OPINION: Strictly Come Dancing star Dianne Buswell has been given some advice by Debbie McGee after announcing her pregnancy.

I thought Strictly Come Dancing  came back with a bang last night, I thought it all worked really nicely, and I loved the idea of showing the decades of dance. I was actually really impressed with the level of quality in the first show. Some people were doing dances you would expect to see in week seven.

I felt a bit sorry for Chris Robshaw. It is always hard going first, especially on first live show of the series and doing a Samba, which is notoriously quite tricky to get the technique right. All of the pros don’t like doing the Samba on the first week for this reason. So I have to take my hat off to him, I thought he did really well.

I thought it was really sweet seeing Harry Aikines-Aryeetey get emotional after his dance and saying he finally felt like himself again. I could really resonate with that because when I did Strictly, it was a year after Paul died, and I was really rediscovering myself as a single identity rather than being a part of a couple. He is obviously a very competitive person, being a sportsman, and when you stop that, it must be really difficult to find your purpose in life because you’ve always had a goal to aim for. So I thought he was brilliant.

Dianne Buswell had her first live show of her pregnancy (Image: BBC)

I’m so over the moon that Dianne Buswell has announced her pregnancy. Over the years, she has really blossomed, and she is just the loveliest girl. Every pairing she’s had, she has been so good with them, and I don’t think Stefan will be an exception. I don’t think fans have anything to worry about her, I trained at the Royal Ballet School and there was a dancer who continued dancing right up to until she was due. Yes, she’s not going to be thrown around but I really hope the pregnancy doesn’t hold her back. If I could give her any advice, I’d say listen to your doctor but don’t worry too much, and fingers crossed everything will be okay for her.

Ellie Goldstein is going to be a tricky one to judge. She is the wild card in a way but it was so lovely to see her enjoy dancing so much. I do think it’s going to be hard to judge her against the others, if you’ve got any kind of soul or heart, you love the fact that it’s such a wonderful thing for her to do. But it is a bit like the Olympics and the Paralympics.

I feel a bit sorry for her because I feel like she’s at a disadvantage, but then the viewers love seeing someone work hard and improve. I think she has to be marked fairly on her technique, which I think the judges will were great with last night. They were encouraging but gave her constructive criticism, and I hope they keep it up, this is a competition after all.

Ross King had the Cha Cha Cha, which is a really tricky dance to do. He’s been put as the favourite to go, and I really do love Ross, but I think he could be first to go, unless he really ups his game next week. I think a lot of it will depend on the votes, and when you go up against sports stars and soap people, it will be tricky for him.

Karen Carney was definitely one of the performers of the night. I thought the quality of her dance was amazing, her kicks in particular were incredible. What I love about the sports people is they’ve got so much strength and stamina. Carlos looked more out of breath than her last night. She was such a nice surprise to watch.

Shirley is no longer the only Head Judge on the show (Image: BBC)

I am very interested to see how them ditching the phone vote will work out. There’s a lot of older people who aren’t computer savvy who would only phone in, and won’t know how to vote. I think it will be very interesting to see how it affects things, as it will be younger people using the online votes so the soap people and George Clarke will definitely benefit from that. I hope the show bosses know what they’re doing, because it could end up swaying things quite drastically.

Another big change to the show this year is the Head Judge being changed around. I think it’s a brilliant idea, you have to try and keep the show fresh otherwise people won’t be interested. If you have the same format every year, no matter how good the show, people will switch off. If you look back at the show in the first, it has changed so dramatically, and I think it will be good to see the other judges be put in that difficult position, it show them in a very different light.

I can’t wait to see what the rest of the series has in store – if it’s anything like the first show, we are going to be in for a real treat.