EastEnders star Jamie Borthwick wins Strictly Christmas Special

Actor Jamie Borthwick has been crowned the winner of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special, alongside his professional partner Nancy Xu.

The judges gave top marks to the pair for their Quickstep to Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin’ Stevens.

Anton du Beke described the EastEnders star’s performance as “magnificent”, while Craig Revel Horwood said “you sleighed me darling”. Motsi Mabuse called it a “perfect end” to the show, and Shirley Ballas said, “I don’t have a paddle high enough for you.”

Others in the running for the Silver Star trophy this year were: Dan Snow and Nadiya Bychkova; Sally Nugent and Graziano Di Prima; Tillie Amartey and Neil Jones; Danny Cipriani and Jowita Przystał, and Keisha Buchanan and Gorka Marquez.

The Strictly professionals and the celebrities kicked off the show with a special group performance to It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Each couple then took to the dance floor to perform their individual seasonal routines. The studio audience voted for their favourite and their votes were combined with the judges’ scores to decide the winner.

Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman announced Jamie Borthwick and Nancy Xu as the Christmas champions before presenting them with the Silver Star trophy.

Jamie Borthwick said:

“This is great, it has been a wonderful experience, but we’re all winners here. This show is magic.”

Giovanni Pernice, Lauren Oakley, Kai Widdrington, Luba Mushtuk took to the floor while Sam Ryder performed his new song You’re Christmas To Me.

The show closed with a performance to What Christmas Means to Me featuring all of the couples and the judges.

Catch up with the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special on BBC iPlayer.