‘Perception of people with disabilities is antiquated”

Strictly Come Dancing contestant Chris McCausland has told the BBC that people’s views of disabilities are “antiquated”.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said his participation on the show is “extreme” but hopes it will “go some way in stretching people’s ideas of what is possible for a person with disabilities”.

He added: “I think there are low expectations of people with disabilities – sometimes you’ll come down a set of steps into a taxi and people say ‘wow, how did you do that?'”

During McCausland’s dance on Saturday, he placed his hands over partner Dianne Buswell’s eyes as the room faded to black.

The lights came back up moments later to show him spinning Buswell around on his shoulders.

The judges praised McCausland for his “poignant” dance that reflected the experience of blindness.

“I pitched this idea to Dianne to have a moment of darkness instead of something that was a gimmick,” McCausland said.

“I actually wanted to put the audience in the dark so it was a complete surprise for them to see me spinning Dianne when the lights came on.”

McCausland’s dance follows a performance in 2021 from actor Rose Ayling-Ellis who is deaf and paid tribute to the deaf community by dancing for a short while with her partner Giovanni Pernice in complete silence.

It won the former EastEnders star a Bafta for the best must-see TV moment.

McCausland – who is the BBC programme’s first blind contestant – added that he is surprising himself every week with what is possible.

“I said no to Strictly a few times because it was completely unknown in terms of standard and what the dances were because I couldn’t even go and watch it.”

While he may appear calm and confident during the dance performances, McCausland said he was “good at masking fear” because it is actually “terrifying to do this on live TV with no previous experience”.

McCausland was registered blind after losing his sight to retinitis pigmentosa in his 20s and 30s.

Earlier this week, students at the Royal National College for the Blind, in Hereford, where McCausland studied, told the BBC he was defying expectations.

One student said: “Some people think that people that have visual impairments can’t really do anything or can’t do much with their life beside piano tuning.

“He’s doing so well now, it’s quite surreal but it’s really good, especially for those who don’t know anything about the eye,” they added.

Another student said it would be “really cool if someone who is visually impaired like us” won the competition.