge names the pair they want to keep. This week the bottom three will dance again, and the panel of Shirley Ballas, Motsi Mabuse, Craig Revel Horwood and Anton Du Beke will each pick the couple they want to eliminate, according to TV Guide and RTÉ. The Independent’s live coverage reported that Motsi Mabuse will hold the casting vote.
It is a subtle but brutal change. Being in the bottom two has always been nerve-wracking, but under the new system two couples will survive the dance-off and only one will go, so the judges effectively decide who is the weakest of three, rather than who is the stronger of two. Reaction online has been mixed, with the Mirror reporting that many viewers felt the tweak was unnecessary and handed even more weight to the judges’ paddles.
The Halloween leaderboard: Lacey leads, Irish star John Nellis second
Lacey Turner and Vito Coppola topped the Halloween Week scoreboard with 36 out of 40 for a Charleston to Cheryl and Tinie Tempah’s Crazy Stupid Love. Just one point behind were John Nellis and Katya Jones, who scored 35 for a tango to Slayyyter’s DANCE…
Nellis, from Newcastle in Co Down, is a former air traffic controller turned football content creator with more than 15 million combined followers on YouTube, according to RTÉ. His videos have featured stars including Lionel Messi and Erling Haaland, and he topped the leaderboard after the very first live show of the series in September. A second-place finish on Halloween night keeps him firmly among the frontrunners and gives viewers on both sides of the border a reason to keep voting.
Behind them, Delta Goodrem and Kai Widdrington and Cach Mercer and Maddie Ingoldsby were tied on 33, with Dani Dyer and Nikita Kuzmin and Will Best and Dianne Buswell on 32. Bethany Antonia and Nancy Xu scored 30, Jaime Winstone and Carlos Gu 27 and Emmerdale actor Lawrence Robb and Jowita Przystał 26.
Propping up the table were Tabby Stoecker and Mark Karmalita and Graeme Hall and Lauren Oakley, both on 25. Hall, the dog trainer known to TV viewers as the Dogfather, danced a samba to Harry Nilsson’s Coconut. Because the public vote is combined with the judges’ scores, the lowest scorers are not guaranteed to land in the dance-off, and the BBC has not revealed who is in the bottom three.
A Dracula cameo from Sir Ian McKellen
The results show also has a spooky surprise. The professional dancers will perform a vampire-themed group routine set to Tame Impala’s Dracula, beginning with Alexis Warr and Nikita Kuzmin on a drive-in first date before Kuzmin is revealed to be a vampire. At the climax, viewers will hear Sir Ian McKellen, 87, reading an extract from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, recorded specially for the show, RTÉ and TV Guide reported. Becky Hill is the musical guest.
The Dracula link carries a nice Irish twist of its own: Bram Stoker was born in Clontarf in Dublin, so a Dublin-born author’s most famous creation will be haunting the Strictly ballroom on the night after Halloween.
Who went out last week
Former England footballer Shaun Wright-Phillips and his professional partner Alexis Warr were the fourth couple to be eliminated, on Sunday 25 October. They finished bottom of the leaderboard with 17 points and lost the dance-off to Jaime Winstone and Carlos Gu by three votes to one, with only Shirley Ballas voting to save them. That left 11 couples in the competition going into Halloween Week.
What happens next
The results show airs on BBC One and iPlayer at 7.10pm tonight, Sunday 1 November. Viewers in Ireland can watch on BBC One or stream on iPlayer in Northern Ireland. One couple will leave, taking the competition down to ten. The BBC has not said whether the three-couple dance-off is a one-off for Halloween or could return later in the series, so fans will be watching closely for any announcement in the coming weeks.
Some spoiler sites have claimed to know tonight’s result in advance. We are not reporting those claims: the outcome is only confirmed when it is broadcast.
Sources
- TV Guide: Strictly Come Dancing Halloween week 2026: songs, dances and Sir Ian McKellen’s Dracula cameo (31 October 2026)
- RTÉ: Ian McKellen to make cameo in Strictly Halloween show (30 October 2026)
- Mirror via AOL: Strictly Come Dancing leaderboard in full on Halloween Week (31 October 2026)
- The Independent via Newswav: Strictly Come Dancing 2026 live, Halloween Week twist (31 October/1 November 2026)
- RTÉ: Irish social media host John Nellis set for Strictly (11 August 2026)
Featured image: photo by Andres Medina on Unsplash.
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