Strictly Come Dancing: Portsmouth youngster wows millions on television as she and dance partner take centre stage

Pebble-Rose Spratt, nine, from Portsmouth danced as a younger Amy Dowden and Luca Ivanets, 9, from Hedge End danced as a young Kai Widdrington in Blackpool on Sunday night.

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Sam Ryder from Eurovision 2022 fame opened the Results Show singing John Farnham’s classic, You’re the Voice, first released in 1986 as the dance pair glided around in dream-like white and black floating, sparkly outfits.

The young dance couple have been dancing together for three and half years, training five or six times a week with a competition maybe on the seventh day. Pebble started dancing ‘disco freestyle’ at two. She started dancing ballroom and Latin, a year before she began dancing with Luca as her partner.

BBC choreographer Jason Gilkison created the concept of a young Kai and Amy routine showing off a mixture of dance steps from quick step to rumba by the young couple.

Pebble, a pupil at King’s Academy College Park school, North End said, ‘My favourite dance is Cha-cha or Tango. I love the way in Tango I’m moving my head a lot and in cha-cha I’m free and I can move my arms. We train a lot to get to a high standard.’

Pebble is a veteran of the Blackpool Tower Ballroom, having danced three times before. She was amazed at how different it looked when she got there. The Ballroom looked ‘amazing’ with all the Strictly lights, stage and sets.

Pebble said: ‘I liked it very much dancing there because when we did stuff that’s amazing, the audience just cheered. And the professional dancers made us feel very comfortable and welcome. My favourite memory was dancing with all the crowd around and confetti falling on top of us. It felt really good. I was excited to meet Hamza because he’s a really good dancer and when I met him he was high fiving me and he made me laugh and doing fun stuff with us.

‘Dancing with Luca is fun. He makes me laugh all the time and makes funny jokes. I loved my dress on Strictly because it was my first time wearing a puffy, long dress with gems down the side.

‘All my class watched me on Saturday, and they thought it was really good and it was the first time they’d seen me actually dance. They keep coming up to me and giving me big hugs and saying you were brilliant and all that. I would like to be on Strictly one day.’

The celebrity dancers still left in the Strictly competition in Blackpool were children’s TV presenter Hamza Yassin; actress and singer Molly Rainford; actress Kym Marsh (who will miss this week’s show with Covid); comedian Ellie Taylor; presenter Helen Skelton; singer Fleur East and actor Will Mellor.

Two weeks ago, Pebble and Luca gained two more titles by becoming World Champions, Under 10 for Ballroom and Under 10 Latin, Assen, Netherlands.

They already hold the World Championship title for Latin under eight, in Dublin 2019.

Luca’s parents run the A&L Dance Academy, Hedge End which Kai Widdrington attended as a young dancer, he became Junior World Latin American champion, 2010.